For the first time this season, an AFC North team has the opportunity to hold a locker room victory speech after defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was head coach Kevin Stefanski yesterday after his Cleveland Browns edged them out with a last-second field goal behind reserve QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who will be starting the remainder of the season after Deshaun Watson’s season-ending injury.
And it was a pretty good little speech, to be honest. It’s the speech you expect to get when you pull out a victory with the deck stacked against you. You don’t ordinarily expect to win too many games with a rookie third-string quarterback, but that’s how they beat Pittsburgh.
“Whatever it f—ing takes. Whatever it f—ing takes. That’s what this game’s about”, Stefanski said, via video from the team’s Twitter account. “But what I see, we talk about connected teams, that’s what I saw today. Was it perfect? No. It doesn’t have to be perfect. But, man, when you fight like crazy, fella, we got a chance”.
Truth be told, the Browns didn’t do much offensively until the final drive, particularly in the second half. They punted five times and were intercepted once on their six possessions lead up to their final game-winning drive, which saw them traverse 48 yards in 1:16 with three first downs to set up the game-winning field goal.
Everybody was making plays. TE David Njoku, who dropped numerous passes during the game, came up big on that final drive. DE Myles Garrett had one of his best games against the Steelers with two sacks and what probably should have been a safety on the first one. WR Amari Cooper and RB Jerome Ford did what needed to be done when it was needed the most. The cornerbacks were stifling. Ogbonnia Okoronkwo was a menace against the run.
“How ‘bout that f—king team win? How ‘bout that team that fought their f—ing ass off out there? How ‘bout that team that had each other’s back for 60 minutes?”, Stefanski said. “And guess what? We needed all those 60 minutes. I appreciate the fight in this locker room”.
The Browns never actually trailed. They scored the first 10 points before the Steelers matched with 10 of their own, but Cleveland got the last word with a game-winning 34-yard field goal from K Dustin Hopkins. Frankly, if it weren’t for a breakaway 74-yard touchdown run by RB Jaylen Warren, this game never would have even looked particularly close in spite of the low score. Pittsburgh simply couldn’t do anything that Warren wasn’t doing for himself.
