Here's the latest from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Steelers confronted with a new reality: Browns get the last laughJanuary 11, 2021
By Brian Batko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
They say every dog has its day, and Sunday, the Dawg Pound finally had their night at the expense of the team from Pittsburgh.
Oh, sure, the Browns have beaten the Steelers before. Just last week, in fact. But rarely has it felt like this, with these stakes, on this stage — and after that much build-up.
“It means a lot. It says we’re changing the culture over here,” Browns running back Kareem Hunt, who scored two touchdowns, said after their 48-37 win in the wild-card round. “I believe we’re going to be a real good football team for a long, long time.”
And that’s one of the realities that must be confronted by the Steelers, who rarely have had to consider this a rivalry. It’s the first postseason win in three tries for Cleveland over Pittsburgh, a series which has long been lopsided in the Steelers’ favor.
The only question was whether the Browns would experience acute heartbreak — like their 36-33 come-from-ahead loss in their last playoff trip in 2002 — or a slow burn of failure, such as just about every other season since then.
“We are here for a reason,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “There is a new standard, and I keep talking about it. I know I was not here for the things that have happened in the past, some of which I was too young to even remember. There is a new standard, and we are going to try and keep it that way.”
They move on to the divisional round of the playoffs as a surprise contender, where they’ll join a franchise many often expect to be there in the Ravens. Baltimore has cemented itself as an annual thorn in the side of the Steelers, but if the Browns continue turning a corner, the AFC North will take a different shape.
And the next step in a potential Cleveland renaissance came in the wake of what was at least perceived as disrespect from the team that treats them like a bi-annual punching bag. Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was just quoting a Mike Tomlin cliche in calling this week’s opponent “nameless, gray faces” but he also passed on the opportunity to acknowledge their 2020 turnaround, instead opting to sum up his thoughts with “the Browns is the Browns.”
Smith-Schuster is even younger than Mayfield, but surely he knows what the Browns have forever been, and thus how a statement like that could, and would, be received.
“We definitely didn't appreciate it, and feel like we made that known tonight with our performance … a big win in their house,” said star pass-rusher Myles Garrett. “I think we’ve got what it takes to keep it going.”
Well, maybe not, considering the Kansas City Chiefs await next. But if the Browns are to make a miracle run, they might as well do it the hard way, considering every step forward for the franchise has been like pulling teeth.
Perhaps now, finally, the future is bright, and it sure would be fitting if the first chapter of real change starts with getting over the hump against the Steelers for once. Surely, they would’ve loved to have won this one in front of their home fans, but sending the Steelers out on their home field is a savage twist of the knife.
Mayfield was asked what it feels like to go from winning a game no one expected them to win, right into another situation in which most of the world will be doubting their chances. His reply?
“Sounds pretty normal to me.”
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Joe Starkey: Steelers loss something far beyond a nightmareJanuary 11, 2021 1:15 AM
By Joe Starkey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Leave it to Al Michaels to put an unfathomable sports moment into perspective.
“Cleveland fans, you are not dreaming this,” Michaels told an NBC audience as the Browns were putting up a modern-day, playoff-record 28 first-quarter points. “Pittsburgh fans wish they were. It’s a nightmare.”
Actually, Michaels might not have gone far enough. This 48-37 loss was something far beyond a nightmare for the home team.
It might have been the single most embarrassing loss in the Steelers’ 88-year history.
Yes, including the Tebow game.
Don’t let the final score fool you. Much like their 45-42 elimination loss to Jacksonville three years earlier, the Steelers scored a junk touchdown to put a little lipstick on the pig.
Pigs flew Sunday night at Heinz Field. Hell froze over. Charlie Brown kicked the ball. And the little brother Browns won a road playoff game for the first time since 1969, punching the bully like his face was a speed bag.
It felt like an exorcism. The Browns hadn’t won a playoff game of any kind since 1995, when Bill Belichick was their coach, and had not even participated in one since blowing a 24-7 third-quarter lead on the same field 18 years ago.
They had lost 17 games in a row here, including one three years ago that finished off their 0-16 tour de flop.
They were so bad that dead people were criticizing them.
Late in that 0-16 season, an obituary on a long-suffering Browns fan from Mansfield, Ohio, began thusly: “Paul Stark passed away on December 27, 2017, of complications from a brief illness, exacerbated by the hopeless condition of the Cleveland Browns.”
Did I mention the Browns didn’t even have their coach Sunday? They were missing several players and coaches, including head coach Kevin Stefanski, on account of COVID issues. Quarterback Baker Mayfield barely knew a player who appeared in the huddle in the fourth quarter, later referring to new lineman Blake Hence as a “a guy named Blake that I introduced myself to literally in the locker room before the game.”
Finally, the Browns practiced only once all week — but that was before they ran into a Steelers team that looked as if it hadn’t practiced in years.
On the first play from scrimmage, Maurkice Pouncey nearly snapped the ball to Station Square. It flew over Ben Roethlisberger’s head and bounced into the end zone, where Karl Joseph pounced on it (pun intended) for a Cleveland touchdown.
It was 7-0 just 14 seconds in, and it only got worse. The Browns led 35-7 at the half.
Hard to believe the Steelers started 11-0 before losing five of their final six.
“We were a group that died on the vine,” coach Mike Tomlin said.
The 2020 Steelers also were a group, like previous incarnations, that seemed a little too sure of itself. And for little reason. They have, after all, only won three playoff games since the Tebow loss in 2012.
Three years ago, the Steelers were guaranteeing wins and predicting they would play the Patriots in the AFC Championship. This time, the Browns and their fans seized on the words of receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who said he was happy to play Cleveland again and added, “I think they’re still the same Browns teams I play every year. … They have a couple good players on their team, but at the end of the day, I don’t know. The Browns is the Browns.”
Mayfield put that phrase — “The Browns is the Browns” — on his Instagram account before the game, and people are now predicting it will be a T-shirt in Cleveland.
Retired Browns tackle Joe Thomas was asked Sunday morning on NFL Network how he imagined JuJu’s words went over.
“I think it was honestly the turning point,” Thomas said. “I talked to a lot of those guys early in the week, and a lot of people in Cleveland thought this game was over. There was this emotional letdown, and then all of a sudden JuJu gives them this gift. Honestly, I think it woke up a lot of people.
“It may not have motivated the Browns, because it’s the playoffs. They don’t need any more motivation. But what it did do is put more pressure on the Steelers. … And let’s be honest, they’ve lost four out of five coming in, so they’re not exactly on fire.”
Unless it’s a dumpster fire, of course, and by the end of this one, fans were wondering if Roethlisberger might have played his final game. He sat on the bench misty eyed for 10 minutes afterward, mostly with Pouncey, after completing 47 of 68 passes for 501 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions.
Roethlisberger apologized to teammates and fans but gave little indication he was thinking of retirement. He has one year left on his contract, at a cap hit of $41.25 million.
“I hope the Steelers want me back, if that’s the way we go,” Roethlisberger said. “There’ll be a lot of discussions, but now is not the time for that.”
Now is the time to throw it back to Michaels for the final word.
“I know it’s the cliche of cliches,” he said, as time ticked down. “But nothing lasts forever.”
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