{"id":668057,"date":"2026-01-11T06:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T06:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/668057\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T06:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T06:01:12","slug":"steelers-wild-card-rooting-guide-path-to-another-home-playoff-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/668057\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Wild Card Rooting Guide: Path to Another Home Playoff Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Steelers will host their first playoff game since 2020 on Monday night\u2014and their first in front of a full home crowd since 2017\u2014but Wild Card Weekend could give them a chance to do it again. Here\u2019s your Steelers rooting guide for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/playoffs\/bracket\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super Wild Card Weekend<\/a> and the scenarios that could send another playoff game to Acrisure Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday 1:00 PM ET: Buffalo Bills at Jacksonville Jaguars<\/p>\n<p>Root For: Buffalo Bills<\/p>\n<p>An argument can be made that getting Josh Allen out of the playoff field is best for the Steelers. And certainly the <a href=\"https:\/\/steelersdepot.com\/2025\/11\/fire-tomlin-steelers-fans-chant-for-mike-tomlins-dismissal-during-horrendous-sunday-showing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bills\u2019 blowout win<\/a> over the Steelers earlier in the year backs that up. But this is the only path for a Steelers home game in the divisional round.<\/p>\n<p>If the Bills win, the Steelers\u2019 potential divisional round opponents would be either the Bills or the New England Patriots. If they lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Steelers would either play the Jaguars or the Broncos, both as the road team.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday 8:15 PM ET: Los Angeles Chargers at New England Patriots<\/p>\n<p>Root For: Los Angeles Chargers<\/p>\n<p>We will know if a home Divisional Round game is on the table for the Steelers by kickoff in this AFC tilt. If the Bills win in the earlier game, there is no doubt that Steelers fans should be rooting for the Chargers.<\/p>\n<p>If the Chargers win after a Bills win earlier in the day, Pittsburgh would host its second playoff game of the year, with an outside chance of even hosting the AFC Championship game against the Chargers. If the Chargers win after a Jaguars win earlier in the day, Pittsburgh would be on the road to the Jaguars.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, if the Patriots win following a Bills win, the Steelers would be on the road to the Patriots. If both higher-seed teams win, the Steelers would be on the road to the Broncos.<\/p>\n<p>In pretty much any scenario, it\u2019s best if the Chargers win this one.<\/p>\n<p>Simplified Divisional Round Scenarios<\/p>\n<p>All of this is a moot point if the Steelers don\u2019t win, so I will only list those scenarios below.<\/p>\n<p>Steelers host Bills with:<\/p>\n<p>Bills Win + Chargers Win<\/p>\n<p>Steelers travel to Patriots with:<\/p>\n<p>Bills Win + Patriots Win<\/p>\n<p>Steelers travel to Broncos with:<\/p>\n<p>Jaguars Win + Patriots Win<\/p>\n<p>Steelers travel to Jaguars with:<\/p>\n<p>Jaguars Win + Chargers Win<\/p>\n<p>The Steelers could technically play on the road in the divisional round and then come back home to host Buffalo or Los Angeles in the AFC Championship game. Some of this Steelers rooting guide is subjective, but I\u2019ll take a chance for the entire AFC playoffs to run through Pittsburgh over cherry picking the \u201cright\u201d opponents any day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers will host their first playoff game since 2020 on Monday night\u2014and their first in front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[53,7,253,125,262,249,6,520,57,2360,426,452],"class_list":{"0":"post-668057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","12":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","13":"tag-new-england-patriots","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-pittsburgh","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","18":"tag-steelers","19":"tag-wild-card-game"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115874948323625543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668057","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=668057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}