Zombie Ravens Show the Steelers and NFL They Don't Know How to Stay Dead

PITTSBURGH — Nothing stops these Baltimore Ravens. Beat them, injure them, shove them to the bottom of the standings, drag them into a hostile environment and mount a big lead, and they just keep trudging forward like nothing fazes them.

Horror filmmaker and Pittsburgh native George Romero was in attendance at Heinz Field on Thursday night, so it was only appropriate the zombie Ravens would rise from their graves and turn a 20-7 Steelers third-quarter lead into a 23-20 overtime Night of the Living Dead Ravens comeback.

These Ravens don't know when to stay dead. AFC rivals cannot assume that, like the foolish teenagers in a horror movie, they can let their guard down against a team that started the season 0-3 and has looked lifeless and limp at times. Like wave upon wave of zombies bearing down on their foes, the Ravens always have a next man up ready.

The first next man up for the Ravens was Michael Campanaro, a 5'9", 185-pound second-year slot receiver from Wake Forest. Campanaro took a "jet sweep" from the 9-yard line in the first quarter, broke a tackle on the edge and hurdled over a Steelers defender and into the end zone.

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"I saw exceptional things," a banged-up, typically angry Steve Smith said of the young receivers who played well for the injury-impaired offense. "Mike Campanaro put his head down and got us some key first downs."

The next next man up for the Ravens was Kamar Aiken, undrafted from Central Florida in 2011, bounce-around practice-squader for the Bills, Bears and Patriots, who rose from the depths of the depth chart to see some action last year. Aiken accelerated past Steelers cornerback Ross Cockrell to catch a 15-yard Joe Flacco teardrop of a touchdown. He then made an important catch in the Ravens' final fourth-quarter drive and another in overtime.

"They pressed him hard, and that's where I'm going with the ball," Flacco said of his TD pass to Aiken. "Kamar separated from him and made a great catch in the back of the end zone."

The next next next man up was Za'Darius Smith, fourth-round rookie pass-rusher pressed into service when Terrell Suggs was knocked out for the season in Week 1. Smith tugged on the emergency brakes of a runaway MICHAEL VICK HAS RETURNED AGAIN storyline with back-to-back third-quarter sacks, clutching and dragging Vick to the earth as the veteran backup pumped and dithered in the pocket.

"He knocked them back a little bit, field-position wise," coach John Harbaugh said of Smith's sacks. "Michael Vick is a hard guy to bring down. ... Za'Darius is a very good athlete to get a guy like that down."

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Want more "next, next, next" men up? There was rookie Maxx Williams, making his second start at tight end and reaching for a first down on the Ravens' first scoring drive. There was fellow rookie Darren Waller, a receiver who caught just 26 passes in his final season in Georgia Tech's flexbone offense, catching a 17-yard pass in the Ravens' game-tying drive.

These faceless, interchangeable shock troopers turned a fun night for Steelers fans into a zombie apocalypse. Vick's heroic early performance descended into a battle for survival. The Steelers missed a pair of field-goal opportunities to extend their 20-17 fourth-quarter lead, one of the misses coming with 1:03 to play. They got stopped twice on fourth down in overtime when they grew skittish about sending kicker Josh Scobee onto the field.

The Ravens weren't much better; they are zombies, after all, not Predators or ninjas. They were stopped twice in the fourth quarter on fourth down. Steve Smith was knocked out of the game by a blow to the back so brutal that he seethed about putting the offending defender, former Panthers teammate Mike Mitchell, on his "lifetime hit list" after the game.

But the Ravens crawled out of their grave and kept dragging themselves down the field until they could deploy kicker Justin Tucker, their not-so-secret weapon, for a 52-yard field goal to kill off the Steelers.

The Ravens are hardly dead and buried at 1-3. They host the beatable Browns next week. The Steelers got about a quarter-and-a-half of fine play from Vick and a lurching offense for the rest of the evening; they are poised to fade back to the pack until Ben Roethlisberger returns. The Bengals look darn good, but there is always a crowd at the top of the AFC North. The Ravens have the potential to shamble up and join that crowd, growling and biting all the way.

Their secret lies in that "next man up" cliche coaches like to use after injuries. Call it "the succession game" if you prefer a more insider-y name. The Ravens have been one of the league's best teams at preparing contingency plans for years. Superstars retire, free agents leave, but Harbaugh and general manager Ozzie Newsome keep restocking the shelves with midround draft picks and slow-developing backups. When a Steve Smith goes down, an Aiken, Campanaro or Waller steps in to do just enough to take his place.

Flacco could not remember sharing a huddle with the Aiken-Campanaro-Waller-Williams combination in even a preseason game before, let alone the fourth quarter of a road game in Pittsburgh.

"I might have been out there in training camp [with those receivers] when a couple of guys were taking a day off," he said. "But it hasn't been much."

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"But it's not my job to look at who we have out there. It's my job to see that if whoever the guy is gets open that I give him a chance to make a catch."

Smith was not surprised to see his proteges come through.

"That's what we work for," he said. "We work together. Those guys sacrifice for me when they run routes and stuff. So it paid off for them."

Meanwhile, a defense that has replaced a slew of legends in recent years—from Ray Lewis and Ed Reed after the Super Bowl in 2012 to Haloti Ngata in free agency this offseason and Suggs after Week 1—adjusted to the Vick game plan, overcame some early mistakes and finished with several critical short-yardage stops.

"That's what they said they wanted to do," Harbaugh said of the defense. "They wanted to find a way to finish."

And of course, Tucker ended the game the way so many unlikely Ravens wins end: with a 52-yard field goal that no one in Heinz Field ever thought he would miss.

There was a lot of "backs against the wall" and "weight off the shoulders" talk in the Ravens locker room. Harbaugh admitted the Ravens' first 0-3 start was tough on him: "You find in life that every adversity that you walk through is the toughest one of your life when you're in it."

"Ours is just beginning," he added. "We know where we're at. We know what we have to overcome. But you can't get two until you get one."

The Ravens aren't dead men walking. They're the walking dead. And despite Harbaugh's adversity speech, many of them are ready to just continue hobbling forward no matter what the NFL throws at them.

The unflappable Flacco, in particular, was not dwelling too long upon his feelings after helping his team pull itself out of the mud. "It feels a lot better than 0-4. I think that's what was staring us in the face," he said.

Next man up, next opponent up. Zombies don't have feelings. They just keep moving forward.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.