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Brian Billick and the Baltimore
Ravens may get the last laugh over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Baltimore looks to wrap up its first AFC North Division title when it hosts
Pittsburgh in the league's last regular season game of 2003.
Back in training camp, Billick supposedly predicted the season-ending Steelers-Ravens game would decide the North championship with the heavily-favored Steelers essentially laughing off the remarks.
After 15 games, however, no one is laughing in Pittsburgh.
Baltimore needs a win or a tie against the Steelers, or a Cincinnati Bengals loss or tie to the Cleveland Browns earlier in the day to clinch the division title.
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Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is trying to avoid just the fifth 10-loss season in franchise
history.
Baltimore has another item on its agenda besides winning the division: helping running back Jamal Lewis set the NFL record for rushing yardage in a season.
The Ravens opened a one-game lead over Cincinnati in the North as Lewis ran for 205 yards and two TDs while closing in on the exclusive 2,000-yard club and Eric Dickerson's single-season record in a 35-0 win over the Browns in Cleveland last Sunday.
Lewis has 1,952 yards and needs 153 to tie Dickerson's league mark of 2,105 (1984). If he picks up 48 yards, Lewis will join O.J. Simpson (1973), Dickerson (1984), Barry Sanders (1997) and Terrell Davis (1998) as the only backs in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season.
Billick said the Ravens will again rely heavily on Lewis as they try to win their first division title.
``We're going to need every bit of whatever number he needs to get the record ... to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers,'' Billick said Monday. ``Now the gloves come off and it's whatever it takes. If he's got to run 50 times on Sunday to win ... run 50 times.''
Billick also said the Ravens won't change their game plan if Cincinnati loses and the playoff spot is clinched. So because Baltimore has used Lewis as the focal point of the offense all year, it will continue to do so against the Steelers.
``How do you prepare all week for a championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers and, because of sequence of events, all of a sudden go, 'Oh, OK, now this game's not important?''' Billick said. ``It doesn't work that way, (and) what happens Sunday on that game is irrelevant.''
The Steelers began this season as the favorites to win the AFC North, and started the year with two wins in their first three games, including a victory over Baltimore. However, they went on to lose their next five.
Now, the best they can do in a season that couldn't have gone much worse is to send the Ravens home and avoid their first 10-loss season since 1999.
Pittsburgh has won six in a row in Baltimore, and wide receiver Hines Ward said another victory there would send the Steelers in to the offseason on a high note.
``If Cincinnati wins and
it comes down to us playing Baltimore, what better way (is there than) to knock
them out of the playoffs and let Cincinnati go?'' Steelers wide receiver Hines
Ward said. ``That's our playoff game.''