The Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens will take part in a historic winner-take-all battle for the AFC North on Sunday.
When the Ravens visit Acrisure Stadium for the Week 18 Sunday Night Football showdown , the AFC North title will be on the line, and the loser will be eliminated from playoff contention. That's the first time that such an all-or-nothing game has been played in the history of the division.
The AFC North was formed out of the old AFC Central in 2002. Since 2010, the final week of the regular season has featured nothing but divisional matchups. But despite that, just once before has the AFC North title been on the line for both teams in the same game, and never with the stakes that Sunday's contest will have.
The Steelers have played for the division title in the final week of the regular season once before. The Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals played for the AFC North crown in the final week of the 2014 season, with the Steelers winning 27-17 on the strength of two long Antonio Brown touchdowns to win the division, Pittsburgh's sixth title at that point.
But in that contest, the loser didn't go very far. The Steelers won the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, but the Bengals still made the playoffs as a Wild Card team. They ended up as the No. 5 seed, with the only difference between their fate and the Steelers' in the first round of the playoffs was that Pittsburgh got to play at home. Both teams lost.
This time around, the stakes are significantly different. One of the Steelers and Ravens will win the AFC North and get a home playoff game. The other will go home and watch.
The same thing is happening in the NFC South this week, and has happened multiple times over the years in that division, which is frequently a bottom dweller. In 2022, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won that division with a losing 8-9 record.
But the AFC North has never seen stakes as high as this, with the division frequently featuring multiple strong teams since it was formed. This will be the first year since 2019 that just one AFC North team will make the postseason. In 24 years of divisional action, 43 teams have advanced to the post-season, nearly a two per year average.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : History Will Be Made in Winner-Take-All Steelers-Ravens Game
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