Jan. 11, 2026, 3:45 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
With the first round of the playoffs heating up, the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> have one scenario where they can host a second postseason matchup at home, depending on the outcome of a few AFC wild-card matchups.<\/p>\n If the No. 3 seed Steelers<\/a> defeat the No. 5 seed Houston Texans<\/a>, the No. 6 seed Buffalo Bills<\/a> defeat the No. 3 seed Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>, and the No. 7 seed Los Angeles Chargers defeat the No. 2 seed New England Patriots, the Steelers will host the Bills in Pittsburgh in the Divisional Round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n If Buffalo loses but Los Angeles wins, the Broncos<\/a> would host the Chargers, and the Steelers would head to Jacksonville to take on the Jaguars.<\/p>\n If the Chargers lose but the Bills win, Buffalo would travel to Denver to face the Broncos, while the Steelers would head to New England.<\/p>\n If the Chargers and Bills lose, the Steelers would take on the Broncos in Denver.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n The Pittsburgh playoff scenario speculation would be for naught if the Steelers can’t get past the Texans on Monday, however, which may be easier said than done considering the postseason woes that have plagued the Steel City brand of football.<\/p>\n For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including Pittsburgh\u2019s wild-card playoff matchup against the\u00a0Houston Texans<\/a>, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 11, 2026, 3:45 p.m. ET With the first round of the playoffs heating up, the Pittsburgh Steelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[942,73,75,74,29044,38167,543,19011,9603,13621,15077,13620,13622,2173,2533,952,2514,8757,14298,544,535],"class_list":{"0":"post-84406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-pittsburgh","10":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","11":"tag-pittsburgh-news","12":"tag-sstssportsnflsteelers","13":"tag-sstsnsteelers","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagamerican-football-conference","16":"tag-tagbuffalo-bills","17":"tag-tagdenver-broncos","18":"tag-tagfacebook","19":"tag-taghouston-texans","20":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagnfl-hub","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagpittsburgh","25":"tag-tagpittsburgh-steelers","26":"tag-tagsmg-timely","27":"tag-tagsports-news","28":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84406","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=84406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}