Thursday Night Football in Week 7 sees the Cincinnati Bengals host the Pittsburgh Steelers, with the two teams heading in opposite directions in terms of the standings. After an unconvincing start to the season, the Steelers now sit at 2-1 under the guidance of Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin. Meanwhile, the Bengals enter Week 7 at 2-4 on the back of four consecutive losses, having turned to Joe Flacco to try and rescue their season.
Using the PFSN NFL Football Playoff Meter (FPM), let’s examine what this game means for the Steelers’ and Bengals’ playoff hopes in the 2025 NFL season.
The PFSN FPM system uses our proprietary metrics to rank all 32 teams and uses that data to simulate the remainder of the season 100,000 times. From there, we can provide the percentage chance of a number of outcomes, including teams making the playoffs, winning their division, or even their odds of finishing the season with the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Pittsburgh Steelers Can Cement Their Position Atop AFC North
The Steelers enter Thursday Night Football in a strong position when it comes to the playoffs. Our current simulations have them making the playoffs 89.4% of the time. Perhaps even more significantly, they come out atop the AFC North in 85% of those simulations.
If the Steelers beat the Bengals — which is the case in 65% of our simulations — then those numbers strengthen further. With a victory, the Steelers make the playoffs in around 95% of our simulations, and they win the division in just over 92% of simulations.
Additionally, the Steelers’ chances of clinching the No. 1 seed in the AFC jump from 16.6% entering the game to over 21% with a win. Their chances of making the playoffs would climb from 12% to just over 13% with a victory.
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Given the quarterback issues of the Bengals, Baltimore Ravens, and Cleveland Browns, the Steelers are in such a strong position that even a loss on Thursday would not be devastating to their playoff chances. With a Week 7 loss, the Steelers still make the playoffs in more than 80% of our simulations and win the division in just under 75% of simulations.
Cincinnati Bengals Are Fighting to Keep Playoff Hopes Alive
The Bengals traded for Joe Flacco last week in a desperate attempt to keep their playoff hopes alive. It would always be tough on Flacco with two games in just over a week following the trade. The problem for Cincinnati is that if Flacco and the company cannot win tonight against Pittsburgh, their already considerable task will only get harder.
A loss would put the Bengals three games behind the Steelers in the win column and four games ahead of them in the loss column. Being 3.5 games back entering Week 8 is not a totally game-over scenario, but the Bengals’ chances of winning the division would slide from 8.4% to 3.1% in our simulations.
All is not lost if they lose, as the Bengals still make the playoffs in just under 10% of our simulations with a loss tonight. However, at that point, their chances of making the playoffs (9.3%) would be far closer to their odds of finishing the season with the first overall selection in the 2026 NFL Draft (5.4%) than they would have expected when the season began.
If the Bengals win in Week 7, the picture changes considerably. They would be just one game behind the Steelers in the win column and only two ahead of them in the loss column. With 10 games left in the season, overturning a 1.5-game deficit with another match against the Steelers later in the season is more than possible.
In our simulations, a Bengals win would increase their division odds by more than double, to 16.9%. Additionally, their odds of making the playoffs would climb to 27.1%, meaning they make the playoffs in more than a quarter of our simulations.
