Cleveland Browns: Clean football will be pivotal at Steelers

The Cleveland Browns have a big one on Sunday at the Pittsburgh Steelers

This week, the Cleveland Browns face-off versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. As always, this game is one where both will be juiced up.

We all remember how their meeting in Cleveland ended in 2019. The Browns registered a hard-earned W, but after, it felt like a bitter loss. That’s with what transpired resulting in Myles Garrett being suspended the rest of the season.

Looking at this upcoming Week 6 matchup in Pittsburgh, both squads are playing well. The Steelers stumbled some against the Philadelphia Eagles last week, but they’re undefeated and Ben Roethlisberger is back healthy and looks sharp, as usual.

Pittsburgh’s defense is also, per usual, looking stingy and are really getting after the passer. T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, Vince Williams, Bud Dupree, and even slot cornerback Mike Hilton are making it difficult on opposing passers, in particular. And Pittsburgh’s tied for first in the NFL in QB pressures with the Los Angeles Rams, and first outright in sacks.

Meanwhile, the Browns are 4-1, behind the no. 1 rushing attack in the league, and a defense that’s been opportunistic. They have generated the most turnovers so far, as DPD’s Josh Brown alluded to in regards to both.

Taking everything into account, this one could be a doozy.

For the Browns, though, clean football is so pivotal here

Given what happened the last time Garrett played Pittsburgh, he’ll want to have a big game, of which he’s had plenty of already to this point this season. It’s only human nature. But for Garrett and the overall group, clean football is especially pivotal in this game.

The Browns have been in the low middle of the pack penalty-wise, at 19th overall. That’s per The Football Database and as h/t the aforementioned Brown, who also noted how that’s a big improvement, even more so with how “eight of them” came in Week 1 at the Baltimore Ravens.

They haven’t generally been close to as undisciplined as they were in 2019 with now Kevin Stefanski at head coach, though they’ll need to be on-point here.

Roethlisberger, who has been terrific in his return, has had a 10-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He’s been distributing the ball to a nice group of wideouts in JuJu Smith-Schuster, Diontae Johnson, and Chase Claypool, of whom has averaged 20.1 yards per catch.

Anyway, while the Browns defense is likely to have its issues in coverage, in the middle of the field and perhaps down the seam, and Andrew Sendejo deserves his share of the blame, don’t give Pittsburgh any cheap stuff. Roethlisberger is likely to use hard counts here, and Cleveland and Garrett, Olivier Vernon, and company need to stay disciplined and not fall for that.

To reiterate, the group as a whole needs to play clean football here overall. If the Cleveland Browns stay composed, even sans Nick Chubb (for a while yet), they could have a good shot here. It’s tough to pick an upset here with the way Roethlisberger’s looked, even with their light schedule thus far, though.

Plus, Baker Mayfield, despite his mom not raising “a wuss,” as DPD’s Randy Gurzi touched on, has sustained a rib injury coming into this one, and getting deep/intermediate shots off could be difficult. Now, Cleveland should have success in the passing game when the protection holds up, though.

But even still with the way Cleveland’s offensive line has done and the run game, Kareem Hunt could have a tough go of it on the ground here versus Pittsburgh’s no. 1 run defense, and as the game progresses, it could put the burden on Mayfield.

At any rate, with the way Stefanski has the Browns playing complementary football, (second in the NFL in turnover margin, per ESPN), if the Browns remain composed, they could potentially come away victorious here. Granted, in this instance, that’ll be tough, but with how the group’s doing and with how Stefanski’s game management has been, they just might.

Clean football and keeping emotions in-check will be so pivotal in this matchup, though.