Pittsburgh Steelers (7-4-1): How Denver can pass them
With the Steelers losing two games in a row against the Broncos and Chargers, that opens up the door for the Broncos to pass them. But they are going to need a bit of help from a team that handed Denver their first loss of the season.
As it stands right now, the Steelers only hold a half-game lead on the Baltimore Ravens for the AFC North lead. These last two losses in the final minute have done a lot of damage to Pittsburgh. The tie at the beginning of the season against the Browns could come back to bite them.
Here is Pittsburgh’s remaining schedule:
at Oakland Raiders
vs. New England Patriots
at New Orleans Saints
vs. Cincinnati Bengals
Those games against the Patriots and Saints are not going to be easy. It is almost a certainty that Pittsburgh needs to win at least one of those two games to fend off the teams ahead of them.
How can Denver pass this team? Well, this is where Baltimore comes in. Since both Pittsburgh and Baltimore are separated by half a game, Baltimore just needs a win and a Pittsburgh loss to leap past them.
Denver would like to see the Ravens win the AFC North in this instance. That would bump the Steelers into the wild card battle. Pittsburgh would lose the head to head tiebreaker over both the Chargers and Broncos, so the minimum would be both Pittsburgh and Denver finishing with the same record while Baltimore wins the AFC North.
If Denver wins out, Pittsburgh would need to go 2-2 for Denver to surpass them and Baltimore would need to lock up the division.
This could be the most realistic situation.