'It's not up to us': Steelers' playoff fate in hands of AFC foes on final day of regular season

BALTIMORE — The good news for the Pittsburgh Steelers is they ended the regular season on a three-game winning streak Saturday after sweeping the first-place Baltimore Ravens with a 17-10 victory at M&T Bank Stadium.

It helped the Steelers reach 10 wins for the first time since the 2020 season and gave them a 5-1 record in AFC North play.

The bad news? All that positive work might not be enough to get them into the postseason.

The Steelers will need help Sunday if they are to return to the playoffs after a one-year absence. The Steelers will need either the Jacksonville Jaguars to lose at Tennessee or the Buffalo Bills to lose at Miami on Sunday to secure a wild-card berth.

“It’s not up to us,” cornerback Patrick Peterson said in a boisterous locker room after the Steelers beat the Ravens (13-4) for the second time this season. “We have three or four scenarios that we’re looking at tomorrow. We did our part, so we’ll be scoreboard watching.”

The sixth and seventh seeds remain in play for the Steelers. If they qualify for the playoffs, they will travel to either Buffalo, Miami or Kansas City in the wild-card round. A win next weekend likely would mean a return engagement at M&T Bank Stadium against a Ravens team that has locked up the No. 1 seed and rested many of its star players Saturday.

“Right now we’re going to prepare to play next week,” inside linebacker Elandon Roberts said. “We feel it’s going to fall our way.”

Jacksonville plays at 1 p.m. Sunday. If the Jaguars beat the Titans, the Steelers’ fate won’t be decided until Buffalo and Miami play in prime time. In that case, it would be the second time in three years the Steelers’ playoff fate wasn’t decided until the 272nd and final game on the NFL schedule.

“Just gonna watch some games tomorrow, have a beverage probably and watch it and see what happens,” said quarterback Mason Rudolph, who is 3-0 since moving into the starting lineup. “We can’t control it, but we did our part today, and that’s all you can do.”

One player who will not be watching the games on television or monitoring his cell phone for updates is running back Najee Harris, who rushed for 122 yards and a touchdown against the Ravens. He plans to report to the Steelers’ practice facility and watch game tape.

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“If we’re in, we’re in,” Harris said. “I’ll just get a message. We’ve got a group message. They’ll say, ‘We’re in,’ or ‘Sorry.’”

If the Steelers don’t qualify, they can look back at their three-game losing streak in December against Arizona, New England and Indianapolis as the reason. The Cardinals and Patriots each had just two wins on the season before they upset the Steelers, who then were manhandled by the Colts in a 30-13 loss that left them with a 7-7 record and outside the AFC playoff picture.

“We wish we could take back some games that we lost and have a better record,” Harris said, “but to get to 10 wins is good for the team.”

The strong finish to the season coincided with Rudolph’s ascent to the starting quarterback position following an injury to Kenny Pickett and ineffective play by backup Mitch Trubisky. Rudolph had a passer rating in excess of 100 in all three of his starts.

On Saturday, Rudolph completed all but two of his passes against the Ravens and threw a 71-yard touchdown strike to wide receiver Diontae Johnson on the first play of the fourth quarter to give the Steelers a 14-7 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

“It was a big energy boost for our team,” Rudolph said.

It remains to be seen whether it was big enough to keep the Steelers’ season alive beyond Sunday.

“We’re very happy with the way we finished the season,” Peterson said. “In order to give ourselves a shot, we had to win these three games. We did. We finished off the year strong, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”