No Rest For The Steelers

There is no rest for the weary in the NFL.

Certainly not when the league schedules you to play on a Thursday night on the road following a Sunday game.

Less than 24 hours after defeating the Ravens, 18-16, in a hard-fought victory at Acrisure Stadium, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin held his weekly press conference one day early as the team began preparations to travel to Cleveland for a Thursday night matchup.

For a team that went 11 weeks without playing an AFC North game – matching the Bears this season as the longest a team has gone in an NFL season without playing a divisional opponent in NFL history – the Steelers will face two divisional opponents in a four-game span.

Mondays for Tomlin and his coaching staff are typically used to review the previous week's game. In this instance, the staff had to immediately turn its attention to the Browns.

"To be completely transparent, I have not watched a snap of it on a short week," Tomlin said of the Steelers' win over the Ravens that pushed their record to 8-2. "My attention needs to turn to Cleveland. And so my assessment of the game really is just kind of from memory, conversations and reading the game book and seeing some things on highlights and so forth."

The Browns (2-8) are in the same situation, but have the comfort of playing the game at home.

For the Steelers, the job is a little more difficult. Since they'll travel to Cleveland on Wednesday per league rules, they have to jam all of their game preparation into Tuesday's practice session.

And even at that, Tomlin can't have a normal practice because he doesn't want to beat his players up after competing in such a physical game Sunday against the Ravens

"I think one of the things and key variables that you weigh is, how do you best position the group to perform and compete?" Tomlin said. "And by that, I mean, how do you get them in the stadium in the very best physical condition you can get them in on a short week? And so sometimes physical preparation gets compromised on a short week. I'm not complaining about it. I imagine that Cleveland is tasked with the same challenges. Those critical decisions that need to be made about how you work on a short week is a major component of performance."

Though the Steelers have dominated the series since the Browns rejoined the NFL in 1999, going 39-10-1 in that span, the past five seasons have not been as kind, as Pittsburgh is 1-3-1 in that span in road games against the Browns.

That has Tomlin and his staff on alert, especially when dealing with the short work week that involves two divisional opponents.

"When you have back-to-back division games, it is significant, but also to have back-to-back division games, and the second one be on a short week on the road, that has our attention and urgency from a lot of perspectives," Tomlin said. "We have got to make really good decisions this week about strategy, what to run, what not to run, what can we perform on a limited amount of physical repetitions? What do we need to take a calculated risk in terms of running on a limited amount of physical repetitions? I just think that that's always the case. On Thursday, we don't default to base menus and things of that nature, particularly when you plan someone that is familiar with you, as Cleveland is with us.

"How innovative can we be, how expansive can our menus be, and press the envelope in that direction? And so we got some hardcore decisions there. You also got some hardcore decisions about how you work. What's the nature of your work? Are they walk-throughs? Are there run-throughs on a limited amount of preparation time, on a short week? What does that look like? And you know, you manage the balancing act of getting them in the stadium, physically prepared, while at the same time preserving them, acknowledging that they were in a significant physical football game yesterday."