ExtremeRavens Posted 7 hours ago Posted 7 hours ago The Pittsburgh Steelers waited until near the end of the season to fold, but they pulled the predictable in losing, 13-6, to the Browns in Cleveland on Sunday. With the loss, the Ravens now travel to Pittsburgh for the final game of the regular season next weekend with the winner claiming the AFC North title. You knew this was going to happen. The NFL has become the WWE, and the script for the final game of the 2025 regular season will probably be played out before a national audience. The Ravens will win. In fact, they might even embarrass Pittsburgh. The Steelers will be without top receiver DK Metcalf, who will be serving the second of a league imposed two-game suspension for an altercation with a fan in Detroit, and top defensive end T.J. Watt will be slowed recovering from a lung injury. With no Metcalf, the Steelers don’t have anyone who can challenge the Ravens’ cornerbacks on the outside. Regardless, this hasn’t been a strong showing by the NFL this season. The games haven’t been entertaining, and downright embarrassing at times because of the quality of play and injuries to star players. I prefer those days when Green Bay was the dominant team of the 1960s, and Pittsburgh ruled the 1970s followed by San Francisco in the 1980s and Dallas a decade later. But the NFL salary cap, initiated in 1994, created this parity and insanity. There will be no Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs or even Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, who had become household names. There are still some established signal callers such as Buffalo’s Josh Allen, but make way for Denver’s Bo Nix, Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence, the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert, the Houston Texans’ C.J. Stroud and the New England Patriots’ Drake Maye. As for the quality of play, it’s been super boring, and Cleveland’s win against Pittsburgh has become the standard. There really aren’t 32 good quarterbacks in the NFL, which is a major reason the Steelers signed Aaron Rodgers, 42, and the Indianapolis Colts added Philip Rivers, 44, to their roster. But it goes along with the flow of the league. The poor teams in 2024 got a weaker schedule in 2025, as the Patriots went from 4-13 a year ago to 13-3 this season while the Chicago Bears jumped from 5-12 to 11-4 and the Jaguars improved from 4-13 to 12-4. That’s parity, but the preference is for good evaluations of talent, drafting and schematics. The NFL is in topsy-turvy state. Just look at the Ravens. They started this season with a 1-5 record courtesy of injuries and a strong schedule, but now they have a shot at the playoffs. To complicate matters, there is uncertainty surrounding the status of quarterback Lamar Jackson (back contusion) and whether he will play next weekend or possibly be held out for the postseason if the Ravens beat Pittsburgh. In all honesty, it’s a sign of how the league has fallen when a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player can miss four games and his team still has a shot at the postseason. It’s good in one way, not so good in the other. The eventual demise of the Steelers had to come soon. In 2024, they lost their last four games of the regular season before falling to Baltimore, 28-14, in the wild-card round. The Ravens will do a number on Pittsburgh again in Week 18. Rodgers looks lost without Metcalf. Plus, in the past two games, the Ravens’ brain trust has finally figured out that they need to run super closer Derrick Henry, who rushed 36 times for 216 yards and four touchdowns against Green Bay on Saturday night in a 41-24 victory. Imagine that. It’s been like getting former Ravens coach Brian Billick to transfer to “the dark side” before the team’s 2000 title run. The Ravens’ defense is still very suspect. They were ranked 30th before the Green Bay game, and they still have problems as far as coverage and rushing the quarterback one week before the regular season finale. The Ravens will struggle against some of the better quarterbacks in the conference, but at least now they have a shot. It might be one-and-done in the postseason, but there are no super teams anymore. Every good team in the AFC has a weakness, and that’s what has made the 2025 regular season one of the strangest in NFL history. And the Ravens still should make the playoffs. Have a news tip? Contact Mike Preston at epreston@baltsun.com, 410-332-6467 and x.com/MikePrestonSun. The Ravens' defense struggled to stop Packers backup quarterback Malik Willis on Saturday night. (AP Photo/Morry Gash) View the full article Quote
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