The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns will meet with sole possession of first place in the AFC North on the line. The NFL had a chance to give this rivalry the spotlight and passed on it.
Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Most Pittsburgh Steelers fans know the drill by now. A big win overseas in Paris doesn’t buy anybody a week off. The Steelers return home with a shot at undisputed first place in the AFC North when they host the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
That alone should make this one of the most important games on the Week 8 slate. It should have been an even bigger stage. The NFL decided not to flex Steelers vs. Browns into Sunday Night Football at 8 p.m. ET. The game will stay at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday.
In my opinion, that is a giant mistake by the league.
Once you look at what is still on the schedule at 8 p.m. ET, the decision gets harder to defend. The NFL kept the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders in the primetime window, and it’s hard to find much to sell in that matchup.
Let me bring you up to speed on Philadelphia. The Eagles lost two starters off their offensive line, one via trade and one via retirement. On top of the losses up front, franchise quarterback Jalen Hurts is out for the year with blood clots.
The Eagles were already struggling before all of that happened. Now, Philadelphia looks closer to contending for a top-5 pick than for a Super Bowl. That is a tough team to build a national broadcast around.
The other side of the matchup doesn’t help much either. Washington has been one of the worst football teams in the NFL. So you have an Eagles team that is falling apart and a Commanders team that hasn’t been able to get out of its own way, and for whatever reason, the league decided that is the game the whole country should watch on Sunday night.
Why Steelers vs. Browns deserved primetime
Now compare that to what Pittsburgh and Cleveland bring to the table.
For one, there are real stakes. The winner walks away in first place in the division, and in a rivalry this old, that carries weight. Steelers vs. Browns doesn’t need extra juice to draw a crowd, but a division lead on the line certainly provides it.
Additionally, these two teams already put on a show earlier this year. Their Thursday night meeting was one of the better Thursday games so far this season, which is no small feat considering how rough the Thursday slate can be. Fans got a competitive, entertaining football game the first time around, and there is little reason to think the rematch would be any different.
Flex scheduling exists for exactly this situation. The whole point is to move a meaningful game into primetime when the original matchup loses its luster. An Eagles team without its starting quarterback and a Commanders team near the bottom of the league is about as clear a case of lost luster as you’ll find. Meanwhile, a rivalry game with first place on the line was sitting right there.
What it means for Sunday
To be fair to the league, there are plenty of factors behind the scenes that go into these decisions, and network considerations don’t always line up with what fans want to see. Even so, it’s hard to come up with a good football reason to keep the Sunday night game where it is.
For the Steelers, the kickoff time doesn’t change much. Pittsburgh will still have a chance to take control of the AFC North on Sunday, and a win over Cleveland at 1 p.m. ET counts the same as a win at 8 p.m. ET.
But this game deserved a bigger stage. Steelers vs. Browns for first place in the division, after what was already a terrific first meeting, should have been the marquee game of Week 8. Instead, the country gets Eagles vs. Commanders in primetime, and I think it’s safe to say the NFL got this one wrong.
