This is not an article about just the Pittsburgh Steelers. It is about a “rival” that has been a barnacle on the underbelly of the National Football League for 16 sad, grueling seasons. A few years after Art Modell moved his Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, effectively destroying what was left of the fans and the city’s football landscape, the franchise was reborn due to league expansion. When the schedule came out for the 1999 season and, alas, it was Pittsburgh visiting the sparkling new Cleveland Browns Stadium (now FirstEnergy Stadium) for Week 1 and Sunday Night Football on ESPN, a fresh opportunity arose for the “Mistake by the Lake” to build a successful football team.
Pittsburgh won on that night of “firsts” for the new Browns, 43-0, setting a tone that has barely changed in nearly two decades. Cleveland’s ownership, front office management, coaching staff and quarterback situations have changed more times since the turn of the century than anyone associated would like to count. The Steelers have won 27 of 32 meetings, including 17 of the last 19 over the past ten seasons. This version of the Browns is 2-15 in Pittsburgh and just 3-12 hosting the Steelers on their home turf. The two teams met in the playoffs in 2003 and Pittsburgh won in predictably miserable fashion for the Browns, who blew a lead they held well into the fourth quarter. Cleveland has not returned to the playoffs since that debacle. Two hours southeast, their rivals in black and gold have been to three Super Bowls, won two of them, and have had just two head coaches. Poor Cleveland has had eight in that span. Eight! Okay, one was just an interim, but Mike Pettine is the fourth in just six seasons, which just seems unfathomable.
But that is the reality for these Browns. Surely they will figure it out soon, says common sense. Common sense, though, does not often surface in the National Football League and until this team can sustain some long-term success, they will hardly be taken seriously. What’s scary for the Steelers (3-2) as they head into Week 6 at FirstEnergy Stadium, is that they had better take the Browns (2-2) very, very seriously. A loss would put Mike Tomlin’s group at just 3-3, having played a fairly easy schedule a month and a half into the season. A win keeps pace with the Bengals and Ravens near the top of the AFC North standings.
Recall that in Week 1, the Steelers absolutely dominated Cleveland en route to a 27-3 halftime lead, only to completely collapse and barely escape with a 30-27 triumph on a Shaun Suisham field goal. Since then, Pittsburgh has alternated wins and losses, falling hard to Baltimore, crushing Carolina, getting upset by Tampa Bay and slipping by Jacksonville. Now getting Cleveland again, it will be the earliest the division opponents have played each other twice since 1989, when they met in Pittsburgh in Week 1 and in Cleveland in Week 6, mirroring this schedule.
Cleveland has played in four close games, competitive in all of them. The Browns defeated Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints in their home opener in Week 2, lost a tight one to Baltimore the following week and, after a Week 4 bye, put together the largest comeback victory by a road team in NFL history at Tennessee. Down at one point 28-3 in the second quarter, QB Brian Hoyer and the Browns defense engineered a comeback that resulted in a 29-28 win, prompting head coach Mike Pettine to joke during the post-game press conference that he had an EKG scheduled for the next day.
Be quite sure that Pettine will not be joking on Sunday. He can set a tone early in his coaching tenure that this franchise has turned a page and can finally be relevant not only in the AFC North, but league-wide. He has a quarterback who is not especially skilled or physically imposing, but who has shown (in small samples) that he can win games. He has a strong offensive line and quality running backs. He has a group of receivers that is getting by without its most talented member, Josh Gordon, who is suspended indefinitely. He has a defense that has, frankly, underachieved so far and, with any improvement can be more than formidable.
You can laugh about the history of the “Brownies” and reminisce back to that 43-0 Steelers win in Cleveland’s 1999 expansion debut. Think fondly of the 41-0 and 41-9 victories in Cleveland in 2005 and 2010, respectively. All of that was great for the Steelers Nation, but all of it is irrelevant here in the present. You may believe that Johnny Manziel is overrated and will never be a major contributor to this team. I urge you, however, to not blindly believe that Sunday’s game in northeast Ohio is another lock. All arrows point to a close game and a vital one for the direction of each team’s 2014 season.
