What initially promised to be a pivotal AFC North showdown in Week 12’s Thursday Night Football has morphed into something quite different.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns, two teams heading in opposite directions, are set to face off at Huntington Bank Field with varying stakes at play.
Cleveland’s inactive list brought few surprises ahead of the 8:15 p.m. kickoff.
QB Bailey Zappe, RB D’Onta Foreman, CB Chigozie Anusiem, T Jedrick Wills Jr., and TE Geoff Swaim will all watch from the sidelines.
The absence of Wills, coupled with Dawand Jones’s placement on IR, thrusts Germain Ifedi into the starting lineup, adding another wrinkle to Cleveland’s offensive challenges.
The Steelers arrive in Cleveland riding high after their crucial Week 11 victory over Baltimore.
At 8-2, they’ve established themselves as legitimate contenders, sitting comfortably atop the AFC North with a 1.5-game cushion.
More impressively, they’re just a single game behind the Kansas City Chiefs for the conference’s top seed. While their path hasn’t been without bumps, they’ve emerged as one of football’s elite teams.
Meanwhile, the Browns’ season has taken a sharp turn south.
At 2-8 following their defeat to New Orleans, playoff aspirations have all but evaporated.
Thursday’s prime-time matchup offers them a chance to play spoiler against their division rivals, but the mood in Cleveland is far from optimistic.
Yet, even with these teams on divergent paths, the historical weight of this AFC North rivalry remains intact.
Pride still matters, especially under the bright lights of Thursday night, where bragging rights and division supremacy hang in the balance, even if only one team’s postseason hopes truly depend on it.
