Automatik;1670465 wrote:When the so-called "rivalry" is so one sided it happens. Do I want to beat Cleveland? Absolutely. But I get much more satisfaction from getting W over Baltimore.
Pretty much. If Cleveland continues their resurgence and consistently gives Pittsburgh a game and/or beats them as they did this year, they'll be back up there quickly, though. But year after year after year of almost always going 2-0 (with 3-0 and 1-1 being the only other options every great once in a while) against them and it starts feeling more like a "damn well better win" game than any sort of intense rivalry. It probably hasn't helped that during Pittsburgh's really good period before the last few years of mediocrity started, it seemed their second game was in the final week or so of the season fairly often, so you had the Steelers playing a lot of reserves much of the game to gear up for the playoffs, while the Browns would just look utterly apathetic and seemed like they were trying to improve their draft position.
It's just easier to get up for and care about a match-up against a team that's shown it's your team's equal and will likely be fighting you all season, both for the division and probably in the playoffs, like Baltimore has been for some time. Where the games are consistently considered big-time, prime-time material by the networks, so the nation's eyes are on them whether people like it or not. Onus is on the Browns to keep building themselves back up to meet that standard. Or, if Pittsburgh falters this year and continues their mediocre streak of 8-8 seasons, I guess they could fall back to that level. But then it'd be kind of a bummer, as it'd just be Pittsburgh and Cleveland people hating on each other, while the rest of the country is ignoring them.
