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After tearing through prime time for 10 touchdowns and one interception earlier this season, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow looks to stay hot under the bright lights in Saturday night's Wild Wild Card in Pittsburgh (8-ESPN) that sets up like the NFL's first playoff game rather than the regular-season finale.

The Bengals need it to make the playoffs. With the Ravens playing the Browns at 4:30 Saturday, the Steelers may need it to win the AFC North. Burrow loves prime time and prime time loves Burrow.

In three night games from Nov. 8-Dec. 9 that were all decided in the last 61 seconds, Burrow ripped off 1,153 yards and a 106.3 passer rating as the Bengals generated 88 points. He and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase started the four-game winning streak on a Monday night in Dallas with a 40-yard touchdown pass that snapped a 20-20 tie with 1:01 left.

Chase goes into Pittsburgh 60 minutes from winning the third receiving Triple Crown this century with healthy leads in receptions (117-108 over Raiders rookie tight end Brock Bowers), yards (133 more than Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson) and four more touchdowns than Washington's Terry McLaurin.

Chase can also become the 19^th player to have 120 catches in a season.

If his buddy Burrow extends his streak to nine straight games with three touchdown passes (only Tom Brady has more with 10), it would be the ninth time a player threw 45 touchdowns in a season.

Burrow comes into the finale with three more touchdown passes (42) than Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield. With 4,641 yards, he's got a 362-yard lead on Mayfield, and he's 359 yards shy of having the 16^th season of 5,000 yards.

OLD DAYS

Just like the old days at Paycor Stadium in Week 17.

A Saturday 4:30 p.m. start reserved for national-windows and postseason games.

And there was linebacker Germaine Pratt with a late fourth-quarter interception to help keep the Bengals alive for another week.

Of course, when he did it Saturday night against the Broncos, it wasn't as late as his last-snap interception against Raiders quarterback Derek Carr at the Bengals 2 in the 2021 Wild Card.

But when he dove in front of Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix's ball at the Bengals 41 with 2:30 left last Saturday night, it was plenty of time for Burrow to lead a classic game-winning touchdown drive in all of 61 seconds.

Make that what appeared to be a game-winning drive. Nix threw the game into overtime with his 25-yard touchdown heave off his back foot with eight seconds left, but the defense responded with two three-and-outs in overtime as Pratt finished with seven tackles.

"They run that route a lot. An over to 14," said Pratt of the ball to wide receiver Courtland Sutton. "I knew it was coming. I had to get over there."

That's how Pratt got his nickname "Playoff P," and his second interception of the season kept them in the playoff race on a night they held Sutton to nothing on third down. Sutton came in leading the league with yards on third down, but the Bengals held Denver to four-of-12 on third down and Sutton had no catches.

(On the first drive on third-and-two, rookie cornerback Josh Newton was all over Sutton on a fade and forced a field goal.)

PLAYOFF RUSH

Pratt had help from Joseph Ossai’s big rush against tight end Nate Adkins. It appeared that Ossai may have got a hand on Nix's pass as part of an active night on the edge. He tied with cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt to lead the Bengals with eight tackles to go with two pressures and half a sack.

It will be recalled that the strongest part of Ossai's four seasons came in the 2022 playoff run, and now he's been pushed into a starting job because of a knee injury to Sam Hubbard. He's played a career-high snaps the last two games with 51 against the Browns two weeks ago and 50 against Denver.

With Ossai getting the bulk of the 60 snaps opposite NFL co-sack leader Trey Hendrickson, defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo and defensive line coach Marion Hobby changed up their rotation Saturday. Rookie edge Cedric Johnson, the sixth-round pick out of Ole Miss, got 11 snaps that included his first NFL sack and was on the left edge for the last two plays of regulation when Ossai kicked inside.

After getting 34 snaps two weeks ago, Myles Murphy split time with Johnson Saturday and had 24.

Defensive tackle B.J. Hill, who played 54 of the 60 snaps, made a monster play on a screen the play before Pratt's interception for a six-yard loss. He took all the snaps in OT, as did Hendrickson and Ossai on the edge.

Hendrickson shared the sack with Ossai and for the second straight year goes into the finale with a shot to win the NFL sack title. After leading the league since his four sacks against the Raiders on Nov. 3, Hendrickson is in a tie with the Browns' Myles Garrett after Garrett had two sacks Sunday against Miami to reach 14.

The Steelers' T.J. Watt won it last year by two over Hendrickson, 19-17, as he sits at 11.5 heading into Saturday night.

Before Nix took the field for that final hellacious drive in regulation with 1:29 left, the Bengals defense had held one of the league's hottest offenses to 253 yards. The Broncos, who came in scoring the fourth most points since October, had only 17 at that point.

But the Bengals were hurt on Nix's two long touchdown throws to Mims of 51 and 25 yards.

"A couple of big plays down the field got us, but other than that I thought we played pretty well," Hill said. "I think we've started to put it together the last few weeks and it's showed up."

The 25-yard touchdown pass from Nix to Mims with eight seconds left that sent the game into overtime had safety Geno Stone’s mind whirring after the game was long over. The 5-11 Mims launched himself between the 5-9 Mike Hilton and the 5-11 Stone and somehow came down with it. Stone leaped up behind Mims.

"I didn't want to put my hands over in front of him because I didn't want to get a pass interference," Stone said. "After seeing what happened, I would have done something different, but he did make a great catch."

The play didn't start the way the Bengals had wanted. Their whole thing was keeping Nix in the pocket and not allowing him to use his athleticism. But on fourth-and-one, he slipped outside the rookie Johnson's rush after near nearly getting sacked and gunned it off that back foot.

THE GREAT GESICKI

After watching Denver tape, Burrow thought it was a "Mike Game," and it certainly was as he hit tight end Mike Gesicki for a career-high 10 catches and 86 yards. With Chase grabbing nine for 102 yards and Tee Higgins 11 for 131, Elias says it's the first time the Bengals have ever had three players with at least nine catches in a game.

That gives Gesicki 57 catches for 597 yards — the fourth-most catches by a Bengals tight end in a season and the most since Jermaine Gresham had 62 in 2014. He's already got more catches than Tyler Eifert had in his 2015 Pro Bowl year (52) and is 16 yards from his yardage total. What got Eifert to the Pro Bowl were those 13 touchdowns in 13 games.

Gesicki has two touchdowns, but he's zeroing in on the fourth 60-catch season by a Bengals tight end. He probably can't get to his career-high of 73 set in 2021 in Miami, or the Bengals' legendary tight end record of 71 set by the great Dan Ross that has stood for 43 years. But he's been everything the Bengals wanted when they signed him in the offseason.