Ravens

The rivalry dates almost to the club's first seasons and still shapes how the Ravens Flock measures a year — a division title means less if the Steelers took the season series.

The Ravens exist because Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns' organisation to Baltimore in February 1996, leaving the Browns' name and history behind in Ohio under the settlement that made Baltimore's team a new franchise. Fans picked the name that March.

Two Super Bowl runs define the club's first two decades. The 2000 team beat the New York Giants 34–7 behind a defence built around Ray Lewis; twelve years later Joe Flacco threw his way to a Super Bowl MVP award as Baltimore edged the San Francisco 49ers 34–31. Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Jonathan Ogden all went into the Hall of Fame, and Lamar Jackson has since added two MVP seasons of his own under John Harbaugh, who coached the team from 2008 through 2025 before handing the job to Jesse Minter.

Eight AFC North titles sit alongside those two championships, but three lost AFC Championship games — to the Patriots twice and to the Chiefs in 2023 — mark how often Baltimore has come up just short of a third Super Bowl appearance. That gap is part of why the Steelers game still matters more than most: beating Pittsburgh has never guaranteed a ring, but for Ravens Nation it remains the result that decides whether a season felt like progress.