Next to winning a seventh Super Bowl, of course, one of the Steelers' main objectives this regular season was to clinch a first-round bye in the postseason. With Monday night's dominating 34-6 win over the Texans, they can check that off their to-do list.
Now the question is what to do in Week 17 against the Browns in their regular-season finale.
A meaningless game? It's not quite that simple.
The Steelers (12-3) could still earn the No. 1 seed in the AFC with a win over the hapless Browns (0-15), if the Patriots (12-3) lose to the 5-10 Jets. Should the Steelers risk potential injuries to starters in what should be an easily winnable game against Cleveland while chasing down home-field advantage throughout the tournament, all while hoping that the Patriots somehow lose to a Jets team which has lost three in a row and five of their last six?
During his weekly press conference on Tuesday at the Rooney Sports Complex, Mike Tomlin wouldn't divulge exactly who would play this week.
"I'm undecided, as I stand here right now," Tomlin said, adding that discussions were ongoing.
But it's safe to assume that many key starters will either sit out or make just cameo appearances. The last two times the Steelers earned a first-round bye, advancing to the Super Bowl each time as a No. 2 seed, Ben Roethlisberger started the regular-season finale with two very different results.
In 2008 vs. Cleveland, Roethlisberger was carted off the field after suffering a spinal concussion, though he returned two weeks later for the playoffs. In 2010, Roethlisberger started and threw for 280 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a 41-9 win over the Browns before giving way late to Byron Leftwich.
While Roethlisberger's status -- and others -- is uncertain, Tomlin said the goal and his team's mentality is the same. The Steelers set out to dominate the division and that doesn't change, even after they've already won it.
"The reality is that this is a football game," he said. "We will play and play to win the football game. Who we choose to employ or utilize or activate, we're in the process of discussing. But make no mistake about it, the expectation will be what it is. The people we put on the field, we'll expect them to play and play winning football."
Tomlin said that, after 11 seasons on the job, he tries not to overthink -- "hypothetical conversations," he called them -- of who will play and what could happen. To do otherwise, he said, would set him and the Steelers up for "big-time failure."
The Steelers kick off at 1 p.m., same as the Patriots do in Foxborough. At least publicly, he says he won't be keeping an eye on the out-of-town scoreboard to make coaching decisions based on another game being played 560 miles away.
"We've got no control over that," he said. "We better take care of the business in our stadium."
Last season, in a different scenario with the Steelers having already been locked into the No. 3 seed versus a wild card team, Tomlin rested Roethlisberger, Le'Veon Bell, Antonio Brown and select others in the regular-season finale against the Browns.
In that game, Landry Jones started in Roethlisberger's place and led the Steelers to a 27-24 overtime victory on this 26-yard pass to Cobi Hamilton ...
Tomlin did say definitively that Brown will miss his second straight game on Sunday with a calf injury, but had no update on his progress. It is hoped that the All-Pro receiver will be back for the divisional round.
Other than Brown, the Steelers will enter the final week of the regular season in as good a shape from a health standpoint as could be hoped for at this time of year. That is a departure from the Steelers' past two postseason runs, both of which were ultimately cut short due in large part to injuries (Brown and Bell in 2015 and Bell, again, last season).
If a two-week layoff is the worst thing that the Steelers will have to overcome, Tomlin sounds like he'll gladly take rust over injuries. Asked if he had concerns about shutting down key contributors for two weeks, after having played weekly for the past four months, Tomlin's answer was to the point.
"I don't," he said, before adding for emphasis, "I do not."