Dec. 27, 2025, 10:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Following the Houston Texans<\/a>\u2019 Week 17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> are out of contention for the No. 3 seed in the playoffs.<\/p>\n The Texans\u2019 20-16 victory over the Chargers gives Houston a key advantage over Pittsburgh in the AFC playoff race<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even if Houston loses in Week 18 and Pittsburgh wins out, both teams would finish with an 11-6 record and a 9-3 conference record. The tiebreaker procedures would then move to common opponents, which favors the Texans.<\/p>\n Both the Steelers<\/a> and the Texans have faced off against the Buffalo Bills<\/a>, Baltimore Ravens<\/a>, Indianapolis Colts<\/a>, Los Angeles Chargers, and Seattle Seahawks<\/a> this season \u2014 but Houston went 5-1 in those matchups, while Pittsburgh went 2-3.<\/p>\n The Steelers\u2019 only shot to earn the No. 3 seed was if both the Texans and the Jaguars<\/a> lost out, resulting in Pittsburgh holding the conference record tiebreaker over Jacksonville.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n The Steelers will have no choice but to settle for the No. 4 seed if they clinch a playoff spot, set to host the top wild-card team in the AFC \u2014 which would be the Buffalo Bills if the season ended today.<\/p>\n For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec. 27, 2025, 10:00 p.m. ET Following the Houston Texans\u2019 Week 17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[942,73,75,74,29044,38167,543,19011,13628,9603,15077,13620,13615,13622,2173,2533,952,2514,8757,13624,14298,544,535],"class_list":["post-73483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-accessfree","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","tag-sstsnsteelers","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagamerican-football-conference","tag-tagbaltimore-ravens","tag-tagbuffalo-bills","tag-tagfacebook","tag-taghouston-texans","tag-tagindianapolis-colts","tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpittsburgh","tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","tag-tagseattle-seahawks","tag-tagsmg-timely","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}