The playoff chase went down to the final minutes of the regular season Sunday, when Baltimore squeezed in as the AFC North winner, and defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia got some help to secure an NFC wild card.
That left Pittsburgh and Minnesota out.
Kansas City grabbed the AFC’s top seed, followed by New England, Houston and Baltimore. The Chargers own the first wild card and will play at the Ravens next weekend. The winner of the night game between the Colts and Titans at Tennessee will have the other wild card and travel to Houston.
The Saints have the top seed in the NFC, and the Rams got the No. 2 spot when they beat San Francisco. Chicago, whose win at Minnesota knocked out the Vikings and put the Eagles into the postseason, is seeded third and gets Philadelphia next weekend.
Dallas is the fourth seed and will play Seattle.
C.J. Mosley intercepted a fourth-down pass by Baker Mayfield to preserve the Ravens’ 26-24 win as Baltimore (10-6) rushed for a season-best 296 yards. A year ago, Baltimore missed the playoffs by losing its finale at home to the Bengals, who rallied with a last-minute touchdown.
The Steelers remained on the field after edging Cincinnati 16-13 and watched the drama from Baltimore on the videoboard. But their archrival Browns couldn’t help them against the equally hated Ravens, and unless Indianapolis and Tennessee ended tie in a tie, Pittsburgh (9-6-1) was out.
But the Colts beat the Titans 33-17 to secure the final spot.
Nick Foles, who led the Eagles to the Super Bowl title over the Patriots in Minneapolis last February, guided them to a resounding 24-0 victory at Washington. Then the Bears helped out at Minnesota with a 24-10 win even though they had nothing to play for, being set as the NFC’s third seed.
Earlier, the Texans rallied from losing their first three games to win the AFC South and will be the No. 3 seed, hosting a wild-card game next weekend.
Houston (11-5) easily beat Jacksonville, 20-3.
Deshaun Watson threw for 234 yards and DeAndre Hopkins had 147 yards receiving.
The Texans finished last in the division in 2017.
They and the Bears have done the worst-to-first turnaround this season, making it 15 of the past 16 seasons that has occurred in the league.
“It’s do or die now, so you’ve got to put everything on the line now,” Watson said. “Prepare harder than you did before and anything can happen at this point. The tournament is wide open.”
New England, meanwhile, will get a week off in early January for the 13th time since 2001, the most in the NFL during that span.
The Patriots (11-5) routed the Jets 38-3, and because they defeated Houston during the season, they get the bye.
“We fought pretty hard and put ourselves in good position,” quarterback Tom Brady said.
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