How do you beat the Ravens?

This week, the Pittsburgh Steelers will look to limit Baltimore’s strengths — a robust run game, a defense that wins up front, a quarterback playing at a career-best level. But, inevitably, they’ll have to be scanning for weakness, peeling back the Ravens at the joints where they’re not so well-oiled.

After a marathon 12-5 regular season, the Ravens have to be acutely aware of their weak points and, even more specifically, the players that opponents will target. How much pressure are some of those players, who throughout the season have taken criticism from their own fan base, going to be under this Saturday?

Here’s a look at which players are under pressure and why the Ravens’ weak points might not be as vulnerable as you think:

Cornerback Brandon Stephens

The glow-up for the Ravens’ defense has been abrupt and welcome. After making personnel changes at safety in Week 11, the Ravens finished the season first in passing defense and gave up just five passing touchdowns in their last seven games.

But if you have to pick on one guy in the secondary, it’s Brandon Stephens. And opponents — including the Steelers — routinely do. No one has been targeted more times (102), and no one has given up more yards (906) by a wide margin. Stephens also leads the Ravens with five pass interference flags. His coverage grade on Pro Football Focus dropped from 50th among cornerbacks last year to 95th this season.

Stephens hasn’t played as many snaps as early in the season since the Ravens traded for Tre’Davious White, but he has shown signs of improvement. In his last six games, Stephens hasn’t allowed more than 49 yards, and his average yards per target have dropped below 10.0. Whether it’s the Ravens’ tweaked scheme, improved safety play or Stephens sharpening up, teams no longer attack him deep as they were early in the season.

The Ravens have been bullish on Stephens despite the overall drop in his effectiveness, saying his play is technically sound but luck and other factors have gone against him. The Steelers figure to use George Pickens and Pat Freiermuth, leveraging their height against the 6-foot-1 corner. In Week 11, Pittsburgh gained 86 yards against Stephens.

Defensive coordinator Zach Orr remained confident, noting he had been talking with coach John Harbaugh this week about how well Stephens played in practice.

“He’s a one play, next play, whatever happens — whether it’s a good play or bad play — moving on,” Orr said. “We’re happy with B-Steve. We love that teams are trying to challenge him, and we know that he’s up for the challenge.”

Guard Daniel Faalele

Even though general manager Eric DeCosta said the Ravens’ retooled offensive line would have hiccups early in the season, Baltimore’s 0-2 start fired up anger among the fans. Much of that frustration was directed toward Daniel Faalele, the 6-foot-8 lineman finding his way in a new position at right guard and looking exposed on film cut-ups.

Months later, after being selected as a Pro Bowl alternate, Faalele feels way more comfortable. He didn’t acknowledge feeling singled out — which, frankly, he often was — but said he had to block out a lot of noise.

“I felt like the finger was being pointed in all the directions,” he said. “I just felt like I needed to just focus on myself and what I need to get better at, and then I just focus on by my teammates and coaches and telling me what I need to work on.”

He’s been part of an offensive line with a tremendous accomplishment: setting the highest yards-per-carry average (5.8) in NFL history. This week, Faalele said he wasn’t even aware of the record, which broke the Browns’ 1963 mark with Hall of Famer Jim Brown in the backfield.

According to Pro Football Focus, Faalele has scored above his seasonlong rush blocking grade in the Ravens’ 4-0 stretch to end the season. He’s allowed just one sack this season, and after drawing six flags in his first 10 weeks, he hasn’t had one in his past seven games.

That said, if you have to pick players to go after on this offensive line, it’s the guards. Faalele (49th out of 77) and Patrick Mekari (51st out of 77) are PFF’s lowest-graded players along the Baltimore line and, between them, Faalele has given up the most quarterback hurries (28). Faalele has struggled in pass blocking in both matchups against Pittsburgh (pass blocking is Mekari’s strength). The Steelers are expected to be healthier for this matchup (as opposed to Week 16), with defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi set to line up against Faalele on the front.

The Ravens have done a good job in recent weeks of mitigating pressure and mauling in the run game. The line feels cohesive, Faalele said. He doesn’t get caught up in his individual performance, which is probably the mental approach he needs. More important, the blockers working with him trust him to do his part.

“I think he does fine,” Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum said. “Going after him or attacking him, I don’t know how teams will do that. But, whatever challenge that he faces, I’m betting on him.”

Kicker Justin Tucker

The Ravens have been fortunate to play in many games with the NFL’s best placekicker. The difference this week is Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell (41-for-44 on field goals) has a much better claim to the title than Justin Tucker.

By the most important metric, this is Tucker’s career nadir. He’s converted just 73.3% of his attempts. The bulk of his misses were in a six-week stretch before the Ravens’ bye, and most of them were to the left.

Since the bye, however, Tucker’s performances have been largely uneventful, which is a good thing for a kicker. He’s made two 50-plus-yard field goals in the Ravens’ last four games, and he hasn’t missed an extra point. One of his field goals came against Pittsburgh in Week 16 during fairly foul weather.

As he’s been throughout this season, Tucker was stoic this week speaking about his turnaround, which to him hasn’t been a turnaround at all.

“I felt like I was just doing my job,” he said. “Forget what everybody else outside here thinks. We are solely concerned with taking care of our jobs, putting the ball through the uprights when given the opportunity and just trusting that our technique will carry us through and help put our team in a position to win football games.”

In his playoff career, Tucker is 18-for-22, including the 2012 Super Bowl run when he was 4-for-4, helping heal a town that was crippled emotionally by Billy Cundiff’s miss against the Patriots in 2011. Inside 40 yards, he has never missed a postseason field goal. If Tucker hadn’t gone through the regular-season issues, Baltimore fans’ confidence in him probably would be high.

It’s worth wondering how the Ravens react if frigid conditions this weekend are accompanied by swirling winds. In Week 18, Baltimore went for it twice on fourth down in Cleveland territory on a particularly windy day with the AFC North title on the line (though, admittedly, it could afford to be more aggressive against an anemic Browns offense). If it comes down to kicks, the Steelers have to feel good: Boswell is 13-for-15 on 50-plus yard attempts, while Tucker is 6-for-11.

But Tucker’s competitiveness might be an edge. Special teams coordinator Chris Horton spoke highly of Tucker’s play in the last four weeks and said the Ravens expect the kicker who has long set the standard for excellence at the position.

“I think what we want to see from him, we’re seeing, and I think we’ve been seeing that,” Horton said. “And, for us, we’re just not worried about it. We put him out there. He knows his job, and he wants to go out there, and he wants to make kicks, and I think he’s in a good place right now.”