Cleveland Browns, Steelers share AFC North basement as Ravens, Bengals win

Steelers win, welcome Browns to the AFC North Basement

The Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off an ugly win versus the Seattle Seahawks, 23-20 in overtime as T.J. Watt strip-sacked quarterback Geno Smith, setting up an easy field goal from placekicker Chris Boswell. The Watt family caused more than enough grief in a single day for Browns fans, thank you very much.

As a consequence, the Browns and Steelers are now tied with identical 3-3 records, sharing the basement in the rugged AFC North.

Big Ben Roethlisberger put the pigskin in the air 40 times, which isn’t outrageous for an overtime game, and completed 29 of those passes (72.5 completion percentage), mostly of the dink and dunk variety, for 229 yards and zero interceptions. Hey, the dink and dunk works just fine, so don’t expect any apologies from the Steelers.

This writer is still going to make fun of Roethlisberger for being old and moving like a hippopotamus in the pocket, but the fact of the matter is that if he can throw accurately, he is still good enough to play winning football. The Steelers have young offensive linemen who are getting better, and they are starting to see results for Najee Harris, who had 127 yards from scrimmage (81 on the ground).

Roethlisberger was sacked only one time for negative three yards.

A major reason why they won the game is they had five sacks of Geno Smith for negative 44 yards, including the strip-sack that set up the winning field goal. The role of the defense is huge.

If you watch the Steelers defense dismantle the opposing quarterback, you realize that it’s not lack of quarterbacking ability that is primarily responsible for sacks. It is the talent of the defenders. This is how the Steelers can win games. You can call it “winning ugly” if you like, or you can call it dominating defense. Seahawks fans probably blame it on Geno Smith, of course.

By the same token, when Myles Garrett is among the NFL leaders in sacks, you don’t conclude that the Browns play teams with lousy quarterbacks, you conclude that Myles Garrett is a really good player, don’t you?

Hence, a takeaway for Browns fans should be that if the quarterback is getting sacked five times a game, as Baker Mayfield was versus Arizona, there should be very little expectation for success. Teams that give up five sacks a game wind up drafting early in the first round. We went through this with Tim Couch. 50 sacks per year does not build character, it destroys the body of the quarterback.

Hold it to two sacks or fewer and the quarterback will have a good game and the team will have a very impressive offensive output. Give up five sacks a game, and everybody looks like Geno Smith. Period.