The Pittsburgh Steelers seem to be slipping each week. Thanks to some awful starts to the season from Baltimore, Cincinnati and Cleveland, they still manage to lead the AFC North. But the last two weeks have been brutal, and several analysts are starting to believe the Ravens have a chance to come back and take the division from the Steelers.
That’s something FS1’s Chris Broussard agrees with, and he thinks it could even happen before the two sides play for the first time in Week 14.
“Divisional games are always tough, particularly in the AFC North,” Broussard said on FS1’s First Things First. “And so they may not sweep the Steelers, the Ravens. But to your point, if they’re ahead of them, they make not need to sweep them. So I fully expect that. Before they play, the Ravens will be in first.”
The last two weeks have been quite a regression after the Steelers’ dominant win over the Browns in Week 6. At 4-1, the Steelers were three wins above anybody else in the division. Even better, they seemed to be improving on both sides of the ball. At that point, some were ready to call the division race a wrap.
In extremely quick fashion, the tide has turned with the Steelers now at 4-3. The Ravens now have two wins, and the Bengals have three. The Bengals play the Steelers once and the Ravens play them twice, so they could each catch Pittsburgh in their own matchups.
Although they’re 2-5, the Ravens feel like the biggest threat. They’re getting Lamar Jackson back after he missed three-plus games due to a hamstring injury and have a very easy schedule over the next few weeks. Before the Week 14 showdown in Pittsburgh, the Ravens have games against Miami, Minnesota, Cleveland, the New York Jets and the Bengals. You don’t want to count wins before you have them, but none of those teams currently have a winning record.
Meanwhile, the Steelers play Indianapolis, the Los Angeles Chargers, Cincinnati, Chicago and Buffalo. At the moment, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Chicago may seem the most winnable. But the Steelers already lost to the Bengals this season, and with how bad their defense is playing they could really lose to anybody on any given week.
If the Ravens win two more games than the Steelers during that stretch, they’d be tied record-wise. Whether they make the comeback or not, this has gotten way too close for comfort for a team that was 4-1 just a couple of weeks ago. With each loss, those games against the Ravens only look more and more important for the Steelers.
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