The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 to secure a playoff berth for the first time since the 2021 season. The Steelers narrowly missed out on the playoffs in 2022 after finishing the season 9-8. It was not a smooth journey to the AFC playoffs for the black and gold. The reward they earned was a date with perhaps the hottest team in the NFL, the Buffalo Bills.
This will be the fifth year in a row that Sean McDermott and Mike Tomlin have squared off. It will be the first time the two teams have met in the playoffs since 1996. Pittsburgh won that matchup 41-20 on the way to Super Bowl XXX. This will only be the fourth playoff meeting between the Bills and Steelers. Pittsburgh has won two of the three previous meetings. Interestingly, none of the last three meetings has been particularly close, and the winner of the game has gone on to appear in the Super Bowl.
On Monday, Chris Brockman and Rich Eisen discussed the upcoming Wild Card game between the Bills and Steelers in Orchard Park. Eisen is one of the biggest advocates for Tomlin in the media and is giving the Steelers a chance to make a game of it. Brockman vehemently disagreed with his assessment.
“Every year, now that they have expanded to seven teams in each league, that seven seed is usually garbage,” Brockman opined. “Steelers are garbage. They’re going to go to Buffalo and get smacked. It’s not going to be pretty.”
Pittsburgh has only won one of the last four games against the Buffalo Bills. This will be the fourth consecutive matchup at Buffalo, and the Steelers will be without the best defensive player on the planet, TJ Watt. Over that stretch, the Bills have defeated Devlin “Duck” Hodges, Ben Roethlisberger, and Kenny Pickett. It will be the first time that Mason Rudolph will be under center, and Steeler Nation is hoping that makes all the difference.
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The forecast is calling for snow, and the Steelers are coming off of a victory against the Baltimore Ravens in just about the worst weather conditions imaginable for a football game. T.J. Jefferson and Eisen, the other two members of The Rich Eisen Show cast, disagreed with Brockman’s assessment of Pittsburgh and their chances on Sunday at 1 pm ET.
“I disagree too; I think if there is a turnover-prone quarterback, who is also going to win the day, eventually, it will prove difficult,” Eisen retorted. “There are no banners being hung for we make things difficult in losing. Enjoy the Wild Card weekend, cause there is more than half the league that is not.”
The seventh seed has not defeated the two seed since the NFL changed to the current playoff format in 2020. The Steelers played a part in the only two times in the previous format that the lowest seed won the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh was the sixth seed in the 2005 playoffs and marched all the way to Super Bowl XL, where they defeated a second number-one seed to win their fifth Super Bowl. The Steelers were on the losing end to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLVI when the sixth-seeded Packers won Aaron Rodgers’s only championship.
Josh Allen and the Bills imploded last season against the Cincinnati Bengals after nearly losing to the Miami Dolphins at home in the Wild Card round. Buffalo also fired an offensive coordinator during the current season, and it was one of the catalysts that allowed them to finish 6-1 down the stretch and win the AFC East. Pittsburgh fired Matt Canada and responded by winning one of four games with Pickett and Mitch Trubisky. They have won three games in a row with Mason Rudolph to resurrect their season and catch lightning in a bottle.
The Steelers are 10-point underdogs. It isn’t the first time the oddsmakers have disrespected Pittsburgh this season. The smart money in Vegas picked them to finish last in the AFC North, and they lost. The smart money in Vegas had them missing the playoffs, and they were wrong. The smart money in Vegas says this game won’t be close. The house always wins in gambling, but when it comes to the 2023 Steelers, it is starting to look like they just might be on tilt.
