The Pittsburgh Steelers entered Week 14 needing a home win against the Cleveland Browns. In their first matchup in Week 12, the Browns upset Mike Tomlin’s team under the lights of Thursday Night Football. This time around, the Steelers got the last laugh.
With George Pickens absent with a hamstring injury, Pittsburgh’s offense had tremendous difficulty moving the football in the first half. This resulted in the Browns jumping to an early 7-3 lead. However, the best team eventually won out, as the Steelers went on to seal a 27-14 victory.
At one point, Tomlin’s team held a 27-7 lead in the fourth quarter and the game felt out of reach for Cleveland. However, the Browns had a chance to fight back and make the game interesting before shooting themselves in the foot.
After the Browns forced a three-and-out to open the fourth quarter, quarterback Jameis Winston capped off a 14-play, 79-yard drive with a 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end David Njoku. A few plays later, Steelers running back Cordarrelle Patterson coughed up the football and the Browns recovered at midfield.
This gave Cleveland a short field and a chance to march down and make it a one-score game. That’s when the Browns out-Browned themselves.
Two plays after being handed a gift, Winston sailed a pass over the head of his intended target the throw resulted in an interception for Steelers cornerback James Pierre (who was filling in for a banged-up Donte Jackson).
Cleveland’s defense held Pittsburgh’s offense to negative fifteen yards on the next three plays, but the final icing on the cake was Kadarius Toney’s fumble on a Corliss Waitman punt that was recovered by Steelers gunner Ben Skowronek.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers wanted to be taken seriously as a bonafide contender in 2024, they couldn’t afford to let the 3-9 Browns come to Pittsburgh and execute a clean sweep over their AFC North rival. Thankfully, the Steelers took care of business (with a little assistance from Cleveland).
Before the Browns’ late-game mishaps that drove the final nail into the coffin, Winston threw a point-blank interception to Keeanu Benton in the first half on a screen pass and kicker Dustin Hopkins missed two makeable field goals.
Without Pickens in the lineup, the Steelers struggled to get things going offensively. Unsurprisingly, it ended up being the defense that bailed out a struggling offensive unit. Quarterback Russell Wilson finished the game completing just 15 of 26 passes for 158 yards (though he did cap off a pair of drives with touchdown passes).
It’s nice to know the Steelers can win comfortably without their top offensive weapon, but this may have had more to do with playing an unthreatening opponent than anything else.
