{"id":662906,"date":"2026-01-08T04:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662906\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T04:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:33:15","slug":"steelers-jerome-bettis-criticizes-fan-energy-vs-ravens-in-week-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662906\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers’ Jerome Bettis criticizes fan energy vs. Ravens in Week 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> are officially your 2025 AFC North champions following a Week 18 victory over the Baltimore Ravens<\/a>. But one Steel City legend took exception with the fan energy from the matchup on Sunday Night Football.<\/p>\n

Making an appearance on the Not Just Football with Cam Heyward podcast, Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis explained that the energy was off for the Steelers\u2013Ravens<\/a> rivalry game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the crowd was a bit iffy in Pittsburgh,\u201d Bettis said<\/a>. \u201cAnd I say that in a little bit of a disappointment because our crowd has been phenomenal for decades. And this was one of those games where I truly felt that a lot of the crowd didn\u2019t feel good about us winning the game. A lot of people went into that game like, \u2018I\u2019m here, but I\u2019m here to see us go down.\u2019 And you could feel the energy wasn\u2019t a true Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a>\u2013Ravens, end-of-the-season, winner-take-all game. The energy should\u2019ve been at a fever pitch, and it wasn\u2019t that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettis definitely isn\u2019t wrong, as fan negativity and backlash reached new heights as the Steelers hung on for dear life toward the latter half of the season.<\/p>\n

Luckily, fans have a home playoff game to look forward to on January 12 \u2014 the first postseason matchup in Pittsburgh in five years \u2014 as the Steelers look for their first playoff win in almost a decade when they host the Houston Texans<\/a> in a wild-card matchup.<\/p>\n

For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including Pittsburgh\u2019s wild-card playoff matchup against the\u00a0Houston Texans, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers are officially your 2025 AFC North champions following a Week 18 victory over the Baltimore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2055],"tags":[247,265,184,117,3729,4034,1103,7,19189,221,253,20842,330,88,6,35196,245,338,520,57,2360,169,1602,1982,9,266,426,222,1980],"class_list":{"0":"post-662906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-baltimore","11":"tag-baltimore-ravens","12":"tag-cameron","13":"tag-cameron-heyward","14":"tag-facebook","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-heyward","17":"tag-houston","18":"tag-houston-texans","19":"tag-hub","20":"tag-negative","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-nfl-hub","24":"tag-overall","25":"tag-overall-negative","26":"tag-pittsburgh","27":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","28":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","29":"tag-ravens","30":"tag-smg","31":"tag-smg-timely","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sports-news","34":"tag-steelers","35":"tag-texans","36":"tag-timely"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115857614697442975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}