If Mike Williams and Preston Smith happen to feel a little extra tired by the time the regular season end, it’ll be for a good reason. For the fans and media, the focus on both will be on their play. How well Williams can catch the ball downfield and provide more chunk plays. How effectively Smith can set the edge and get after the quarterback in his rotational reps.

But the quirk is in how much they’re slated to play. With the NFL switching to an 18-week schedule in 2021, Williams and Smith have a chance to join a small club of players to appear in all 18 games in a single season. At least, a small club since football was played on television.

Williams nor Smith had their bye week with their previous teams, the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers. New York wasn’t slated to be off until Week 12 and Smith was heading into Green Bay’s Week 10 bye. Instead, he’ll be suiting up to face the Washington Commanders. Neither had missed a game in 2024, appearing in the first nine games with their old team.

Because Pittsburgh is coming out of their bye, they’re playing nine games the next nine weeks. Do the basic math, nine played with nine to go, and you get to an 18-game result.

How rare is it? Incredibly. Since World War II, it’s only happened once, last year when DT Leonard Williams played all 18 in stints with the New York Giants and Seattle Seahawks. The reason is obvious, the NFL didn’t schedule more than 17 weeks until they expanded the schedule, but the fact remains. Right now, Williams is a party of one.

Unless you go back to the 1920s and 1930s. In a time where players tended to bounce around from club to club and schedules weren’t as tight and organized as they used to be, there are plenty of examples. Per Pro Football Reference, 15 players from 1925-1930 played in at least 18 games. Heck, four of them played in 19, all members of the Frankford Yellow Jackets. A club who once played 20 games in 1925, finishing 13-7. But that was a different era. Clubs would fold, teams would pop up, and there wasn’t structure. Others, like Red Grange, used their star power to their advantage, going on a 19-game “barnstorming tour” in just a 66-day span during the winter of 1925, though not all of those games were NFL-sanctioned.

To any era resembling modern football, Leonard Williams is the only one in the club. Provided good health, Mike Williams and Preston Smith will join them.

They might not be the only ones this season. Without going through an exhaustive list of every roster and possibility, there’s at least two others. New Detroit Lions EDGE Za’Darius Smith and new Dallas Cowboys WR Jonathan Mingo could do the same, traded from the Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers. Teams who had yet to experience their bye and now joining clubs who already enjoyed their week off.

Because Leonard Williams only started 17 games last season and Preston Smith has started all nine so far in 2024, he has a chance to become the first in the modern era to start 18 games in a single season. But knowing the backup role Pittsburgh acquired him for, that’s nearly guaranteed not to happen.

No question, it’s a lot of stress on the newest Steelers. Williams is coming off a 2023 torn ACL while Smith is 32 with more than 7,100 career defensive snaps. Managing their reps may be a factor late in the year, at least in practice, but there’s a line to walk as Pittsburgh gets them up to speed with their new playbooks.

The good news is neither should be seeing 100-percent snap counts on their side of the ball. Williams will log more than Smith but will still be rotated and likely average 50-60-percent of the Steelers’ snaps the rest of the way. Smith will be below that, assuming the group in front gets and stays healthy. The 25-30-percent range, if that.

Factor in a potential-to-likely playoff run and these two will be feeling it come January. Hey, it’s the price of making history. At least, until the NFL expands to a 20-game season and some mid-season trade acquisition ends up playing 19.