by Bo Marchionte
@bomarchionte | College2Pro.com
Published October 30, 2026, 8:49 AM
Steelers-Browns: The NFL’s Most Dysfunctional Divorce Is Getting Interesting Again
There is something wonderfully dysfunctional about the relationship between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns.
Think of a bitter divorce where one spouse has moved on, remarried, purchased a beautiful home and occasionally vacations in the Caribbean.
The other is still driving past the old house at midnight, checking the windows and hoping the plumbing explodes.
Welcome to Cleveland versus Pittsburgh.
For decades, the Browns have treated the Steelers like an ex-spouse whose happiness is a personal insult. Pittsburgh doesn’t necessarily hate Cleveland anymore. That would require thinking about Cleveland.
And therein lies the cruelty of this once-glorious rivalry.
Nothing infuriates an ex quite like discovering you’ve become irrelevant.
For generations of Browns fans, the sweetest Sunday isn’t necessarily a Cleveland victory. It’s watching Pittsburgh lose. Misery has become such a reliable companion along Lake Erie that Steelers defeats are practically considered a second source of income.
But here’s where this peculiar football marriage gets interesting.
The Browns have won four of the last six meetings.
And suddenly, the ex is looking pretty good again.
Before Pittsburgh Became Pittsburgh
There was a time when Cleveland owned this relationship.
Before the Steelers became professional football royalty, they were something closer to a traveling circus with shoulder pads.
Pittsburgh once possessed the rights to Johnny Unitas and Len Dawson, two future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, and somehow managed to let both escape without becoming the franchise’s answer.
Meanwhile, Cleveland was collecting championships.
Eight of them, actually.
Four in the All-America Football Conference annd another four in the NFL, the last arriving in 1964.
Browns fans love reminding people of those eight championships. It’s adorable, really, like your grandfather explaining how much better television was before color.
The Detroit Lions won four NFL championships between 1935 and 1957. Ask a Browns fan how much those mean today, and watch the historical gymnastics begin.
Cleveland’s glory days belong to an era when the forward pass was still treated like modern technology. The football equivalent of somebody unveiling the iPhone while half the room demanded to know what was wrong with their rotary telephone.
Those championships absolutely count.
So do dinosaurs.
Neither has been seen around Cleveland in quite some time.
The Browns remain one of four NFL franchises never to reach a Super Bowl.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, drafted Terry Bradshaw in 1970 and proceeded to change the family business.
Four Super Bowl championships followed during the decade, transforming the Rooney family’s franchise into something beyond football.
The Steelers became a cultural institution.
Black and gold became an identity, a religion without Sunday morning services because everybody was busy watching the game.
When Cleveland Actually Had Pittsburgh’s Number
The Browns weren’t always the punchline.
During the late 1980s, Cleveland was a legitimate AFC heavyweight, with Bernie Kosar conducting the offense and a generation of Browns fans to dislike John Elway for eternity.
From October 5, 1986, through September 10, 1989, Cleveland beat Pittsburgh seven consecutive times.
Seven.
The final humiliation came in the 1989 season opener when Cleveland walked into Three Rivers Stadium and dismantled Pittsburgh 51-0.
The Steelers eventually returned the favor with a 17-7 victory in Cleveland five weeks later, but the Browns had established something Pittsburgh couldn’t dismiss.
For a while, Cleveland was the bully.
The early 1990s became a back-and-forth exchange of punches. Pittsburgh would win one, Cleveland would answer, and the rivalry still possessed the venom that makes divisional football worth watching.
Then came January 2, 1994.
And everything began changing.
The Afternoon Pittsburgh Changed the Locks
Bill Belichick stood on Cleveland’s sideline.
Bill Cowher stood across from him.
Two men who would eventually become synonymous with football excellence, although their futures were heading in dramatically different directions.
The Browns entered Three Rivers Stadium at 7-8.
Pittsburgh was 8-7.
The Steelers won 16-9, finishing 9-7 and securing a playoff berth.
It wasn’t particularly beautiful. Pittsburgh football rarely needed to be.
But that afternoon became a dividing line in the relationship.
Cleveland had spent years believing it belonged in Pittsburgh’s head.
Soon, Pittsburgh would barely remember Cleveland’s phone number.
From that January afternoon through the ensuing decades, the Steelers compiled an extraordinary 48-13-1 record against the Browns.
Forty-eight victories.
Thirteen losses.
One tie.
And the cruelest part wasn’t simply Pittsburgh winning.
It was Pittsburgh finding somebody else to hate.
Baltimore Stole Cleveland’s Marriage
Enter the Baltimore Ravens.
The franchise born from Cleveland’s original Browns organization eventually became Pittsburgh’s most compelling adversary.
The Ravens brought Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs and an appetite for physical violence that made Steelers-Ravens games feel less like sporting events and more like disagreements settled behind a neighborhood tavern after a few too many Iron City Beer’s. ( I prefer Miller Highlife)
Baltimore didn’t merely compete with Pittsburgh.
It challenged Pittsburgh’s identity.
The Ravens were everything the Steelers respected and despised simultaneously.
They played defense.
They hit people.
They won championships.
Suddenly, Cleveland was the forgotten ex watching Pittsburgh develop an entirely new toxic relationship.
Imagine the indignity.
For Steelers fans, Browns week gradually became another date on the calendar.
For Cleveland fans, Steelers week remained a personal referendum on happiness.
That’s the difference between rivalry and obsession.
One side needs the other.
The other side has dinner reservations with someone else.
But Somebody Forgot to Tell Cleveland It’s Over
Here’s the uncomfortable development for Pittsburgh.
The Browns are beginning to make this relationship interesting again.
Cleveland has taken four of the last six meetings, including a 27-24 victory in Week 4 this season.
That game ended with Andre Szmyt drilling a 56-yard field goal with ten seconds remaining.
The Browns have started 5-2, an almost comical turnaround considering Jacksonville embarrassed them 34-10 in Week 1.
Cleveland has won five games in the fourth quarter, developing the kind of late-game nerve usually reserved for teams that haven’t spent generations finding inventive ways to lose.
The Ex Is Coming Over Sunday
Pittsburgh enters Week 8 with an opportunity to take sole possession of first place in the AFC North.
The Steelers are 5-2. Cleveland is 5-2. Cincinnati sits at 4-2.
With nine weeks remaining after this weekend, the division is beginning to resemble a crowded bar with drunks.
The strange part is that Cleveland, of all franchises, stands between Pittsburgh and the top of the standings.
The Steelers remain unbeaten at home, something McCarthy isn’t taking lightly.
“There’s no place like home,” McCarthy said. “Our fans are incredible. I mean, the environment on the North Shore is exactly what you’re looking for.”
He also understands the stakes.
“We really enjoy playing at home, but we also understand the importance of winning your home game, so this is a big one.”
And there it is.
For the first time in a while, Pittsburgh has something meaningful to lose against Cleveland beyond the usual indignity of losing to Cleveland.
The Browns have something even more valuable to gain.
Relevance.
Nobody is suggesting four wins in six games erase decades of Pittsburgh dominance.
Forty-eight victories against thirteen defeats and a tie represent a mountain of evidence that won’t disappear because Cleveland suddenly learned how to finish football games.
But rivalries aren’t preserved in dusty record books.
They’re kept alive by fear, resentment and the uncomfortable possibility that the team across from you might actually be better.
Cleveland once possessed that power.
Then Pittsburgh took it away.
For decades, Browns fans have lived with the bitterness of watching their most hated opponent achieve everything their own franchise couldn’t.
Six Super Bowl championships. Generations of stability. A football culture that never needed to explain why championships from the Eisenhower administration still mattered.
Pittsburgh moved on.
Cleveland never did.
But Sunday offers the Browns something they’ve been missing for most of this relationship.
A chance to make Pittsburgh care again.
Photo Credit Frank Hyatt/College2Pro.com
