{"id":755258,"date":"2026-02-16T04:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755258\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T04:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:08:15","slug":"two-steelers-games-named-among-best-of-nfl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755258\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Steelers Games Named Among Best Of NFL Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The joy of victory and the agony of defeat. Jim McKay\u2019s introduction to the iconic Wide World Of Sports on ABC was something felt by the Pittsburgh Steelers this season. In Week 7, a late comeback against the Cincinnati Bengals was all for naught as the Steelers suffered the agony of defeat in the final seconds when the Bengals put together a game-winning drive. But in Week 18, the Steelers got the ultimate joy by knocking off the Baltimore Ravens to win the AFC North on a missed field goal by Tyler Loop to end the game.<\/p>\n

Both of those games were iconic, and both made the NFL\u2019s list of the top 15 games of the NFL season. In a video released earlier this week<\/a>, the league recapped the top 15 games of the year. The Steelers-Bengals Week 7 clash on Thursday Night Football came in at No. 12, while the Steelers-Ravens Week 18 thriller was ranked No. 3.<\/p>\n

In what our Dave Bryan coined \u201cThe Icy Hot Bowl,\u201d<\/a> the two oldest active quarterbacks in the league in Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco faced off at Paycor Stadium in a primetime clash, and they put on a show. The Steelers blew an early 10-0 lead and couldn\u2019t stop Chase Brown or Flacco\u2019s connection with WR Ja\u2019Marr Chase, who put up 16 receptions for 161 yards and a touchdown. But trailing 27-17, Pittsburgh rallied back and a 68-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Pat Freiermuth put the Steelers ahead 31-30 with 2:21 left.<\/p>\n

Then, the Bengals drove 62 yards for an Evan McPherson field goal in the waning seconds for the win.<\/p>\n

Had the Steelers won that game, Week 18 wouldn\u2019t have had such high stakes. But the Steelers entered needing to beat the Baltimore Ravens to win the AFC North and make the playoffs. It was win or go home for both teams, and they played with that urgency in an electric fourth quarter. The Steelers matched two Ravens touchdowns, with Rodgers tossing the go-ahead score to Calvin Austin III with 55 seconds left. But a blocked extra point gave the Steelers a 26-24 lead, meaning a Ravens field goal could win it.<\/p>\n

Baltimore got in field goal range for their rookie kicker Tyler Loop, but he missed wide right and sent the Steelers to the postseason. Given the stakes of the game, it\u2019s not a surprise that the NFL ranked it within the top five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The joy of victory and the agony of defeat. Jim McKay\u2019s introduction to the iconic Wide World Of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2053],"tags":[1586,117,228,227,256,2296,7,562,6,691,3300],"class_list":{"0":"post-755258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","13":"tag-cincinnatibengals","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-joe-flacco","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-trending","18":"tag-tyler-loop"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116078346555833778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755258","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=755258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}