Despite entering Ford Field as 7.5-point underdogs this past Sunday, Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers walked away with a 29-24 victory that all but ended the Detroit Lions' playoff hopes for the 2025 season.
The Lions found themselves at 8-7 with two games remaining, putting them 1.5 games behind the Green Bay Packers at 9-5-1 following the Packers' Saturday night heartbreaker against the NFC North-leading Chicago Bears.
Even after the loss at Soldier Field, all the Packers needed to do to clinch a playoff spot was win (or tie) one of their two remaining games against the Baltimore Ravens or the Minnesota Vikings, regardless of what the Lions did against the Vikings or the Bears. Likewise, any Packers win (or tie) or any Lions loss (or tie) would officially seal the Lions' fate.
As it turns out, the Lions lost on Thursday in Minnesota to drop to 8-8, officially locking up a playoff spot for the Packers even before Saturday's game against Baltimore.
Sunday's result in Detroit was somewhat poetic for Rodgers and the Packers, even though they've been separated for three years now. The all-time Packer great all but locked up the Packers their playoff spot, and he did so at the expense of a team that not only has he historically owned, but the team that ended his Packers career with an upset victory in Week 18 of the 2022 season.
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The Steelers' victory over the Lions pushed them to 9-6 on the year, while the Ravens blew another late lead in their Sunday Night Football loss to the New England Patriots, dropping them to 7-8.
The only way the Ravens can overtake the Steelers to win the AFC North is by winning out against the Packers and Steelers and having the Steelers lose this coming Sunday to the Cleveland Browns.
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But if the Packers have anything to say about it, the Steelers won't actually have anything left to play for by the time they take the field in Cleveland on Sunday.
Thanks to the Lions' loss to the Vikings, the Packers have already secured themselves a playoff berth for the third consecutive season. But now, if the Packers defeat (or, again, even tie) the Ravens on Saturday, the Steelers would officially secure their first AFC North title since 2020 as well.
That's right: on the same weekend the Packers have clinched a playoff spot themselves, they can be the team to send Aaron Rodgers to the playoffs. It's technically happened 11 times before, so I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same, right? It would be Rodgers' first playoff berth since 2021, his penultimate season in Green Bay.
The only thing Pittsburgh would potentially have left to play for after that would be the No. 3 seed in the AFC, but they'd only get that by going 11-6 and having both the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars lose their two remaining games, which is extremely unlikely.
The Texans are also scheduled to play on Saturday against the Los Angeles Chargers, so it's entirely possible that the Steelers could be locked into the No. 4 seed come Sunday anyway, in which case they would have a decision to make regarding resting their starters for the remainder of the regular season.
As for the Packers, they still have an outside shot at winning the NFC North, but they'd need to win out and have the Bears lose to both the San Francisco 49ers and the Lions to wrap up the regular season. An 11-5-1 finish for Green Bay could elevate them to as high as the No. 2 seed, though that would also require at least one Philadelphia Eagles loss over the next two weekends.