Thursday was a great night for the Cleveland Browns, which means it was a horrible night for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Cleveland defeated Pittsburgh, 27-24, on Thursday Night Football, and the Browns’ win sent a couple of messages to the Steelers. Not only did Cleveland show that it’s currently the better team, the Browns proved that their future is much brighter than Pittsburgh’s.
The night before the game, the Steelers made a big decision to trade veteran cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys. Pittsburgh selected Porter in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft, and he turned out to be one of the best corners in football.
However, with 2026 being the final year of Porter’s rookie deal, it was time for the Steelers to pay him, but the two sides couldn’t agree on a deal.
That led to Porter missing all of training camp and not playing a snap for Pittsburgh this season before he was ultimately traded to the Dallas Cowboys. While these kinds of situations are business as usual in the NFL, this one specifically speaks to a problem for the Steelers — and a good thing for the Browns.
Pittsburgh doesn’t seem to be setting itself up for future success, but in Cleveland, the future is extremely bright.
Browns flex promising future over Steelers’ bleak outlook
In the last two years, Pittsburgh has traded three of its most promising young players in Porter, George Pickens, and Broderick Jones, all to the Cowboys. While each situation had circumstances that could justify the move, those trades perpetuated the Steelers' ongoing problem of not having young players to build around as they move into a new era.
Pittsburgh is one of the oldest teams in the league, leaning on guys like Aaron Rodgers, Cameron Heyward, TJ Watt, and Jalen Ramsey — all players who seem to be closer to the end of their careers than the start. It’s obviously an aggressive, win-now approach, but the problem is the Steelers haven’t been doing much winning while also abandoning their future.
When the old guard in Pittsburgh finally moves on, the Steelers could quickly fall apart. They haven’t done a good job of securing young talent, and whenever the franchise finds young stars who could possibly be pillars, it moves them. That’s a reality that the Steelers will eventually have to face.
In Cleveland, though, Browns fans are ecstatic, because they have a talented young core that has the potential to lead the franchise to a lot of success in the future.
That was on display Thursday night, as plenty of first- and second-year players made impact plays on both sides of the ball to help secure the win. The young Browns showed that they can handle the old Steelers now — and should be ready to dominate Pittsburgh in the future.
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