The Browns have struggled this season because of poor play by the offense and special teams for much of the schedule. There’s no doubt about that. It’s the absolute truth.
But it’s also a fact — there’s no doubt that, either; it’s the absolute truth — that the Browns have their best defense of at least the modern era, if not for the entire history of the team. CBS NFL analyst Bill Cowher — perhaps you’ve heard of him — called it an “elite” defense early Sunday evening.
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Because of the quality of that defense, the Browns can tip a lot of otherwise bad situations into their favor. That’s exactlly what happened on Sunday at Huntington Bank Field in their 13-6 win over Pittsburgh, keeping the Steelers from clinching the AFC North championship and subsequently forcing them to come back this Sunday night at home in a winner-take-all game against the Baltimore Ravens in the regular-season finale.
As his fellow panelists/analysts discussed the Steelers-Ravens matchup, Cowher made the point several times, to which there was complete agreement, that Pittsburgh will not be facing “a Browns-level” defense in Baltimore, which gives up plenty of yards, and that there will be opportunities for the Steelers to make plays.
At no point during that conversation, or in any other they had during the course of the day, did Cowher and his CBS NO teammates demean or downplay the Browns’ win or their performance. Yes, Cowher loves Cleveland in having played, and coached, for the Browns four decades ago, but he loves Pittsburgh and the Steelers much more, having grown up in that area rooting for the team and then fashioning a Pro Football Hall of Fame head coaching career with the Steelers. All that is obvious regarding both franchises and cities — he wears it on his sleeve and makes no apologies for it — but he doesn’t let it affect his opinions and viewpoints. He tells it like it is in an objective — and professional — way.
Considering all that, then, I find it interesting — and quite disrespectful to the Browns, and especially that defense — that Mike DeFabo, who covers the Steelers for The Athletic, called getting beat by Cleveland “one of the worst losses” in the Mike Tomlin Steelers coaching tenure.
Again, as we pointed out on Sunday, the Browns controlled the game from start to finish and deserved to win. The Steelers never came close to solving that defense. It wasn’t that the Steelers lost, but rather that they got beat. They got outplayed, no question about it.
As an aside to this, the importance of defense, as it pertains to the Steelers, was displayed in full view 49 years ago, in 1976, during the Chuck Noll head coaching era. The two-time defending Super Bowl champion Steelers, battling injury problems at quarterback, fell to 1-4 after their 18-16 loss to the Browns at Cleveland on Oct. 10. At that point, their historically-good defense took over, playing historically well in leading Pittsburgh to 10 consecutive wins and a spot in the AFC Championship Game, where it fell 24-7 to the Oakland Raiders. Tell those Steelers players that an elite defense is not worth much.
In one final note, I wonder that in an area beginning in Toledo and heading southeastward through Cleveland to Pittsburgh to the rest of Pennsylvania to Maryland and to Baltimore, of the number of TVs that were on Sunday afternoon, what percentage were watching Browns-Steelers? I bet it was extraordinarily high.
Steve King
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