The Browns’ mantra this season is “The name on the door is Cleveland.”
That may be true, but the nameplate atop Cleveland Browns Stadium should be changed to “Property of Pittsburgh.”
The Steelers again turned the shores of Lake Erie into their home away from home Sunday night, winning a painful-to-watch 10-6 decision. It was Pittsburgh’s ninth victory in 10 all-time trips to the stadium and gave it a 56-55 lead — its first advantage ever — in the regular-season series.
“Overall, I thought it was one of the best games we’ve played against Pittsburgh in awhile, but we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Browns coach Romeo Crennel, who is 0-7 against the Steelers. “We took points off the board and we kept points off the board.
“We screwed it up. That’s the way I see it.”
As Crennel noted, unlike in most of Pittsburgh’s recent visits to Cleveland, it did not dominate. In fact, had the Browns not played so excruciatingly awful when they had the football, they could have prevented their series-record losing streak from reaching 10 in a row.
Quarterback Derek Anderson was bad, wide receiver Braylon Edwards was worse and the offensive line was uncharacteristically overpowered in the trenches. Even tight end Kellen Winslow Jr., who embodies the word warrior, made back-to-back blunders to stall a third-quarter drive.
“We had a chance at the end of the game and that’s all we could ask for after the way we played in the first half,” said Anderson, who tossed two interceptions in Pittsburgh territory and had a passer rating of 44.5. “I made some bad throws.”
None were worse than the two picks, the second of which was a killer and came with eight seconds left in the second quarter. Anderson threw a terrible pass in the direction of Syndric Steptoe near the goal line, but was picked off by Troy Polamalu.
Instead of heading to intermission tied at 7 or only down 7-3, the Browns went into the locker room without a point on the scoreboard and never recovered.
“That sucked the momentum out of the stadium,” Pittsburgh defensive end Aaron Smith said. “It’s hard to overcome when the offense gets the ball in the red zone and comes away without any points.”
Anderson agreed, saying: “It was a poor read. I should have just thrown it out of the end zone and taken the three points.”
That’s exactly what Crennel did
— and should not have — with 3:21 remaining in the fourth quarter. With Cleveland trailing 10-3, the fourth-year coach opted to kick a field goal instead of going for it on fourth-and-7 from the Steelers’ 20.
With the sellout crowd booing vociferously, Phil Dawson converted the 38-yard try, leaving the game in the hands of the Browns’ defense to stop Pittsburgh before it could run the clock down.
Predictably, the tired unit failed to do so, leaving just enough time for Cleveland to get the ball back and Anderson to throw two incomplete passes and get sacked.
“I thought (kicking the field goal) gave us the best chance with the way the defense was playing,” Crennel reasoned. “In that situation, I felt like I needed the points on the board. I thought about going for it, but I still feel like that was the best decision at the time. We stop them, we score, we win.”
Unfortunately for the Browns, they didn’t score and they didn’t win.
Same story, different season against Pittsburgh.
“It was a great night for the Steelers,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said. “Our guys hung tough and they played off of each other. We aren’t going to apologize for our blemishes, but we came into a hostile environment against a very good team and won.”
Hostile environment? Not on this evening.
Very good team? Not at this point.
Contact Brian Dulik at (330) 721-4059 or brisports@hotmail.com.
 

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