First place in the AFC North is on the line in Week 8 between a team used to these stakes, the reigning division champion Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2), and a newcomer to these types of games, the Cleveland Browns (5-2). It's been a long time since this matchup meant this much. The Steelers' and Browns' Week 8 game this season possesses the third-best combined record (10-4, .714 winning percentage) entering a matchup this late into the season in the last 50 years.
After Cleveland defeated Pittsburgh 27-24 on "Thursday Night Football" in Week 4, it now has a chance to sweep the Steelers in the regular season for the first time since 1988. That's the longest regular-season sweep drought (34 seasons) for any divisional matchup since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. So, where could this matchup between two hard-hitting defenses and battle-seasoned quarterbacks in Pittsburgh's Aaron Rodgers and Cleveland's Deshaun Watson be won?
Let's take a closer look. After struggling on and off the field for the vast majority of his five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract, Watson has begun to give the Browns some value. He is just the third quarterback since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger with a game-winning drive in each of his team's first five wins of a season, along with Troy Aikman (1990) and Matthew Stafford (2016).
Watson produced at least three completions and 30 yards on all five of his game-winning drives this season. In Cleveland's latest comeback, a 27-24 win against the Tennessee Titans in Week 7, the Browns trailed 14-0 in the first quarter, marking the team's largest comeback win since 2023. Watson had his most prolific game yet as a Brown with 308 yards passing, his most since Week 17 of the 2020 season, and he snapped a streak of 25 consecutive starts without 300 yards through the air.
So how will the Steelers slow down a reinvigorated Watson? Well, they entered Week 8 with the league's No. 5 scoring defense (19.7 points per game allowed) and the league's No. 6 total defense (303.7). The matchup that will decide this showdown will be how Watson pilots the Browns' passing game against the Steelers' zone coverage.
Pittsburgh runs zone at the fourth-highest rate in the NFL, 82.2% of the time, per TruMedia, and it is allowing the ninth-lowest success rate in the league (42.2%) when running zone coverage, per the NFL's Next Gen Stats. When the Steelers specifically utilize their Cover 3 zone, their success rate allowed decreases to 37.2%, the sixth lowest in the NFL. Of Pittsburgh's seven interceptions in 2026, four have occurred in Cover 3, tied for the league lead.
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