Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers were never really in danger of losing Sunday’s AFC North opener against the Cleveland Browns.
The Steelers scored on their first possession, after which they never trailed, and the game was never again tied. The Browns did absolutely nothing on offense, crossing midfield just once in the first half and failing to break into the Pittsburgh red zone until there were 11 minutes left in the game.
The Pittsburgh offense just needed to lean on Cleveland a little bit, and they did that, getting some big plays on passes from Aaron Rodgers to Darnell Washington, DK Metcalf and Connor Heyward, while Jaylen Warren averaged 4.7 yards per carry on the ground against the league’s second-best run defense.
The Steelers gained 335 yards as a team, with Rodgers accounting for 235 through the air and the ground game producing 100 in totality.
It was not an offensive performance that legends will be made about. It was more than enough to beat the Browns, who in addition to possessing little offensive talent, also approached the game with a mind-numbing defensive strategy.
It’s fine to beat a bad team, and Cleveland certainly is that, without needing to do anything riskier than what the Steelers did on Sunday. While the Browns aren’t good, Myles Garrett can take over a game, and worse, is a threat to end the season of every quarterback he faces on every snap. The Steelers did well to keep Rodgers’ uniform clean while still finding ways to work the ball down the field at times.
But they scored nine points in the first half. In a league where playoff games are so frequently decided by teams trading touchdowns with star quarterbacks, nine points in a first half isn’t going to get it done. The Steelers have given up 21 points in the first half of their last three playoff games, against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, Josh Allen and the Bills and Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Even if the AFC North looks like it’s the Steelers’ to lose, those are still the final bosses that await in the AFC if Mike Tomlin wants to end his playoff losing streak, and it’s going to take more dynamic offense than we’ve seen from these Steelers so far to make that happen.
That being said, growth from where Pittsburgh stands (14th in scoring, 29th in yards) will likely be difficult to come by, considering the personnel. Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith has done a very nice job of finding a way to scheme a team with one legitimate threat at wide receiver into two straight victories.
The Steelers have leaned on their jumbo offensive personnel package with extra offensive lineman Spencer Anderson and 300-pound tight end Darnell Washington paired together to create what is essentially a seven-man front these last two weeks. They mostly ran out of that alignment to beat the Minnesota Vikings in Week 4. Sunday against the Browns, they came out throwing out of it,...
