The day after running all over Green Bay to keep their playoff hopes alive, the Ravens received a final Christmas gift from none other than the Cleveland Browns.
With Pittsburgh falling 13-6 in Cleveland on Sunday afternoon, the AFC North and a trip to the playoffs will now be decided in a showdown between the Ravens (8-8) and Steelers (9-7) at Acrisure Stadium for Sunday Night Football. Baltimore will be aiming to win its third straight division title while Pittsburgh will hope to avoid choking away the division after carrying a two-game lead into the penultimate week of the season. A win would give John Harbaugh’s team the tiebreaker by way of a better division record.
These teams last met in Week 14 with Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers prevailing in a 27-22 final at M&T Bank Stadium, but the Ravens won their fifth straight road game Saturday night and Pittsburgh will again be playing without top wide receiver DK Metcalf, who will finish serving a two-game suspension for striking a fan in Detroit.
Of course, the biggest story of the week in Baltimore will be the status of two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson, who sat out the 41-24 win over the Packers with a back contusion sustained in Week 16. The Steelers will be hoping to welcome back eight-time Pro Bowl edge rusher and former NFL Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt, who’s missed three straight games since undergoing surgery for a partially collapsed lung suffered during a dry needling treatment at the team’s training facility. Watt was able to return to the practice field on a limited basis this past week.
The Steelers have won four of the last five meetings played in Pittsburgh, but this will mark the first winner-take-all elimination game between these longtime AFC North rivals in the final week of the regular season. The Ravens defeated Pittsburgh in Baltimore in last year’s wild-card round, which was their fifth all-time postseason meeting after the Steelers had won three of the first four that were all played at the place formerly known as Heinz Field.
Despite a frustrating 2025 campaign overall, the Ravens will have a final chance to advance to the postseason for the seventh time in eight years, which would make that the best playoff qualifier stretch in franchise history. Baltimore has twice made it to the playoffs in six of seven years after also doing so over Harbaugh’s first seven seasons as head coach from 2008-14.
