In a Week 8 battle for the AFC North lead, the Steelers let their play do the talking in a dominant win over the rival Cleveland Browns in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
As always, there are plenty of takeaways to be had:
1. Some things never change
It’s been a year of change in the AFC North as three teams have new head coaches. Pittsburgh is no longer under the long-time leadership of Mike Tomlin, while the Browns, with Todd Monken replacing Kevin Stefanski, shocked the world by leading the division through seven weeks.
But the Browns
haven’t won a regular season game in Pittsburgh since 2003, and all that offseason turnover didn’t do anything to change that. History continued. Emphatically. The Steelers won 27-6 in their most lopsided victory yet this season. The Browns were repeatedly punched in the mouth in a game that never felt particularly close.
Much in the way that it’s easy to dismiss what happens in a Steelers’ Thursday Night Football loss in Cleveland — in what feels more like an annually-scheduled night of disappointment rather than a football game with free will — I believe it’s a bit of an overreaction to suddenly declare the Steelers as Super Bowl contenders in a win as clearly telegraphed as this one was.
But at the same time, the story of the game is less about the win and more about how the Steelers won. The pass rush was masterful. The run game was relentless. Pittsburgh’s roster seemed to relish every moment of punishing its rival. The team culture seems to be in a great place, and the Steelers have their most established identity of the season on both sides of the ball after the big win.
When the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy, it was clearly in part a decision to try to keep a similar status quo from the Mike Tomlin era. Yes, plenty has changed in terms of scheme and other details, but the macro-level results: an above-average team, rebounding from brutal losses such as the Patriots in Week 2, and of course, routinely defeating the Browns at home, remains the same.
2. The Steelers dominate the trenches
Eight sacks. Fourteen quarterback hits. Nonstop pressure. The Steelers’ pass rush was absurdly good Sunday afternoon, defeating the Browns’ offensive front with speed and power and making Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson distribute the ball from a war zone.
What was even more impressive for Pittsburgh was how the production was spread across the board, with seven different defenders recording 0.5 sacks or more. The box score doesn’t do it justice, either. Outside linebacker Alex Highsmith was arguably the team’s MVP against Cleveland, logging just a 0.5 sack but generating six pressures against Browns left tackle Spencer Fano, including two quick pressures. He also drew three holding calls, per NFL Pro.
I’ve been as critical as any in regards to the Steelers’ spending choices on defense in recent seasons, and even skeptical at times of the plan to extend (and properly use) all three of T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, and Nick Herbig. But Sunday’s game was an occurrence when all that star power clicked on at once.
It’s one of the most dominant, fun-to-watch performances from a pass rush I’ve seen in recent memory, and although such gaudy numbers are an unrealistic expectation moving forward (this wasn’t even the first time the Browns have given up eight sacks this season), it’s still a promising sign for a group that has already been excellent for much of the year. Simply put, if the Steelers want to be any sort of contender come late-season, the pass rush, as the best position group on the team, is going to have to be the engine of that effort. Sunday was overwhelmingly a strong step in that direction.
Equally as encouraging was the Steelers’ offensive line on Sunday, particularly in the run game. Pittsburgh averaged a strong 6.1 yards per rush, gaining 14 of the team’s 20 total first downs on the ground against Cleveland. One of the highlights of the game was Pittsburgh taking advantage of a pass-expecting Browns front on third and 13 to move the sticks on an interior run.
I feel like I’ve talked ad nauseam about how much Jaylen Warren has meant to this Steelers offense in the takeaways column this year, so there’s no reason to rehash those same points. But it’s also no secret that Warren’s star turn largely correlated with Brock Hoffman and Max Iheanachor joining the starting O-line on the right side earlier this season, and Pittsburgh continues to reap the benefits.
In recent weeks, notably against the Saints and now the Browns, Pittsburgh has also turned to a higher dose of gap concepts in the run game along with more use of an extra offensive lineman jumbo package to further up its production on the ground. With that in mind, it’s probably not surprising to hear those two games have also resulted in Pittsburgh’s best two rushing performances of the year thus far (148 and 200 yards, respectively).
Entering Week 8, the Steelers’ offense ranked 11th in yards before contact per carry and seventh in yards after contact per carry. That’s the sign of a true team effort between blockers and backs in the run game, and I’d only expect both statistics to improve after Next Gen Stats updates for Week 8.
But moving back to the Browns game, it might be even more impressive that the Steelers ran for 200 given that the passing game (more on that later) only mustered 161 yards. Despite failing to achieving balance on offense, Pittsburgh still pulverized Cleveland on the ground and scored nearly 30 points. The Browns had every reason to sell out against the run and still couldn’t stop it. That’s the sign of a truly successful run game.
3. Still some passing game concerns
Here’s the point in the column where I do my usual “Well, the Steelers weren’t entirely as good/bad as they might’ve looked” bit and try not to come across as annoying.
Yes, it was a great win! Yes, the pass rush and run game looked elite! But those two incredibly bright spots covered up a lot of issues. I’m still mildly confused with the “complete” game narrative (Aaron Rodgers also pushed against this) floating around given just how incomplete parts of the team still looked on Sunday. Namely, the passing game.
As mentioned above, the Steelers managed just 161 yards on the air. They didn’t have to throw it much on Sunday, to be fair, but Aaron Rodgers still just completed barely over half of his passes (13/25), averaging an uninspired 6.2 yards per pass. While the passing game to the tight ends worked (Darnell Washington logged three grabs for 94 yards), the team’s wide receiver core only combined for 43, with WR1 D.K. Metcalf contributing a paltry four.
Once again, the Steelers’ passing game was largely restrained to short throws and quick-game screens and dump-offs. And no, this is far from a critique of just Aaron Rodgers. When the deep ball finally was an option, this happened:
The Steelers’ unreal running game success made their passing game struggles somewhat negligible, but that won’t always be the case. If the Steelers want to rise to Serious™ contender status, the passing offense is still several tiers away from looking the part. But to be fair, while neither have been game-breakers, even getting one of Michael Pittman Jr. and Roman Wilson back soon after the bye would be a boost for a team awfully short-handed on starting-caliber wide receivers.
4. A tale of two red zones
The Steelers’ strong defensive performance last week was still met with the cautionary title of “bend don’t break” — and against the Browns, Pittsburgh improved even more on that strategy, with Cleveland going zero for three on trips inside the 20. It wasn’t a perfect performance, with Harold Fannin Jr.’s explosive fourth quarter proving that the secondary still has some holes, but the Pittsburgh defense still isn’t breaking.
However, as impressive as the Steelers’ red zone operation was on defense, the same could not be said of the other side of the ball. The Steelers offense went three for five on their touchdown attempts inside the Browns’ 20, which doesn’t look horrible but is definitely worse when you realize how self-inflicted many of their offensive woes were.
You guessed it: Both of the Steelers’ red zone trips that ended in field goals stalled because the Steelers decided to pass the ball on first and second down inside the Browns’ 15. The results were always incompletions.
Metcalf has never been a consistent jump-ball receiver. What’s the thought process with throwing him a goal-line fade? Especially when the Steelers’ short-yardage run game with Jaylen Warren has been remarkably efficient in 2026.
It’s worth pointing out that the blame might not always fall on play-caller Mike McCarthy, but rather Rodgers, who has a tendency to check to what he views as favorable matchups on the boundary when the team gets into scoring territory. However you want to explain it, the insistence on the passing game in the red zone has been infuriating from the Steelers this year.
5. Odds and ends
- This is going to be a big two weeks for Steelers hype, and after that showing against Cleveland, I can’t disagree with much. But the cream of the contender crop tend to rise in the final quarter of the regular season. Sure, the AFC playoff picture is not all that intimidating at the moment (good news for the Steelers!), but there is a lot of football left to be played.
- I fully expect Mason McCormick’s bodyslam of Jared Verse to stick around in rivalry history for a bit. It’s never a good penalty to take, but it sure was a memorable moment.
- Speaking of which, I’m a little surprised the Verse/Steelers controversy took off to the level it did. On rivalry weeks reporters are always needling to get some interesting quotes (A lot of ,“Rival player said this, what do you think?” is always expected) but a number of Steelers have spent their postgame time Sunday making fun of Verse on social media. There’s definitely some bad blood there.
- Lost in the storyline of the Steelers’ dominance in the run game and pass rush was Cleveland fumbling away the football on the first two drives of the game. That’s always a recipe for a multi-score loss.
- I was happy to see undrafted free agent Kevin Jobity Jr. get his first career sack on Sunday after hyping him up a bit last week. A cool play for a player I’m excited to see develop this year.
- I noticed a handful of slot snaps for Jamel Dean in this game, I’m curious to look into that usage this week.
- I wrote earlier in the week that I’m generally not a fan of the Steelers looking to make trades this year. I still stand by that. But would this offense benefit from Josh Downs? I’m leaning heavily towards “yes.”
- As an aside to my red zone criticisms, the choice to go for it on the goal-line at the end of the second half with the tush push to Pat Freiermuth was a great call and an aggressive move from the Steelers offense. It was also set up by a great and gutsy play by Germie Bernard seconds before.
- Get rested up over the bye week — the Steelers aren’t going to be playing at 1 p.m. EST again for a bit.
After a big divisional win in Cleveland, the Steelers get a Week 9 bye before taking on the Bengals in Cincinnati on Sunday Night Football Nov. 15.
What are your takeaways from Steelers vs. Browns? Agree/disagree with the ones above? Join the Behind the Steel Curtain community and let us know in the comments!
