The Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens will square off on Saturday for the third time this season, as the two AFC North rivals meet in an NFL Wild Card round showdown.
The two teams split their regular-season contests with the home side coming away victorious both times. But the Steelers backslid into the playoffs with a four-game losing streak, while the Ravens won their last four to take the division crown.
We’re targeting two players in the same position for each team to hit paydirt. Find out who they are in our Steelers vs Ravens touchdown picks and NFL picks for Saturday, January 11.
Steelers anytime touchdown pick
Pat Freiermuth anytime touchdown
+260 at BetMGM
The Pittsburgh Steelers have scored just six offensive touchdowns in their last four games, which has been a big contributing factor to why they closed the season with a four-game losing skid. But only Pat Freiermuth was responsible for multiple scores in that span, and he comes into the playoffs seeing a major uptick in productivity.
In two games against the Ravens, he caught a combined five passes. But in the two games since that Week 16 defeat to Baltimore, quarterback Russell Wilson has looked for him at an increased level. He’s targeted his tight end 17 times in the past two games, with Freiermuth hauling in 15 of those passes.
He scored a touchdown against the Bengals last week, giving him touchdown catches in four of his last six games. And while he didn’t score against the Ravens, he did catch every pass thrown in his direction.
George Pickens missed the Week 16 showdown, but he caught eight of 12 targets for 89 yards in the reverse meeting in Pittsburgh. He’s likely to gain a bit more attention from the Ravens, which should open things up a bit more for Freiermuth.
Cleveland tight end Jordan Akins had six catches for 60 yards last week and caught the only touchdown of the day for the Browns. If Wilson continues to target Freiermuth the way he has the past two weeks, then the price of +260 presents the best value on the board for the Steelers.
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Ravens anytime touchdown pick
Mark Andrews anytime touchdown
+130 at BetMGM
Lamar Jackson is now the odds-on favorite to win the MVP award, in large part due to a season where he’s thrown 41 touchdown passes compared to just four interceptions. And it’s no secret that his primary target inside the red zone is tight end Mark Andrews.
Jackson threw 51 passes inside the 20-yard line this year, and 23 of those went to tight ends. And while Isaiah Likely had just two fewer red zone targets than Andrews, it was Andrews who did the most with those opportunities as he caught 11 of them — nine of which resulted in touchdowns.
In fact, while Andrews received only 23.5% of Jackson’s red zone targets on the season, he was responsible for 33% of the passing touchdowns the quarterback threw inside his opponents’ 20-yard line. And in the Baltimore Ravens last four games, Jackson has thrown just seven passes in the red zone — four of which went to Andrews, resulting in three touchdowns.
Both Likely and Andrews caught touchdowns in Baltimore’s 34-17 win at home in Week 16. For Andrews, it was one of six consecutive games with a touchdown catch to close out the regular season. This is despite getting just two targets against both the Giants and Texans.
With Zay Flowers out, I expect Jackson and the Ravens to rely even more on Derrick Henry and the run game. Henry ran for 162 yards in the last meeting, and the Steelers will have to load up to stop him. That’ll open things up for Andrews, and I’ll take him to once again find the endzone.
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