CLEVELAND — Instead of rocking division champions hats and T-shirts, Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the Pittsburgh Steelers wore somber looks on their faces following Sunday’s 13-6 upset loss to the Cleveland Browns.
Before he and his teammates began the journey back to Pittsburgh, though, Rodgers sent a message to his teammates ahead of next week’s home game with the Baltimore Ravens that will determine who wins the AFC North and the playoff spot that comes with it.
“I have full confidence we’ll go home and win next week,” Rodgers said.
Why gives Rodgers that confidence?
“Because we’ve done it all season,” he said. “We’ve handled adversity well and when we’ve had to play our best ball, we did. Other than today.”
Rodgers is right. The Steelers overcame an ugly home loss to Seahawks in Week 2 with three straight wins that gave them a commanding lead in the AFC North through five weeks. And after five losses over a seven-game span left them at 6-6 through 12 weeks, the Steelers responded with four consecutive wins that put them on the precipice of clinching the division on Sunday with a week to spare.
The Steelers are certainly capable of responding to adversity again, but that alone won’t get the job done. Simply put, they cannot afford another offensive performance like the one that took place Sunday in Cleveland. If they do, they’ll be watching the Ravens celebrate a division title next Sunday at their house and at their expense.
While DK Metcalf’s absence (via his two-game suspension) was expected slow the Steelers’ offense down, it wasn’t supposed to grind it to a halt like it did on Sunday. In that respect, was Sunday’s game a chance for the Steelers’ offense to see how teams would play them without Metcalf?
“You could say that,” Steelers running back Jaylen Warren said afterward.
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Rodgers in particular was inexplicably off after putting together a four-game stretch that conjured up memories of his MVP seasons with the Packers. He threw low-percentage passes and made head scratching decisions, such as his bomb to Scott Miller on fourth-and-1 from the Browns’ 22-yard-line late in the first half that fell incomplete. The turnover on downs negated Jack Sawyer’s interception of Shedeur Sanders that had given Pittsburgh possession deep in Browns territory.
“One-on-one,” Rodgers said when asked about his decision to throw deep to Miller in that situation.
As he did at the end of the first half, Rodgers quickly moved the Steelers into scoring range at the end of the game. But he finished the game with three consecutive passes to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who was being tightly covered by perennial Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward. Rodgers screamed at the officials for pass interference afterward, but to no avail.
“It was definitely interference,” he said afterward.
Adding insult to injury on the Rodgers’ final incompletion was the fact that Kenneth Gainwell had gotten open underneath prior to Rodgers releasing the ball.
The game’s turning point was on Pittsburgh’s second drive of the second half. Down 10-6, Rodgers engineered a 13-play drive that took over eight minutes on the clock. Rodgers completed several big plays on the drive that included a third-and-8 conversion to Miller. At that point, it appeared that Rodgers and the Steelers were on the verge of another one-possession win, which would have made them 7-2 this season in such games.
Instead, the drive ended with Rodgers inexplicably taking a sack on third down, which turned Chris Boswell’s 49-yard field goal attempt into a 54-yard attempt. Boswell’s kick missed the bottom upright by less than a yard.
Rodgers and the passing game struggled, but the Steelers did have some good performances in Cleveland. Warren ran for 64 of the Steelers’ 131 yards on the ground while averaging 5.3 yards per carry. The defense forced two turnovers while holding the Browns to just 78 yards on 25 carries. Alex Highsmith had two sacks and several other pressures of Sanders.
Pittsburgh’s secondary, playing without cornerback Brandin Echols, held Jerry Jeudy to zero catches in the second half after he caught five passes for 54 yards in the first half.
Those things, however, were negated by an offense that went 3 of 15 on third down and 0 of 3 on fourth down.
“I don’t think we played poorly,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin surprisingly said afterward. “We just didn’t make enough plays. I thought they played well. I thought the game was kind of unfolding in the way that you would anticipate, but we never made that signature play that kind of got us over the hump. That generally is the deciding factor in games like this and we generally make them. We didn’t make them today.”
Rodgers was specifically unable to make the big throw, or many other throws for that matter. Instead of getting easy completions, Rodgers either didn’t have any, or when he did, he often tried the more challenging throw. Putting Rodgers in more advantageous situations will undoubtedly take up a large portion of offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s focus over the next week. It’s up to Rodgers, however, to capitalize on those chances.
“Not much,” Rodgers said when asked what needs to chance heading into next week’s game. “We just have to execute better.”
It’s fitting that the Steelers’ season will come down to Sunday’s game against the Ravens. In a season where nothing has come easy, the Steelers will have to defeat their arch rival if they want to continue playing beyond next week. It won’t be easy, but Rodgers feels that the Steelers have what it takes to get it done.
He isn’t the only one.
“One game doesn’t take us off the track,” said defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, the longest-tenured Steeler. “We’ve been playing good ball as of late. There’s still things we can hang our hat on. Stopping the run, turnovers, controlling the ball, we’ve been good on offense. Giving yourself a shot late. That’s all you can ask for.”
