The 2024/25 National Football League (NFL) regular season wrapped up last weekend and the first win-or-go-home weekend of the play-offs starts tomorrow. The No 1 seed in each conference — the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football Conference (AFC) and the Detroit Lions in the National Football Conference (NFC) — will sit out this weekend, while the other 12 teams in the hunt for the Vince Lombardi Trophy will clash in a weekend that is expected to be frenzied; two games will be played tomorrow, Saturday, three are slated for Sunday, and the action will culminate on Monday night.

This year’s play-offs will include several teams who sat out the last postseason — the Washington Commanders, Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, and Los Angeles Chargers — but will also include teams that have become play-off staples, including the Chiefs, who have made the play-offs for the 10th-straight season and are aiming for an unprecedented three-peat as Super Bowl champions. The Chiefs were torched in their final regular season game last weekend, losing 0-38 to the Broncos, only the second shutout of the season, after most of their starters sat out the meaningless game, which gave Denver an easy path into the play-offs following the win, thereby eliminating the postseason hopes of the Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins.

The first weekend of the NFL play-offs is affectionately called “Wildcard Weekend” and the action is expected to be just that, wild. The combatants will be tackling opponents from their own respective conferences and therefore most would have faced each other at least once this season, the exceptions being two of the AFC matchups: the Houston Texans vs the Chargers (last played each other in October 2022, ending in a 34-24 Chargers win) and the Buffalo Bills vs the Broncos (last played each other in November 2023, ending in a 24-22 win for the Broncos). There is one game however, where both teams happen to be in the same division (AFC North) and will face each other for the third time this year, which will see Amazon streaming its first-ever play-off game.

In what is easily the marquee matchup of the weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers will visit M&T Bank Stadium tomorrow night to tackle the Baltimore Ravens as the biggest JustBet longshot for Wildcard Weekend. And rightly so as the Steelers, after a 10-3 start to the season, limped into the play-offs after dropping their final four regular-season games, to finish 10-7, while the Ravens finished the season on a canter, winning their final four outings to end with a 12-5 record and take the AFC North title.

In the midst of both streaks, Baltimore defeated Pittsburgh 34-17 at home on December 21, 2024, their first win in the rivalry since 2021, after losing 16-18 in the same fixture earlier in the season (November 17). It has been eight years since the last Steelers’ play-off win, with five straight postseason losses dating back to 2016, and there is no indication that things will change tomorrow in their first-ever play-off meeting in Baltimore.

The Ravens’ standout quarterback (QB), Lamar Jackson, finished the season with 4,172 yards passing, 41 touchdown passes and just four interceptions. He is the first QB to reach 4,000 yards passing with 40 touchdowns passes and four or fewer interceptions. He also became the first quarterback to throw for at least 4,000 yards in a season while rushing for at least 800 yards — he finished the season with 915 rushing yards. Jackson’s exploits have placed him front and center in the conversation for the league’s Most Valuable Player and, were it not for the heroics of Buffalo Bills’ QB Josh Allen (and to a lesser extent running back Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles), there would be no contest.

Not to be outdone, Baltimore’s running back Derrick Henry has been a beast this season, and a welcome complement to Jackson’s talent. Henry became the first player in league history with multiple seasons of at least 1,800 rushing yards and at least 15 rushing touchdowns. Against the Cleveland Browns last weekend, where the Ravens won 35-10, Henry tallied 138 yards and two touchdowns, finishing the season with 1,921 total rushing yards and 16 touchdowns, a single-season franchise record for rushing touchdowns.

That said, the Steeler have it all to do tomorrow night as they enter the play-offs in a frustratingly familiar spot, with the franchise’s longest play-off run without a win hanging like an albatross around their necks. Through Week 14 of this season, the Steelers were tied atop the league with a plus-17 turnover differential, and the defense led the NFL with 28 takeaways. They clinched a play-off berth in Week 15, despite losing 27-13 to the Eagles, then lost to the Ravens, Chiefs and Bengals to close the regular season.

The Pittsburgh offence averaged 28 points and 372 yards per game in the first seven starts for QB Russell Wilson but managed only 14 points and 259 yards per game in the last four. The Pittsburgh defence also appeared to regress in that same stretch. The “Steel Curtain” forced three takeaways each in the four games prior to the loss to Philadelphia but had five total over the final four games. Through the first 13 games, the defence was among the best in the league, limiting teams to 18 points and 310 yards per outing, but in that four-game slide, those numbers expanded to 27 points and 381 yards per game.

The Steelers finished the regular season sliding downhill while their opponents tomorrow had their foot on the throttle speeding uphill. And while all regular season results are now null and void, the only positive for Pittsburgh entering this encounter is the fact that Pro Bowl receiver Zay Flowers may be unavailable for the Ravens tomorrow, but the rushing exploits of Jackson and Henry, along with the receiving talents of tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, may be a lot more than the Steelers’ defense can handle, and their drought in the play-offs is expected to continue.

Elsewhere, the action is expected to be just as intense: in the NFC, the Green Bay Packers face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, who they lost to in the season opener in Brazil, the Washington Commanders also play their Week 1 opponent who they lost to, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Minnesota Vikings, who failed in their attempt to win the NFC crown on Monday, will tackle the Los Angeles Rams on Monday, who they lost to in October as well.

We’re at the one-and-done point of the 2024/25 NFL season and the expectation is for Wildcard Weekend to live up to its name. Are you ready for some football?

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