A Cincinnati Bengals win over the Baltimore Ravens would have helped the Pittsburgh Steelers’ case in the AFC North race, but they had no such luck with the Week 15 slate of games. Lamar Jackson bounced back with a strong performance to stay alive in the division. They eliminated the Bengals from playoff contention in the process.
Here is the updated AFC North standings with the Steelers playing on Monday Night Football against the Miami Dolphins. Even if the Steelers lose tomorrow, they will remain ahead of the Ravens with both teams at 7-7 due to the head-to-head record.
It was a slow start to the game with four punts and two interceptions to open the game, but Lamar Jackson finally caught fire with a pair of impressive touchdown passes to take a 14-0 lead at halftime. Similar to his play from a week ago, he showed signs of getting back to using his legs as a weapon.
The Bengals looked dejected and resigned to their fate by the middle of the second half, and the Ravens coasted to an important 24-0 win. We will see if the Bengals bother starting guys like Burrow or Chase in the final meaningless games. The only thing
The Cleveland Browns were already irrelevant in the division, but there were still a few notable things to track. Steelers fans should be rooting for Shedeur Sanders’ temporary success and Browns victories to move them further down the draft board. He finished the day with 18 completions on 35 attempts for 177 yards, three INTs, and five sacks taken. Some of that wasn’t Sanders’ fault, but they still got blown out 31-3 and he had a big hand in that.
Myles Garrett also moved closer to breaking T.J. Watt’s shared single-season sack record with a sack against Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. He is now at 21.5 sacks this season with three games remaining. He needs just one more sack over the final three games to tie the record. There’s a scenario where he breaks that record in Cleveland against the Steelers in two weeks.
The Steelers didn’t need anything to happen this week, but the results that happened were technically the worst-case scenario. The Browns are closer to the top pick, Shedeur Sanders was bad, Myles Garrett got 1.5 sacks, and the Ravens won. Those of you that really dislike the Bengals can take solace in their continued misery, I suppose.
