One of the biggest games in Week 11 will be taking place in Pittsburgh where the Steelers (7-2) will be hosting the Baltimore Ravens (7-3).
When the Steelers take the field, they’ll be making some NFL history since this will mark their first divisional game of the 2024 season. That’s right, the Steelers went through the first 10 weeks of the season without playing a single game against a divisional opponent, which means six of their final eight games will come against teams from the AFC North. That run starts Sunday against Baltimore.
Before this year, the longest a team had gone to start a season without playing a divisional opponent came in 2019 when the Falcons didn’t play another NFC South team until Week 10. Speaking of the Falcons, they’ve already played an NFL-high FIVE divisional games this year, so it’s kind of crazy that Pittsburgh still hasn’t played any. (The Saints have also played five divisional games.)
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was asked about his team’s unique scheduling quirk this week, and well, he didn’t seem too impressed about the fact that his team was making NFL history.
“I don’t care,” Tomlin said, via the team’s official website. “I’ll play them whenever they schedule us. We’ve got no control over the schedule. Our goal is to beat everybody, but specifically week to week, we get singly focused on this week’s opponent, and so I’d be making it up if I told you I cared about the schedule of when we face people. I don’t.”
The Steelers can take control of the AFC North if they can beat a Ravens team that they’ve gone 7-1 against in their past eight meeetings. (As of now, though, Baltimore is the betting favorite to win the division at FanDuel Sportsbook.)
As for the scheduling quirk, the bizarre thing about the Steelers making history is that Chicago will be joining them. The Bears will be playing their first divisional game Sunday when they host the Packers.
The fact that the NFL scheduled two teams to go through the first 10 weeks without playing a divisional opponent probably isn’t a coincidence. By backloading the schedule with divisional games, that means there’s a higher chance that one team won’t run away with the division and clinch it early.
Back in 2010, the NFL decided to spice up the final week of the regular season by passing a rule that required all games in the final week to be divisional games, so if the league starts pushing more divisional games to the back half of the schedule, it wouldn’t be totally surprising.