NFL Wild Card Weekend
The Steelers visit the Bengals during Wild Card weekend for round No. 3 of an AFC North showdown Getty

Wild Card Weekend begins on Saturday with two AFC matchups before Sunday features two NFC games. The No. 5 seeded Kansas City Chiefs (11-5) will kick things off by visiting the No. 4 Houston Texans (9-7) in the early game. The night game will feature the No. 6 seeded Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6) paying a visit to the division rival Cincinnati Bengals (12-4).

The winners will have to play No. 1 Denver and No. 2 New England, who have byes, in the divisional round of the playoffs next week. As it turns out, the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game has a bearing on what the matchups end up being next week.

If the Steelers beat the Bengals, they will play the Broncos in Denver while the Chiefs-Texans winner travels to New England to play the Patriots. If the Bengals beat the Steelers, they pay a visit to New England while the Chiefs-Texans winner would travel to Denver next week.

Kansas City brings a 10-game winning streak in to the playoffs and is looking to win the franchise’s first postseason game in 22 years. Houston overcame a 2-5 start of their own to emerge as champions of the AFC South for the first time since 2012, when they won a wild-card game.

Cincinnati won the AFC North and hosts Pittsburgh with backup quarterback AJ McCarron as Andy Dalton recovers from a fractured thumb. The Steelers snuck in the playoffs with a Week-17 win and will try to win their first postseason game since 2010.

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