Browns: 4 good and 2 bad from the playoff clinching win against the Steelers
By Chad Porto
The Cleveland Browns have finished the regular season 11-5 and have finally returned to the playoffs after 18 years by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Cleveland Browns are heading to the playoffs for the first time since 2002. The Browns clinched their 11th year of the season by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers 24-22 in a game that saw both squads coming in with several key pieces of their team missing. For the Steelers, it saw Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Heyward, and T.J. Watt sitting, while the Browns saw B.J. Goodson, Andrew Sendejo, Harrison Bryant, and their Pro Bowl corner Denzel Ward forced out due to COVID-19 precautions.
This set up a game where the Steelers defense and Browns would have to each overcome issues in order to win. The Steelers were battling for second place in the playoff seeding, while the Browns were just fighting for a spot at all. Good thing they showed up to fight, had the Browns lost, they would’ve found themselves in a situation where they’d be on the outside looking in, as every other scenario that had to happen to get the Browns in the playoffs in the event that they lost ended up not happening.
Luckily the Browns just had to win and they were in. Now the crew from Cleveland have a rematch with Pittsburgh next Sunday, but before we jump into that matchup, let’s take a look back on Sunday’s good and bad.