A NEEDED WIN, AN UNNEEDED BRAWL

By STEVE KING

Not just to keep their season alive, but also to boost their confidence by getting the monkey off their back, the Browns needed to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday Night Football at FirstEnergy Stadium.

And they did.

They defeated their nemesis and arch rivals for the first time in over five years, and defensively the Browns manhandled them, especially quarterback Mason Rudolph and a highly-rated offensive line, to the tune of 21-7.

And with just eight seconds left, a brawl broke out between the teams. Ah, just the old days of this heated rivalry for 70 years. What would a Browns-Steelers game be without a knock-down, drag-out bruhaha that cleared both benches and started with Rudolph and Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett?

Ugly? Yeah, but this is hardly the only one in history of this series, or even the worst. There were several far worse than this in the 1970s alone. But it will be the takeaway, especially with the fact the game was, of course, televised nationally. And it is certainly inexcusable, no doubt about it, not even in a rivalry game with raised emotions.

Anyway, the win, the Browns’ second in a row after four straight losses, improved their record to 4-6 and got them to within a game of runnerup Pittsburgh (5-5) in the AFC North.

Before the brawl, the narrative was going to be that Rudolph, who was intercepted four times, is a backup who was pressed into duty after Ben Roethlisberger was lost for the season with a shoulder injury. As such, we are supposed to temper our appreciation of the show the Cleveland defense out on.

OK, but how many times have the Browns, especially in this expansion era, gone to Pittsburgh at the end of the season with a third- or even fourth-string quarterback because of a slew of injuries?

Plenty. But no one ever put an asterisk next to the dominating performance of the Steelers defense, so let’s not do it now.