Baltimore Ravens

Steelers: AFC North Standings Week 17

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 1:05 p.m. ET

Fansided, Zack Goncz/FanSided via Still Curtain

The Steelers season followed a familiar pattern. The hot start, the midseason collapse, and the inevitable late season redemption in the 3rd act. The AFC North is theirs.

The Steelers are officially the AFC North Champs. They have a seat saved in the playoffs. They accomplished this in a pretty entertaining game against the Ravens. So let’s dive in and see how the division is doing in the waning days of the season.

Steelers 10-5-0

It’s a little ironic the game that decided the Steelers season, the defeat of the Bengals Sunday to clinch the AFC North, followed the same pattern as the season as a whole. They started well, fell behind around the middle, and, back against the wall, came back to win it. The defense has improved, offense is humming, this team is ready for the playoffs.

Ben had a mixed game but played well when they needed him to, 2 interceptions but 3 touchdowns to make up for it. Bell had another great game with 122 yards and 2 touchdowns. Fella by the name of Brown had 96 yards and the game winning score too. The defense did well enough. They had some sacks, won the game.

Ravens 8-7-0

It was a good effort, in the game against the Steelers and the season as a whole. The Ravens are definitely in a rebuilding year, as they were last year. They showed improvement though and finished better than they started. With their loss to the Steelers though, they’ll be out of the playoffs, and they won’t even get a good draft position out of it.

Nobody really had bad game. Flacco threw 269 and a touchdown. The run game as a whole put up 122 yards. They really just settled for field goals too many times. The defense did a decent job. Mosley and Orr each had an interception. The Ravens were held, in a rare instance, without a sack which may also have been key to their loss.

Bengals 5-9-1

The Bengals fell to the Texans on Sunday. It was a very close, low scoring, defensive game. It went back and forth a couple times but the Texans got a touchdown that gave them the lead with 2 minutes to spare. Free agency took a bite out of the Bengals before the year began but a multiple-game injury to AJ Green sunk the season.

Browns 1-14-0

They won! The Browns won. Good for them. That’s how I feel. You always want a division opponent to lose to you, but to everyone is too much. I don’t want to see 53 men have their souls shattered over 17 weeks. That number one pick is probably safe but mathematicians have recently discovered that the difference between 0 and 1 is actually like a billion.

It does seem like they’re playing better with RGIII behind center, though his stats are not spectacular, 164 yards in the air and 44 on the ground. He was sacked 9 times. Cromwell had 2 touchdowns but only ran for 54 yards. They had an interception, but no sacks. Stopped the run, but Rivers threw for 322 yards. They did have two missed field goals on their side though.

Feels good to be the king. It’s been an extremely competitive era for the AFC North and with Tomlin taking half the AFC North Championships over the last 10 years. That’s some very effective cheerleading.

All stats via NFL.com