PLAYOFF SCENARIO: Ravens to Host Steelers?

The schedule is now set for the NFL’s Week 18 slate of games and the Ravens will host the Browns this Saturday at 4:30 PM. It’s a peculiar start to the week. The Ravens are 18 ½ point favorites over Cleveland and if they do what oddsmakers suggest, they will have clinched the AFC North. And then the Steelers will have to make a business decision.

The Steelers could then choose to rest many of their key starters while the red-hot Bengals and quarterback Joe Burrow get to claim win No. 9 on the season against Pittsburgh’s JV team. But there is some downside in that approach for Pittsburgh. I’ll touch on that in a moment.

Here’s a look at the current playoff picture.

It’s a curious choice by the league and their schedule makers the way they’ve decided to handle Week 18 and the AFC North. Why not have the Bengals and Steelers play at 4:30 and the Ravens at 8? That would have given the Ravens the opportunity to rest some of their key players if they already knew that the Steelers had lost. Or, why not have both teams kickoff at 4:30, and eliminate the potential for controversy?

It could be easily construed that these scheduling choices by the league for Week 18 clearly favor the Steelers and the Bengals at the expense of the Ravens and they serve as added fuel for those conspiracy theorists in Charm City who have clung to the notion that the NFL has and always will have an axe to grind with Baltimore.

Not so fast…

For the record, here’s the full Week 18 schedule, per NFL.com:

Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025

• Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens, 4:30 p.m. ET (ESPN/ABC)
• Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN/ABC)

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025

• Carolina Panthers at Atlanta Falcons, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
• Washington Commanders at Dallas Cowboys, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Jacksonville Jaguars at Indianapolis Colts, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
• New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
• New Orleans Saints at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Houston Texans at Tennessee Titans, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
• San Francisco 49ers at Arizona Cardinals, 4:25 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Kansas City Chiefs at Denver Broncos, 4:25 p.m. ET (CBS)
• Los Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders, 4:25 p.m. ET (CBS)
• Seattle Seahawks at Los Angeles Rams, 4:25 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Miami Dolphins at New York Jets, 4:25 p.m. ET (FOX)
• Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions, 8:20 p.m. ET (NBC)

ESPN.com offers this Playoff Machine simulator that allows you to pick winners in upcoming games to project how the final playoff seedings will look. In the Week 18 schedule above, I have emboldened all my projected winners.

The Ravens will take care of business at home and proudly walk off the field wearing cap and t-shirts celebrating their AFC North title. The Steelers could then tank the 8PM game, gifting a win to the Bengals who will have to sit back and wait to see if they get help from other teams to punch their ticket to the postseason dance.

However, if the Steelers do opt to tank their Week 18 game at home against the Bengals, they will drop out of the No. 5 seed if the Chargers defeat the Raiders. And if that happens, the Ravens will host the Steelers in the Wild Card round while the Chargers would assume the 5th seed and head to Houston.

So, the approach the Steelers take in Week 18 if they see the Ravens have won, depends on what they believe is the path to a deeper playoff run. And one would have to think that the Steelers would prefer to play the Texans than the Ravens.

On the surface, it might not appear that the Steelers have much motivation to play to win. They do, but it doesn’t guarantee a win against the Bengals. And if they fail while trying (and I think they will), you know that Jim Harbaugh is going to smell blood in the water and go all in to beat the Raiders because the prize is a preferred trip to Houston in the Wild Card round instead of Baltimore and Harbaugh Bowl IV.

And then we’d be looking at Ravens v. Steelers, the trilogy.

[Related Article: Ravens Hot Takes]

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