The Pittsburgh Steelers lost their fourth consecutive game in Cleveland in Week 17, falling to the Browns 13-6 in a game in which the Steelers could have clinched the AFC North.
Nothing is ever easy for
the Steelers, though, so why would this be any different? There aren’t many Varsity names to cover, but be ready for a stuffed JV list.
Varsity
EDGE Alex Highsmith
Highsmith had a pair of sacks and filled in nicely for T.J. Watt as the No. 1 edge rusher. He also provided pressure on the Jack Sawyer interception.
EDGE Jack Sawyer
Sawyer picked off Shedeur Sanders and set the Steelers up in plus territory. Unfortunately, the Steelers thought launching a go-ball to Scotty Miller on 4th-and-1 was a good idea.
RB Jaylen Warren
Warren averaged over five yards per carry and was routinely cutting through the Browns’ defense. For some reason, though, the Steelers threw the ball 39 times instead of continuing to feed Warren, who was picking up good yardage every time he touched the ball. The Steelers had 131 yards on the ground, and probably could have doubled it if they had flipped the number of times they passed with the number of times they ran.
Junior-Varsity
QB Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers’ decision-making in big moments was baffling. The aforementioned go-ball to Scotty Miller on 4th-and-1 when he had Adem Thielien open underneath for an easy first down. Throwing to Marquez-Valdes Scantling not once, not twice, but three consecutive times with the game on the line, the last of which he had Kenneth Gainwell open for what would have been a walk-in score. He averaged just 4.3 yards per attempt and had a QBR of 19.6. I understand that DK Metcalf was out, but there were points left on the board that Rodgers was directly responsible for.
WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling
The buddy-ball with Aaron Rodgers cost the Steelers a potential win. Yes, he scored a touchdown against Miami, but Rodgers clearly pre-determined he was going to MVS in situations where he was covered by Denzel Ward, one of the best cornerbacks in football. I don’t know what Roman Wilson did to basically be scrubbed from the offense altogether, but there is no reason why he shouldn’t get more snaps than MVS in Week 18.
S Kyle Dugger
I know he made up for it with an interception later on, but Shedeur Sanders threw a hot air balloon up to Harold Fannin, and Dugger couldn’t track the ball somehow, which led to a touchdown for the Browns and proved to be the game-winning score.
Slow start
The Browns were leading 10-0 at the end of the first quarter. The defense was brutal and made Shedeur Sanders look like Brett Favre in the first 15 minutes of play. Putting yourselves in that big of a hole that quickly is tough to overcome when you aren’t a great team that can just flip a switch and come back.
OC Arthur Smith
Just run the ball, Art. The Browns couldn’t stop a run to save their lives. If you really wanted to prevent Myles Garrett from breaking the sack record (by the way, who the hell cares?), running it at five yards a clip feels a lot more efficient than throwing as soon as Rodgers touches the ball for a four-yard gain. The Steelers turned basic math into trigonometry offensively against a defense that has struggled with stopping the run.
HC Mike Tomlin
The Steelers are 0-4-1 in their last five games against teams with 8+ losses, which is the longest such streak in NFL history. There isn’t a more Mike Tomlin stat than that. But, of course, it doesn’t matter. He’ll be the Steelers’ head coach until all of us are in the ground, decaying, going 9-8 or 10-7 with no wins of importance until Armageddon, spewing empty, nothing quotes with ridiculous idioms while every loudmouth on every major network clutches their pearls at the completely fair suggestion of moving on from him. It’s an endless cycle that will repeat as long as Tomlin is the head coach, and one that will keep them in mediocre purgatory forever.
Hallelujah. Holy s—t. Where’s the Tylenol?
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