While finding a way past the Patriots clearly remains the thing on the collective minds of Pittsburgh's football fans, their team doesn't sound concerned with that just yet.
At some point, the Steelers will have to find a way to reverse the results of last season's AFC Championship Game, a 36-17 defeat. But they will worry about that when the two meet again Dec. 17 at Heinz Field.
In the meantime, the Steelers have bigger concerns -- such as how to continue winning in the second half of the season to assure that game against New England will matter. It would also give them an opportunity to play any potential rematch with the Patriots in January at Heinz Field.
They already found that playing the Patriots in Foxborough isn't a solid plan for success.
A 6-2 record gives the Steelers a 2 1/2-game lead in the AFC North, a division they haven't run away with since going 15-1 in 2004. It also has them thinking about the big picture as their record leaves them tied with the Patriots for the best record in the AFC.
"No, we are a hungry team," Stephon Tuitt told me. "There’s no doubt about it. You’re talking about a team that, for the last three years, has made it a step further every season and has been in playoff contention every year with the same guys who have had a chance to be together, to gel together and grow together. To be able to have that No. 1 seed is what we strive for. It’s something we can accomplish. It’s the type of talent we have defensively and offensively."
The Steelers haven't had the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs since that 2004 season. In 2005, when they won their first Super Bowl of the Ben Roethlisberger era, they entered the playoffs as the AFC's sixth seed. In 2008 and 2010, they advanced to the Super Bowl as the second seed.
But with five of their final eight games at home, the Steelers feel comfortable with where they have positioned themselves going into the second half, which begins Sunday at Indianapolis (3-6).
"As long as we take care of home, home field advantage will take care of itself if we steal a couple of road games," Marcus Gilbert told me. "Teams are best known for how they finish. If we keep this up, we can have home field advantage. We have the most talented team in football, but talent alone doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s how you execute. A lot of guys are growing up."
And they have grown up together. The roster has been completely reworked from the one that lost to the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl following the 2010 season. Seven seasons is an eternity in NFL years and just six players remain from that team - Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison, William Gay, Maurkice Pouncey, Antonio Brown and Ramon Foster.
David DeCastro has been part of this team's growth process. The 2012 first-round draft pick has been around long enough to see the team struggle to 8-8 records in his first two seasons and lose games against sub-par teams.
But he thinks this one is mature - and good - enough not to stub its toe down the stretch, having learned its lesson in previous years. He's also introspective enough to wonder how this team will react to being the hunted rather than the hunter.
"It's kind of weird," he told me of having a big lead in the division. "I've never really been in this position, so I'm interested to see how we react to it."
Having a strong first half also is something that has been foreign to the Steelers. Despite not having a losing record since 2003, they haven't been 6-2 at the midway point of the season since 2011. And even that season, they finished 12-4, the same record as the Ravens. Baltimore won the division on a tiebreaker, sending the wildcard Steelers to Denver, where they lost in overtime in the first round.
Barring a major meltdown, having to go into the postseason as a wildcard isn't a possibility for this team.
But with nobody to push them and a better start than last season, when they were 4-4 at the midway point and 4-5 after nine games, playing for home field advantage might be the only carrot remaining for this team.
"You can kind of see what's right in front of you," DeCastro said of this season. "In the first half, there's a lot of jockeying. Like last year, we kind of threw some games away, if you will, but once the second half came around, we were like, 'We've got to win them now.' You saw how we played in the second half."
That included a seven-game winning streak to end the season and two more in the postseason before the loss to the Patriots.
The Steelers are 15-3 in their past 18 games, a record bettered only by New England, which is 16-2 over that same span. They just can't seem to get away from the New England comparisons.
And though fans might want to continue looking down the road to the meeting with the Patriots, the Steelers insist they aren't looking that far ahead. They remain focused on beating Indianapolis this week.
Perhaps this is a team that has learned from past mistakes and stumbles.
"It's not hard," DeCastro told me of that focus. "I rarely look a couple of games ahead, if any ahead. It's too hard. You're doing a disservice to your opponent and yourself. It's not college, you don't ever have an easy game."
And the Patriots?
"We'll be ready for them when they come," DeCastro told me. "We're not going to worry about them now."
MITCHELL, HARRISON STILL HURTING
Safety Mike Mitchell remained a limited participant in practice on Thursday for the Steelers as he continues to work his way back from an Achilles' tendon injury suffered at the end of the team's win two weeks ago at Detroit.
Harrison, meanwhile, missed his second consecutive day of practice with a back issue.
If Mitchell is unable to play Sunday against the Colts, Robert Golden would likely be his replacement.
When Mitchell missed a game earlier in the season with an ankle injury, J.J. Wilcox started in his spot. But it was Golden who replaced Mitchell against Detroit.
I asked Wilcox Thursday if he has been moved primarily to strong safety.
"No, I still get reps at both," he said.
But, he did tell me he prefers playing strong safety, where he can use his physicality a little closer to the line of scrimmage.