PITTSBURGH — I have seen the future. It's the past. It's Lamar Jackson again at the Steelers goal line with a chance to win or lose the game.

That's what my crystal ball tells me, anyway, forecasting Saturday night's renewal of the NFL's fiercest rivalry: Steelers-Ravens.

I'm just the messenger.

You already know these teams hate each other. They need each other, too. As then-Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs told ESPN, "You never forget your greatest foe. What would Michael Jordan be without the Pistons and the Knicks? Ali and Frazier. Sports is built on great rivalries like this."

Suggs also said of Ben Roethlisberger, whom he sacked more than any quarterback, "God can have his soul, but his ass belongs to me."

That quote isn't especially pertinent to this piece, but somebody better include it every time these teams meet. And it's not the only mystically centered one I can dig up, either. Ex-Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor said this of teammate Hines Ward, a player on whose head the Ravens once placed a bounty: "Hines always tells us he's trying to knock somebody's soul out of their body."

Yeah, so it's pretty intense out there.

But back to my crystal ball and the critical question: Is this the game where Lamar makes the final shot, instead of clanking it off the rim, as he's done multiple times against the Steelers?

I won't spoil the surprise. We'll get there.

Let's start here: The game will be close. Of course it will. How many Steelers-Ravens games aren't? Before you give me the smart answer that Baltimore won the last one by 17, I'll give you this — 30 of 37 games between Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh have been decided by one score.

Vegas making the Ravens 10-point favorites was an unbelievable slap to the Steelers' faces and bucked every historical trend in the series.

First of all, of those 30 one-score games, 20 were decided by a field goal or less.

Second, while the Ravens won the last game by a closer-than-it-looks score of 34-17, neither team has won consecutive games by double digits in the Tomlin-Harbaugh era.

Third, Tomlin has beaten Harbaugh in 21 of 37 meetings, including two of three in the playoffs and eight of the past 10. The Steelers have beaten Lamar four times in six tries.

Tomlin spoke the truth Monday when he said, "We know how to play this group."

Then, there's the pucker factor. Both teams have it. The Steelers, as you might have heard, haven't won a playoff game in seven years. The Ravens have chronically underachieved in the postseason despite their superstar quarterback. But I'd bet good money that if this game stays within a score into the second half, the Ravens will pucker harder.

See, much of the football world, including Vegas, believes the Ravens will not just win but win big. Baltimore is an ascending team on a hot streak. The Steelers have lost four in a row. The Ravens are a double-digit home favorite. Therefore, as the game devolves into a mud wrestling match (and the crystal ball is telling me it will), the Ravens will begin to feel as if something is going wrong when, in fact, it's just another Steelers-Ravens game playing out like they normally do.

The Steelers will be comfortable in that environment. The Ravens will begin to second-guess themselves.

Why can't we pull away?

This was supposed to be easier.

Do these guys have us right where they want us?

The entire stadium will feel it. Think of the atmosphere at Mountaineer Field when Pitt pulled its legendary upset (I believe the score was 13-9). The Mountaineers were supposed to win by four touchdowns. As the game wore on, without West Virginia pulling away, a million machetes could not have cut the tension.

You know Tomlin is telling his team that as long as it stays close, the Ravens will get crazy late. Patrick Peterson told the world last season of Tomlin's Raven-based philosophy. This was after the Steelers beat Baltimore on a last-minute, 41-yard pass to George Pickens because the Ravens inexplicably went to Cover Zero, the highest-risk coverage there is.

Peterson, then a Steelers cornerback, went on his podcast a few days later and said, "I'll never forget the Wednesday meeting. Coach Tomlin said, 'When it's a dying moment, they'll try to burn the house down.' You go back to that moment, and I'll be damned, they tried to burn the house down."

Harbaugh went haywire again this season, choosing not to put Derrick Henry on the field for a two-point conversion that likely would have forced overtime.

Henry, incidentally, fumbled earlier in the game, his only lost fumble of the year. Two of Lamar's four interceptions this season were against the Steelers.

The Ravens do things against the Steelers that they don't do against anybody else. Lamar somehow does not have a rushing touchdown in his career against them. He has more interceptions (nine) than touchdown passes (eight). Against the rest of the planet, he has 158 TDs and 40 picks. He is 2-4 against the Steelers, 68-20 against everybody else.

Which brings us back to those multiple end-game failures. Two of those were right at the Steelers' goal line. Another ended right near there (in 2020) when Minkah Fitzpatrick broke up a final-play pass.

Will Lamar finally exorcise those demons?

Well, I don't know much about exorcisms, but I know this: The demon must be summoned before it can be cast. And it will be summoned, I'm told, in the form of another Steeler matchup filled with frustration, but one that again winds up with Lamar at the Steelers goal line, trailing something like 22-17 with 20 seconds left.

Only this time, on fourth down from the 3-yard line or thereabouts (it's a little hazy), he will make a play. The ball won't glance off Mark Andrews' fingertips or fly out of bounds or get batted down.

No, Lamar will finally be Michael Jordan in a Michael Jordan moment against the Steelers. He will sink the final shot.

Don't kill the messenger.

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