With stretch run approaching and Buffalo looming, Steelers want to 'plant a flag' in AFC North race

As December approaches, with one test remaining this month on the NFL calendar, the Pittsburgh Steelers are at a crossroads.

With a 6-5 record, they sit atop the mediocre AFC North, a half-game ahead of the Baltimore Ravens. They resided in familiar territory a year ago only to have their season unravel with four consecutive losses followed by another in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

They have lost four of their past six with a visit from the 7-4 Buffalo Bills looming ahead of the stretch run that features three division games, including a pair with Baltimore.

To quarterback Aaron Rodgers, though, it’s no time to look back.

“There is a lot in front of us,” he said.

The view in the rearview mirror hasn’t been kind to the Steelers. Not during this run of eight consecutive seasons without a playoff victory.

• In 2018, the Steelers lost their grip on the division lead and missed the playoffs entirely by losing four times in a five-game post-Thanksgiving stretch.

• In 2019, after clawing to an 8-5 start without franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers stumbled in December, losing their final three.

• In 2020, the Steelers dropped four of their final five after an 11-0 start.

• In 2024, they were 10-3 and one win from clinching the division title. That win never came, and the Steelers entered the playoffs as a wild-card team before succumbing to Baltimore in another one-and-done performance.

On the other hand, the Steelers can point to 2021, Roethlisberger’s final season, when they won their final two games, blunting a stretch of four losses in a six-game span, to make the playoffs as the No. 7 seed. Or 2022 when they missed the postseason yet reeled off four consecutive victories to close the season. Or 2023 when Mason Rudolph, the No. 3 quarterback on the depth chart, won three consecutive starts to get the Steelers to 10-7 and a playoff appearance.

Time will tell which way the pendulum swings for the Steelers this season.

“We’ve got six games to really punch our ticket,” said defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, one of the few players on the roster to experience the previous highs and lows of December. “The way I look at it for our group, we have to plant a flag. We lost our last game, and we have to move on. I’m more concerned what we have to do in the future.”

The immediate challenge is finding a way to get past Buffalo, which is in a similar spot to the Steelers. A preseason pick to reach the Super Bowl, the Bills have lost two of their past three and are 3-4 since starting the season with four consecutive wins. But Josh Allen, the reigning NFL MVP, has a 4-1 record against the Steelers, beating them most recently in the wild-card round following the 2023 season.

“These are the kind of games that you win and take a lot of momentum from as you move forward,” Rodgers said. “And, obviously, we know what’s after this one.”

That would be the first of two meetings against the Ravens, who won five in a row and briefly held the division tiebreaker before losing Thanksgiving night to Cincinnati. They will be 6-6 when the Steelers visit M&T Bank Stadium next weekend.

Since the AFC North was formed in 2002, no team has won the division in three consecutive seasons. The Ravens can be the first if they cast aside the Steelers.

“You want to win every game no matter what week of the season it is, but there’s definitely more pressure toward the end of the season,” second-year inside linebacker Payton Wilson said. “Especially with where we are right now. We have to win some games and some big games to get where we need to be.”

The Steelers face just two opponents with losing records — 3-8 Cleveland and 4-7 Miami — down the stretch. The Ravens have just one, but that is a rematch with the Bengals in Cincinnati. They also must face 10-2 New England and 8-3-1 Green Bay.

The wild-card route remains a possibility, but given the makeup of the division this year, the AFC North could place just one team in the postseason for the first time since 2019.

Helping the Steelers’ cause would be some consistency in their play. Despite having the NFL’s highest-paid defense, the Steelers rank No. 28 in yards allowed and they have yielded at least 30 points in five games this season. The offense looked dominant in home wins against Indianapolis and Cincinnati but struggled in road losses to the Los Angeles Chargers and Chicago Bears.

The latter happened with Rodgers standing on the sideline. He will return Sunday, and the Steelers could use some of his late-season experience as they push forward into the final stretch of games. Rodgers’ career 42-18 record in December is his best of any month in the NFL season. He’s also 8-3 in January regular-season games.

His advice?

“This is the time the focus has to go up a little more,” he said. “A serious approach needs to tighten up a little more. I love what a loose team we are, but sometimes you have to crank that thing up maybe one percent and get a little more locked in. It’s really on the players. Monday to Saturday is when you win a lot of these football games. It’s dialing into the plan and being able to fix things when they happen in a real time, to make a bad play doable. If we can do that, we’re going to put ourselves into position to win all six of these games.”