Just when it looked like the Pittsburgh Steelers wouldn’t play another 1 p.m. ET game until late December, the NFL changed the plan. The league has flexed the Steelers’ Week 11 matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles out of its original 4:25 p.m. ET slot and moved it back to the 1 p.m. ET window.

Before Pittsburgh gets there, it has a primetime date with the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday Night Football in Week 10. So the Steelers aren’t disappearing from the national spotlight. Their next game after the Bengals just won’t get the treatment it was originally slated to receive.

Steelers held up their end of the bargain

Let’s be clear about one thing. This flex has nothing to do with the Steelers.

Pittsburgh is 6-2 and sits atop the AFC North. It also has a chance to build on that division lead against the Bengals this week. The Steelers have done everything the league could ask of a team that was handed a premium late afternoon slot. That is the kind of record that earns you more exposure, not less.

The problem is that it takes two teams to make a matchup worth showcasing. Pittsburgh is only one of them.

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Eagles’ collapse forced the NFL’s hand

The truth is, the NFL was probably going to make this move ever since the Eagles started losing. And they haven’t stopped.

Philadelphia sits at 2-7 and is riding a 7-game losing streak. The quarterback situation tells you everything you need to know about where things stand. The Eagles just benched their backup quarterback, Tanner McKee, in favor of their other backup, Joe Milton, a player they plucked off a practice squad.

That team is in shambles right now. There’s no other way to put it.

You can’t lose seven straight games and expect to keep playing in primetime, standalone, or late afternoon windows. Those slots are reserved for games the league believes people will tune in to watch from start to finish. A matchup between a 6-2 division leader and a 2-7 team on its third quarterback doesn’t exactly scream must-see TV, no matter how many Steelers fans would have tuned in.

So I can’t say I’m surprised. This is a decision the league had to see coming for weeks.

Why the move still stings a bit for Pittsburgh

To be fair, this isn’t a complete wash for the Steelers. However, it does cost them something.

The 1 p.m. window tends to feature many more games than the 4:25 or 4:30 p.m. kickoffs. That means Pittsburgh will be splitting the audience with a much larger slate of matchups across the league. In the late afternoon window, the Steelers would have had more eyeballs on them, simply because there’s less competition for viewers’ attention.

For a team sitting atop its division and building momentum, that exposure matters. It’s a chance to show a national audience what this group looks like. Instead, the Steelers will be one of many games on the board that Sunday.

Still, it is what it is at this point. The Steelers didn’t do anything wrong here. They just got caught on the wrong side of an opponent’s free fall.

The good news for Pittsburgh is that it will still have plenty of primetime games, starting with the Bengals on Sunday Night Football, and many more to come. But for now, the Steelers are headed back to 1 p.m. when they face the Eagles in Week 11.