NFL Christmas Day Preview

December 23, 2024 by CollegeFootballPoll.com Staff

The NFL has a pair of games on Christmas Day on Netflix at 1 and 4:30 in the afternoon, eastern time -- the Chiefs at Steelers, and Texans at Ravens.

All four of these teams just played this past Saturday with Pittsburgh falling hard, 34-17, at rival Baltimore, and Houston dropping a 27-19 battle at Kansas City.

While all of them have secured a spot in the playoffs, they are all still playing for better seeding opportunities.

The loss by the Steelers, combined with the win by the Chiefs, means Pittsburgh can not possibly get the No. 1 seed. Kansas City can gift themselves a claim to that spot with a win on Christmas Day.

Pittsburgh and Baltimore could still go down to the wire on claiming the 3-seed while Houston is all but locked-in for the four seed.

Right now, Buffalo has the No. 2 over-all seed.

The Chargers, by beating Denver last Thursday, seized the advantage over the Broncos by completing a season sweep.

Mathematically, Indianapolis, Miami and Cincinnati are still in the hunt. It's almost unfathomable to think that the Bengals could be left in the cold, but they need to win-out over the Broncos at home and Steelers on the road, and hope for losses by the Colts and Dolphins.

The first game up on Wednesday is the Chiefs (-2.5) at the Steelers. The last time these met was the 2021 Wild Card playoff on January 16, 2022 at Arrowhead. Pat Mahomes threw for 404 yards and 5 touchdowns in that game after spotting Pittsburgh 7 points on a 26-yard fumble return by TJ Watt. Those 5 TD passes would come on the next five consecutive possessions.

Right now, Kansas City appears to be as healthy as its been in a while, and Mahomes' ankle injury certainly didn't slow him down in Saturday's win over the Texans.

Meanwhile, the Steelers will be without WR George Pickens and the offense has been almost anemic of late.

The Ravens are favored by 4.5 at the Texans who will have to contend with the NFL's top-rated passer in Lamar Jackson and the league's second-leading rusher in Derrick Henry. Houston will be without WR Tank Dell.

Not only is this a short turnaround for these two teams, but this will be the third game for each club in a 10-day span. The Texans beat the Dolphins on December 15th, and the Ravens won at the Giants that same day.

The Chiefs and the Steelers are in the same boat as Kansas City beat Cleveland and the Pittsburgh fell to Philadelphia on December 15th.

Fortunately, none of these clubs will see action until Sunday, January 5th - the final day of the regular season.

Prior to this past weekend's results, Kansas City was the number one team in the NFL Congrove Computer Rankings, while Pittsburgh ranked 7th, Baltimore 8th and Houston 11th. Those numbers will surely change when the new rankings are released after the completion of tonight's game that sends New Orleans to Green Bay.