The NFL has officially moved the Week 4 matchup between the Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers off the calendar for this week. An outbreak of COVID-19 among several Titans players and coaches forced the NFL to postpone the game to a later date.
That later date has yet to be determined, and that could wind up impacting the Cleveland Browns.
Cleveland is scheduled to face the Steelers in Weeks 6 and 17 and the Titans in Nashville in Week 13. Those don’t figure to change, but the state in which the opposing teams enter those games could be quite different.
One of the potential solutions is to move the Steelers-Ravens battle in the AFC North from Week 7 to Week 8 and play the makeup game with Pittsburgh in Tennessee in Week 7. The Steelers bye week is scheduled for Week 8, as is Baltimore’s, so that makes the most sense without impact too many other teams.
One scenario for #Titans vs. #Steelers later this season. pic.twitter.com/t8hNwGfpGO
— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) October 1, 2020
If that happens, the Browns catch the Steelers in Pittsburgh after their bye (this week) instead of leading into it. Pittsburgh hosts 0-2-1 Philadelphia in Week 5 before Cleveland visits the following Sunday. It also means a much longer time between the Browns trip to Nashville and the Titans’ scheduled bye week in Week 7. That’s an advantage for the Browns.
The Browns have their bye week in Week 9.