The Pittsburgh Steelers’ season will come down to the greatest rivalry in the NFL—or just about. If they beat the first-place Baltimore Ravens, they stand a fair chance of reaching the playoffs. While other factors come into play, by and large, they would only need either the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Buffalo Bills to lose. There’s even a scenario in which they can lose and still make it, but I’ll explain that in more detail later today.
Suffice it to say that the Steelers will be motivated to win this game, certainly more than the Ravens, who have nothing to gain and more to lose by playing it. Having already secured home-field advantage, their top priority is health, and then preparedness. But it’s still Steelers-Ravens, and that means something extra.
“I feel like the AFC North’s kind of unique in the sense that nobody really likes each other. I feel like there’s that, but there’s also mutual respect there. Just the style of football there in the AFC North”, Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton told Cameron Wolfe and Sherree Burruss on an NFL Twitter Space session yesterday. “Ever since I got here it’s always been, ‘You’re not a Raven until you make a play against the Steelers’. I think that’s probably our biggest rival”.
While there have been occasional climaxes in other rivalries within the division, perhaps especially between the Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals a decade ago or two, Pittsburgh-Baltimore has been a headline matchup for many years.
It doesn’t hurt that they have been two of the most stable franchises for decades. They are only two of a handful of teams with multiple Super Bowl wins in the past 25 years. The Steelers have been coached by Mike Tomlin for 17 years, the Ravens by John Harbaugh for 16.
That consistent stability has allowed identities to develop and for positions to entrench. It breeds familiarity between the two squads, and that breeds a certain level of contempt—along with a certain level of respect, as Hamilton referenced. Hamilton had two tackles for loss against the Steelers earlier this season among three total tackles, and six each in his two games against them last season.
And he is far from the first Raven, or the first Steeler, to reference the rivalry as a rite of passage. Earlier this year, for example, Ravens ILB Roquan Smith said that he won’t feel like a Raven until he beats the Steelers—which he still hasn’t done, by the way. It works both ways, of course.
The games may not be quite what they used to be—they hardly could given the way the rules have changed over the years—but the Steelers and Ravens typically find a way to make it a good game. And a close game. And a low-scoring game. Nobody has scored more than 20 points in their last six matchups. The last time anybody scored 30 was in 2017. The Steelers won earlier this season 17-10. The Ravens would like to correct that, even with nothing else to play for but pride.
