The Pittsburgh Steelers are fresh off a dominant 23-9 win against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. With that victory, and all other teams in the AFC North losing their third straight game, the Steelers division lead is only getting bigger. The Steelers have a chance to grab their fifth win of the season Thursday night against the Cincinnati Bengals, which would only strengthen their hold on the AFC North.
Former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher thinks Pittsburgh will only get better as the year goes on. And if the Steelers start to run away with the division, he believes they should think about resting their stars.
“This team’s gonna get better, in theory, the more they play together,” Cowher said Sunday on CBS Sports’ The NFL Today. “I think the biggest question you’re gonna have with them, is being their health in December as they go into the playoffs. And I would say, along the way, counting snaps as you start to build this little bit of a lead. Developing the people behind you, and saving those legs. In the past few years, we haven’t had a healthy T.J. Watt or Cam Heyward.”
Right now, the Steelers’ AFC North lead is a commanding one. They are 4-1, and next play the Bengals, who are the only other team in the division with more than one win. Even now, they’re two-and-a-half games ahead of them, three-and-a-half clear of Baltimore and Cleveland, which are both 1-5. The Ravens, expected to be the Steelers’ biggest competition in the division, have a bye this week. If the Steelers win Thursday, they’ll head into Week 8 at 5-1, with a four-game advantage over Baltimore.
If that happens, winning the division should feel like an expectation instead of a hope. But we’ve also seen the Steelers collapse recently. In 2024, they led the AFC North by multiple games late in the year. It took a four-game losing streak to end their divisional hopes in the last week of the season. Keeping the team together and allowing them to build chemistry is never a bad thing. Especially with how rocky things have been at times over the first quarter of the year.
Yet, there is a lot of merit to Cowher’s idea. And it’s something most NFL teams already do, especially in the last week or two of the season. If the Steelers get out to, say a five-game lead in the division over the next few weeks, it makes sense. It might be a little too drastic to take out someone as pivotal as Aaron Rodgers. But resting players like T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Jalen Ramsey, and the rest of the older veterans does make sense.
To some extent, the Steelers are already doing this. Cowher mentions Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt, who are each getting time to rest this season. Watt has played 80 percent of the Steelers’ defensive snaps, and Heyward is down at just 67 percent. If the Steelers’ lead in the division continues to grow, managing playing time could go far beyond just those two.
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