Will the NFL prolong the Steelers’ divisional drama by putting the Ravens after them in Week 18?
The NFL doesn’t set a Week 18 schedule, other than the matchups, until Week 17 is over. They do this in order to heighten the interest and suspense, and thus viewership and ratings. So you can bet that they would like to make the early games hinge upon what happens later. In the case of the Steelers, they need to win, and the Ravens need to lose to win the AFC North.
Accordingly, you can probably expect the Steelers to play at 1 PM and the Ravens to play later. If the Ravens were to play first and win, then nobody would care about the Steelers’ game. By then, all that would be up for grabs is which Wild Card seed the Steelers earn.
While the NFL might show both the Steelers and Ravens games at the same time, as it did in 2018, the NFL has become only more money-hungry since then. If they think the Steelers will beat the Bengals, the Ravens will play later. And if the Bengals are eliminated before Week 18, they will likely rest several key starters.
Of course, the league is within its rights to heighten interest in its product. And the NFL risks things backfiring if the Steelers lose to the Bengals. If that happens, then the Ravens will have nothing to play for—not that the Browns do, either. But a win-and-in divisional scenario is obviously more compelling viewing.
If the NFL does make the Steelers wait to find out if they have won the AFC North, they only have themselves to blame. They put themselves in this position by losing their last three games. If they had won any one of them, they would at least have controlled their fate. They would have already won the division if they had won two of them or the one against the Ravens. So they can’t fault the league if they have an anxious few hours—or a whole day—waiting for news.
The Steelers’ 2024 season is underway, following another disappointing year ending in a first-round playoff loss. They have had a long offseason since the Buffalo Bills stamped them out of their misery back in January. There are positive signs, but things could jump off the rails any moment.
The biggest question hanging over the team is the quarterback question. Is Russell Wilson earning a lucrative new deal next year, and is Justin Fields still in consideration? How will the team continue to address the depth chart, which is surprisingly still in flux?
The regular season is here, following weeks of camp and preseason games. The Steelers made numerous moves through signings and trade—and release. More than usual, they seemed comfortable creating holes, confident they can fill them. Some they managed to fill, others not so much. Now that we have so many pieces of the puzzle, however, we merely have a new set of questions to ask.
