Before the Ravens could return to the playoffs Saturday night, they had to revisit their last playoff game. Questions about what happened last January were unavoidable this week, but really, the specter of that AFC championship game in Baltimore has hung over the team all season.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson said he still thinks about the 17-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike said coaches still use it as a source of motivation. Safety Kyle Hamilton said the Ravens (12-5) know they have another opportunity to win a Super Bowl — “we just have to go do it.”

All of which lends the third-seeded Ravens’ AFC wild-card-round game against the sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7) a peculiar aura. They can’t let last season’s playoff loss beat them again inside M&T Bank Stadium. What mattered most to Ravens coaches and players this week — or at least what they said mattered most — was not how last season ended but instead how this regular season ended, with the Ravens looking like one of the NFL’s best teams.

Said coach John Harbaugh: “We don’t look at it like a new season; we look at it like an extension of the season. We are who we are based on what we’ve done and how hard we’ve worked, and we want to keep building on that and play our best football right now.”

And offensive coordinator Todd Monken: “We’ve been ascending. This isn’t a new season. This isn’t starting over. It’s just building where we’ve started and where we’ve come.”

And Madubuike: “Everybody’s hunting, so we’re going to take that momentum from the regular season and bring it to the playoffs. That’s the only way to do it.”

It won’t be easy, not even with the Ravens considered 9.5-point favorites over Pittsburgh, according to DraftKings. Here’s what to watch in the AFC North rivals’ playoff matchup.

1. The Ravens talked this week as if they don’t expect to lose. Even Harbaugh, when asked Thursday about wide receiver Zay Flowers and the knee injury that will sideline him Saturday, said the team would “see how it looks next week.”

But next week isn’t promised. And the Ravens’ chances of advancing to the divisional round could hinge on the performance of several key pending unrestricted free agents, some of whom might be playing their last game in Baltimore.

Left tackle Ronnie Stanley, a Pro Bowl alternate, will have to contend with Steelers outside linebackers Nick Herbig and Alex Highsmith. He allowed a sack and four pressures in the Ravens’ Week 16 win over Pittsburgh and had one of his lowest-graded pass-blocking performances of the season, according to Pro Football Focus.

Left guard Patrick Mekari has allowed just three pressures in the two games against Pittsburgh. He’ll see a lot more of Pro Bowl defensive lineman Cameron Heyward, who typically lines up over the left side of the offensive line.

Wide receivers Nelson Agholor and Tylan Wallace have 231 and 193 receiving yards this season, respectively. But they’ve combined for just two targets, one catch and 8 receiving yards in their two games against Pittsburgh.

Inside linebackers Malik Harrison and Chris Board, who stepped in to replace Trenton Simpson opposite Roquan Smith, will need to help secure the middle of the field. The Steelers rushed for 117 yards (4.9 per carry) in Week 16, and quarterback Russell Wilson went 16-for-17 for 138 yards and a touchdown on throws between the hashes.

And cornerback Brandon Stephens allowed three catches on four targets for just 27 yards in Week 16 as the nearest defender in coverage, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, but didn’t have to worry about top wide receiver George Pickens. In a Week 11 loss to the Steelers, when Pickens was healthy, Stephens gave up seven catches on nine targets for 78 yards overall.

“Whatever happens, happens, and it’s tough to win,” Harbaugh said Thursday. “You’re playing the best teams [in] a one-game deal. It’s not a seven-game series. You don’t have a chance to come back. It might be a seven-series game — that’s what it might be. You have to find a way to make the most of every series in that game and try to find a way to win the game and figure it out as you go within the game.”

2. Slow starts have been the Ravens’ undoing in their postseason exits, with just 16 first-half points scored over Jackson’s four career playoff losses. But the Steelers haven’t been any better off.

Over Pittsburgh’s past four playoff losses, huge early holes have doomed comeback bids. In their 2017 divisional-round loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Steelers trailed 21-0 early in the second quarter. In their 2020 wild-card-round loss to the Cleveland Browns, they trailed 28-0 late in the first quarter. In their 2021 wild-card-round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, they scored first but trailed 21-7 at halftime. And, in their wild-card-round loss to the Buffalo Bills last year, they trailed 21-0 midway through the second quarter.

Pittsburgh’s first-half offense has been a slog of late, too. Over their four-game losing streak to end the regular season, the Steelers averaged just 126.5 yards (fifth worst in the NFL), 4.2 yards per play (third worst) and 9.3 points (ninth worst) over the first two quarters, according to TruMedia.

“Some of it’s had to do with some of the people that we played; [they] have done a nice job,” coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday. The Steelers’ four losses were to three playoff teams and the Cincinnati Bengals. “Some of it has to do with us. Rest assured that we’re working extremely hard to rectify it, and I’m excited about taking another whack at it this week.”

Pittsburgh’s defense hasn’t been a huge help, either. Since Week 15, the Steelers have allowed 15 points (sixth worst) and 181 yards (11th worst) per first half.

3. The Ravens have one of the NFL’s most productive pass rushes. The Steelers have one of the NFL’s most talented pass rushes. Saturday’s game could come down to how willing each defense is to add on with the blitz — and how effective it is in getting home.

In Week 11, Jackson went 6-for-17 for 37 yards and took two sacks when Pittsburgh sent four or fewer pass rushers, according to TruMedia. His expected points added per drop-back (minus-0.82) was far and away his worst of the season against a conservative pass rush. In Week 16, against a far more injury-ridden and blitz-happy Steelers defense, Jackson went 4-for-7 for 44 yards and two touchdowns and avoided taking a sack, averaging a stellar 0.70 EPA per drop-back.

The Ravens, meanwhile, played it safe in the regular season. In Week 11, Wilson was blitzed just seven times; against the Ravens’ conventional pass rush, he went 19-for-29 for 181 yards and an interception and took four sacks. His minus-0.28 EPA per drop-back was one of the NFL’s worst that week. In Week 16, Wilson was blitzed just six times; he otherwise went 18-for-28 for 158 yards, a touchdown and an interception and took three sacks. His EPA per drop-back against four or fewer pass rushers was again abysmal (minus-0.27).

There are red flags along both lines. The Ravens, playing without an under-the-weather Mekari for much of Saturday’s blowout Week 18 win, struggled to hold up against Cleveland’s four-man pass rush, which pressured Jackson on 47.6% of his drop-backs. They’ll need to fare better against a Pittsburgh front led by Pro Bowl outside linebacker T.J. Watt (11.5 sacks) and Heyward (eight sacks).

The Steelers, in their loss Saturday to Cincinnati, allowed four sacks against the Bengals’ four-man pass rush. Now an already iffy offensive line could be even more compromised after starting right guard Mason McCormick broke his left hand in Week 18. If he’s unavailable or ineffective — McCormick told reporters in Pittsburgh that he could play Saturday with a brace — the Steelers would likely turn to rookie Spencer Anderson, a seventh-round pick from Maryland who played just seven snaps against the Ravens in the regular season.

“Whoever’s out there, I’m ready to play,” Madubuike said Tuesday. “It’s playoff football. It’s win or go home.”

4. When the Steelers allowed a season-high 220 rushing yards to the Ravens in Week 16, Jackson did not leave a big statistical imprint: just nine carries (one scramble) for 22 yards. That seemed to be part of Pittsbugh’s plan, though.

Since Jackson’s emergence as one of the NFL’s most dangerous runners, the Steelers have often forced him to give up the ball in the Ravens’ read option attack, daring their other ball carriers to beat them. On many option plays, Jackson is responsible for reading an unblocked edge defender at the mesh point; if the defender crashes down to stop the inside run, Jackson can keep the ball and bounce outside. If the defender slow-plays the mesh point, keeping his leverage on Jackson, he can hand the ball off to the back.

In Week 16, Pittsburgh was committed to keeping Jackson within its grasp. On 17 apparent read option plays, a Steelers defender crashed down on running back Derrick Henry just three times. (On six such plays, the so-called conflict defender was either blocked or his responsibilities were unclear.) Henry finished with 58 yards on 14 read option handoffs (4.1 yards per carry), the bulk of which came early in the game. Jackson had three keepers for 11 yards.

Surprisingly, Pittsburgh had more trouble when Jackson was not a threat in the Ravens’ designed-run game. Henry had eight carries for 49 yards on under-center runs (6.1 yards per carry), according to TruMedia. And his 44-yard run early in the fourth quarter came out of the pistol formation, with Jackson freezing the edge defender not with a mesh point exchange but a fake bootleg.

“There’s nothing like being able to turn around and comfortably hand the ball off,” offensive coordinator Todd Monken said Wednesday. “That’s the start of everything you do. It’s hard to control the game if you can’t run the football. Let’s just say that. You control the game with physicality. You control the game with being able to run the football, especially in weather conditions, and it sets everything else up that you do, so that’s critical. That’s not just us. That’s everybody.”

5. The Ravens expect Steelers backup quarterback Justin Fields to have a cameo role Saturday. They might have to prepare for the possibility that he takes over for Wilson, too.

After Wilson struggled in Pittsburgh’s loss to the Bengals, finishing 17-for-31 for 148 yards and a touchdown, Tomlin was asked whether he considered benching Wilson at halftime for Fields, who opened the season as the team’s QB1. Tomlin’s answer was clear but not entirely convincing: “Not really, no.” The Steelers’ “failures,” he said, were “collective.”

An abdominal injury sidelined Fields for the Steelers’ Week 16 loss in Baltimore, and he hasn’t appeared in a game since Week 15. But, with Fields’ dual-threat ability, he could be a boost to the Steelers’ high-priority but inconsistent run game, which was limited to 74 yards (3.2 per carry) in the loss to Cincinnati.

Wilson has also struggled to limit turnovers during the Steelers’ recent skid. He’s thrown two interceptions and lost two fumbles over the past four weeks, the second-most giveaways by a quarterback in that span. Wilson didn’t have a turnover-worthy play Saturday against Cincinnati, according to PFF, but his conservative approach limited the Steelers’ passing attack to 4.8 yards per attempt against a leaky secondary.

“They’ve won games with both of them,” defensive coordinator Zach Orr said Wednesday. “Justin Fields is a weapon, so you’ve got to be prepared for it. … You see it in the first game, even though he didn’t start against us, he came in and made some critical plays that ultimately, in our eyes, cost us the game. So we have to be prepared to see both of them — not even just Justin as a runner, but him as a thrower as well, because he is a quarterback. So we prepare for both, and the game plan really doesn’t change much from either one. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. Play sound, disciplined football, and we like our chances.”