As the Denver Broncos pursue their first playoff berth since the 2015 season, they entered Week 18 with a couple of different paths they could potentially take. And unfortunately, former starting quarterback Russell Wilson did his part to close one of those paths on Saturday night.
Wilson and the Pittsburgh Steelers hosted the Cincinnati Bengals for a game that obviously meant a lot to both teams, but certainly more for the Bengals. The Bengals have been basically facing elimination for a month and with their backs against the wall, they've won five straight games and left things up to fate entering Sunday action.
The Bengals were able to go to Pittsburgh on Saturday and gut out a tough win thanks largely to the performance of their defense which has been an absolute sieve for most of the 2024 season. As a matter of fact, the last time the Bengals lost was a game in which they gave up a whopping 44 points to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They have allowed 26.1 points per game this season, 29th in the NFL.
At the midway point in the fourth quarter of Saturday night's game, Wilson had a total of five completed passes. He ended up surpassing his entire game's completion total on one drive that ended up putting the Steelers back into the game at 19-14 halfway through the 4th. But when it came time for the Steelers to potentially take the game from the Bengals, Wilson wasn't able to get the job done.
Russell Wilson falters in Week 18, fails Denver Broncos in the process
Here's what all happened over the course of the last month as the Pittsburgh Steelers have lost four straight games and their hold on the AFC North. The Baltimore Ravens are officially AFC North champions and the Steelers enter Sunday action as the 5th seed in the AFC with the potential that the Chargers will overtake them with a win against the Las Vegas Raiders.
It feels all but guaranteed that the Steelers will have booked their ticket to go to Baltimore as the 6th seed in the Wild Card round of the playoffs and they've also hurt the Denver Broncos' chances of making it in the process.
Of course, the Broncos don't need help to get into the playoffs. They didn't need Russell Wilson and the Steelers to win in order to get in. But it would have been a fail-safe going into Sunday.
Now, the Broncos have to win against the Kansas City Chiefs. They still control their own destiny, but there is now no path to the playoffs in which the Broncos stumble at home against the Chiefs' backups on Sunday afternoon and still make it. They have to win and they are in.
From certain perspectives, people might even be thanking Russ for this scenario. There are a number of folks out there who feel like the Broncos just don't deserve to make the postseason if they can't win on Sunday against the Chiefs. Fair enough, and now Russell Wilson has made sure that is the scenario.
Wilson didn't/doesn't owe anything to the Denver Broncos, but shoot -- he is on the Broncos' payroll for nearly $38 million this year. Once again, when the Broncos even remotely needed him to come through, it didn't happen.