It's hard to look at the Pittsburgh Steelers' matchup against the Houston Texans and come away with the conclusion that Mike Tomlin's team holds the upper hand. Though tonight's Wild Card game is being played at Acrisure Stadium, the Texans finished the season with a better record, point differential, DVOA, scoring offense, total offense, scoring defense, and total defense.
Meanwhile, the Steelers' offensive line is getting set for a brutal matchup against the league's best edge rusher tandem. In other words, Houston pretty much trumps Pittsburgh in every major statistical category.
But there's one low-key advantage the Steelers hold that could make the difference in tonight's game: the forecast.
According to AccuWeather, tonight's Wild Card game in Pittsburgh is slated for 34-degree temperatures at kickoff. This includes 10-mile-per-hour winds, 20 mph wind gusts, and a real feel of 25 degrees. For NFL teams that reside in the north, this is nothing out of the ordinary. But for a team located in south-east Texas, this could make all the difference in the world.
The weather for tonight's game favors the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Houston Texans
In Houston, Texas, the forecast this week is calling for lower-to-upper sixties. So you can understand the stark climate difference Texans players could be faced with during a night game with an 8:15 p.m. ET kickoff time in Pittsburgh. While nobody in their right mind would call this Texans team soft, Houston players might not be fully prepared for the wind and cold.
In the Texans' previous two playoff runs, Houston lost cold-weather games in the north. In January 2024, the Texans traveled to Baltimore, where they were trounced by the Ravens in a 34-10 beatdown—a game that included 27-degree temperatures. One year later, in January 2025, Houston lost a 28-19 contest in Kansas City in a game that reached -4 degrees.
But the Texans' track record in cold weather stretches beyond a two-game sample.
Since 2020, the Houston Texans have been 3-11 in cold-weather games in December and January. This 27.2 win percentage hardly speaks to how well this team has performed over the past several seasons.
While the Steelers are hardly perfect in cold-weather games under the elements, they've found much more success in this area.
It stands to reason why teams like the Texans and the Miami Dolphins have had such a hard time finding postseason success; it's not easy shifting climates and playing cold-weather games on the road in the playoffs. Houston was better than Pittsburgh during the 2025 regular season—of that there is no doubt. But the Steelers might hold the advantage that matters most in tonight's Wild Card game.