Browns move to 3-1 with 27-24 win over Steelers

Welcome to the athletic football show brought to you by the US bank smartly visas signature card. I'm Robert Mays. The Browns are three and one a huge win for Cleveland at home against the Steelers on Thursday night football. The young receivers showed up. That's really nice moments from a defense that just played an absurd amount of man covered. They tried to fumble that thing away literally and figuratively in the second half of that game. But Browns is able to hold on a weird game for the Steelers offense where you have some really high moments in the fourth quarter, but a lot of inconsistencies before that me and Dave dug in to all of it. Let's get to our Browns Steelers recap right now. There's a lot to talk about, but I think just an admittedly strange game. It felt like the Browns were kind of fully in command at halftime and into early in early part of the second half. Then they tried to fumble the game away literally and figuratively in the second half. The Steelers go down and tie it and then the Steelers play. First of all, the Browns kicked the ball into the end zone again, which we got to stop doing this. We got to stop kicking the ball into the end zone with 10 seconds left. Why are we doing this? And then the Steelers just play the softest coverage imaginable on that final drive. Browns seemingly got to go down on score. DeShawn Watson does one of the three things he can't do in that moment, which is take a sack and put them on the edge of field goal range. And still the ball goes in. Mitt, I guess is how we're pronouncing that name. Ball goes in, Browns win. So there is just so much to unpack with this game. I'm curious, where do you want to start this conversation? >> I honestly, I'm glad you said strange because, okay, my number one impression was even with 20 combined points in the second half of that game. And you had some vintage Rodgers, Heroics at the end, the two beautiful go balls to DK that kind of woke up the echoes a little bit. >> That's what he's got, man. >> That's what he's got. >> It's the Seth Rogan dice roll and knocked up. It's always got. But even with 20 combined points in the second half, I thought the second half was a pretty ugly affair compared to some of the fireworks we saw in the early going. And then look, I think the last thing I heard before I turned the game off was Al Michael said, this was their first three game winning streak since 2023. So I will let the Cleveland Browns enjoy some late game, Heroics and being on a winning streak and beating a division rival. But when Dishaw Watson takes that sack and like you said, it's the one thing you can't do. And it pushes you to a 56 yard field goal. And then the field goal wasn't even that dramatic. I mean, we had a conversation over the summer about how we had to nerf these kicks a little bit. That was honestly my main impression where I was like, if the cardinal sins don't even apply anymore because these kickers are so good, I don't know. It kind of feels like something needs to be done. I'm really not trying to take credit away from the Browns. But that was like my gut reaction when I saw that kick go in. >> Let's give some credit to the Browns and let's start there because I think that is a good place to start. The Browns are three in one and the Browns offense has been far more functional this year than it has been in years past. I think there are plenty of reasons to be excited and optimistic about the Cleveland Browns. If you look at what their pass catcher in group is now compared to what it's been over the last couple of years, it's truly night and day, a truly night and day. You're going from a place where Jared Judy and then last year, obviously, Harold Fanon, are your most important pass catchers and receivers to a place where Jerry Judy just shows up randomly in the third quarter with his first catch. It's like, yeah, Jerry Judy is still on this team and then maybe the catch of the game getting them into position where a fuel goal was a realistic outcome. That's the best throw to I think to Sean Watson made in this game. Was that final, was that throw on the final drive to to Jerry Judy to kind of get that drive rolling. So you have the pass catchers that are very exciting. I still think Judkins is a good player. Their run game is struggling to get going, but I do think he's a good player. The offensive line is significantly better than it's been in years past, even if it's a group that I think is still kind of finding its footing. They've been so banged up up front over the last couple of years. Monkin, Monkin's been everything. I think you could have hoped he was going to be when you hired him to be your coach this off season. We talked a lot about what the best version, the best case scenario would be for the Cleveland Browns under Todd Monkin. And I think it's an offense that looks put together, looks buttoned up is doing a lot of the right things. And you're getting just a weekly sound bite from Todd Monkin that he's going to say that no other coach in the NFL is saying. And then on the other side of the ball, you have really nice pieces. You have a scheme that I still think them carrying it over from what they did under Jim Schwartz. This group is still set up to play that way. They played a crazy amount of man coverage in this game, which we can talk about. They have the DBs to do it. They have the front to do it, even though Mason Graham gets hurt in this game. I think if you're trying to build the best case scenario for why we should be excited about the Cleveland Browns in 2026 and beyond in this first four games, even if it has not been perfect the entire time, a lot of the beats of that kind of case that you could make in the summer have come to fruition over the first month of the season. And I would say the thing you touched on it, but the thing I would illustrate is another key component of what we talked about in the preseason with the Browns was, how excited are you about the young players? How excited are you about the rookie class? The receivers look absolutely incredible. The guys from last year are building on it. Hopefully Mason Graham's injury isn't terribly bad because he's been, I know it looked really good at feeling about it. I got a bad feeling about it. How he reacted when you look the way the knee moved, it's, he got rolled up and then whoever the offensive line, it was not, it's fine to do this in the moment. I understand doing it. He buried him even further when they were in some traffic. And I think that might have been the moment where it happened. I'm a little bit worried about that one, which sucks because he've been playing so well. >> I don't feel good about it at all, but I'll stay optimistic until I get some sort of word because yeah, I mean, I was going to highlight his game against the Panthers this week on my that rock series. He was so good against Carolina. But Emmanuel McNeil Warren was flashing in this game. He was driving on, when Aaron Rodgers did have the guts to throw over the middle. He was driving on all of those throws. You got Spencer Fano, you got the running backs. Like I said, like Swayzenger is, you know, I think like week one was, but he's been better the last three weeks. I can't say enough about the receivers. And the other thing, go at like Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion. We don't have to lionize Dishon Watson as a player or a person, but he's giving them a shot to show what they can do. And that is what I was afraid of heading into the season was like the Browns passing game is going to be so bad that it's not even going to give these guys a shot to be exciting. And that hasn't been true through the first month of the season. They've been fantastic. Yeah, he's been good enough. And I think, so that's what I was going to say when I said all the beats that you want to hit to be excited about the Browns. We just went through six straight minutes of conversation. We didn't mention Dishon Watson because you don't have to. You don't have to mention Dishon Watson as part of why this is a good story about the Browns. And the way the broadcast went down tonight, obviously a lot of people were talking about it online. The first point I will make about this, this booth is completely ill-equipped to have that conversation. Just completely ill-equipped. I don't think I'm, that's a controversial stance to have. And they were ill-equipped to have the conversation here. We don't have to make everything about the Browns success, some conversation and consideration and some conversation and consideration of what this means for Dishon Watson and his redemption and whether the fans are cheering or booing like, it just doesn't have to be about that. And from whatever reason, we're trying to make that about that during this game. And even beyond all of the stuff in the background as to why it doesn't have to be about that, which they never said on the broadcast. They never said in the form and a piece that did beforehand. The fact that 20 plus women accused of sexual assault, like they just, they never happened, never came up. Now, Michael's was like, you know the story, right? So that's what happened. That's why there has been, that's been in the background of this entire thing the entire time, okay? Even if he was playing great, we don't have to make this about a redemption story, he wasn't even playing that well. Like what they did in the first half and the fact that the offense was playing well, did not really have to do with the quarterback that much. They had a draft coverage on the huge Denzel Boston play. He threw a screen that gained 20 yards. And then the other big chunk that they had was that outbreak or the case he concepts a young that he tried to throw in complete. And then in the second half, he fumbled the ball. He threw in a double coverage and got intercepted, which was a bad decision even before that ball was getting tipped. And then on the field goal drive that they had in the fourth quarter, I believe, he fumbled the ball again. He tried to give it to them again. And so even if Dishon Watson was a star throughout this entire game, I think there are issues with trying to make this about his own personal redemption, we don't even have to pretend that he has a huge hand in this because he didn't have a huge hand in this compared to all the other stuff that we're talking about. I will even say leading up to halftime, like his touchdown to Harold Fanon, like there was a sequence there in the second quarter where I was just like, what can you say to Sean Watson's dealing a little bit here? But by the end of the game with the fumble and some of the very, very bad misses. Yeah, like the bad pocket presence as well, all that stuff that we worry about was a lot of it was back in the second half of that game. fan in like the whatever that was like under five minutes when you had a chance to put the game away was like it's abysmal and it's just something you can kind of shrug off when the Browns managed to win the game. But I mean, last time I checked, this is still a $230 million quarterback. So by the end of the game, you could call this a good game and probably the best game of Dishon Watson's Cleveland career. That's more about how bad Dishon Watson's been in Cleveland than him playing some amazing game and yeah, by the game winning drive, the fuel gold drive when they were joking about him being much maligned and acting like it was an inside joke why that might be the case. I was pretty grossed out. And I mean, like he played a good game and the Browns will beat a division rival, not taking that away from him. But yeah, I'm he was fine. He was for that last drive. He had completed two passes of at least 10 plus area yards two. Again, it's the dropped coverage throughout a Denzel Boston and the throw he tried to miss wide to Casey concept zero in the first quarter. Those are the two plays. Other than that, it was all stuff that was happening underneath in combination with the multiple turnovers. Like it wasn't some great game. And even if it was, we just don't have to do this. Like you can be so excited about so many other parts of the Browns because I don't think the Sean Watson's going to be on this team next year. I don't think the Sean Watson's going to be a part of what they're building there. And so I would just much rather choose to spend the time on the things that are actually different are actually exciting and are actually part of the good story that is happening in Cleveland. The irony is that everything else is exciting. Like I mean, my got like the defense. Obviously week one was pretty rough, but they have been far more good than bad since week one. There's so many exciting young players over there. And even like the guys that you have tapped to lead this thing into the next rendition post Miles Garrett. Like Jared verse looks the part. Grant Delpitt made like he had the interception that put this thing away at the end. And I was happy to see him back because he left with an injury. I'm like, Cody Bajorquez was phenomenal for the Browns tonight. We can talk about the other punner too, but like the punner Schmidt, the kicker made a 56 yarder like every other piece of the Browns roster is pretty damn fun. So yeah, like I don't want to sound like I'm shit talking them as a team for being three and one. But yeah, the tone of the broadcast was not my favorite. The goal. I think what we said, what is success for the Browns is that you are really, really excited about all of the young pieces. Todd Monkin proves to be exactly what you hoped he would be. And by the time we get to Thanksgiving Christmas, whatever time on you want to put on it, we are having optimistic and enthusiastic conversations about who is going to be the quarterback for this team next year. And what could be the final piece to kind of take this thing over the top? That's the conversation I'm going to continue to have. And I don't really, I'm not going to entertain whether it should be Dishon Watson because I just don't think it should be based on everything else, but also that his play just, I think a lot of quarterbacks could do it. They would he did tonight with the pieces around him in the throws he was being asked to make and have the offense function because that's the question is it, can we get the offense to a functional place? And it looks like that right now. And I think it has, it's mostly a product of everything else that's happening around it. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break on the other side of the ball, the stealer, the Browns defense controlled this game for a huge chunk of it. I don't know where they finished. I can look it up right now. They played 73% man coverage in this game. The Browns. Did that whole 73, 73% they ended at 73%. They were up at like 77% at one point in the second half. They ended at 73%. Rogers finished 14 of 29 against man coverage. He threw a 217 yards because they had all those chunks late in the game. But for the most part, they could do absolutely nothing against when the Browns were playing man in this game. Nobody was open. Rogers isn't willing to make some of those throws. And he was holding on to the ball and get the stealers offense for two quarters essentially after that first drive and until we got into the fourth quarter, completely stalled out. He made four or five impressive throws down the stretch to keep them in it. But for a good chunk of this game, the Browns were just snuffing out everything the Steelers were trying to do offensively. The most posts are not posts. The most late career Aaron Rogers thing imaginable. We talked about it. The Browns tried to let the Steelers back into this game like Watson fumbles and you also had the sequence where the Steelers pinned the Browns deep and forced them to punt. The Steelers started two drives. I think they started one on the minus 45 and they started the other at the 50. They ran eight plays on those two drives and gained seven yards. And then just when you couldn't be more disgusted, they drove 77 yards in six plays to get back into the game with Rogers hitting like an explosive crosser to DK Metcalf and Jalen Warren doing his thing. And like those are the two things that happened. The Steelers gained five yards and punt with Aaron Rogers yelling at somebody or they pull a couple of explosives out of their ass and drive like 85 yards. Like it's, it's perfect. I mean, the one non-Go-Ball that they had was that play action shot to DK Metcalf. And the reason I think they went back to that is they called it earlier in the half and he didn't throw it. He threw like a quick out. I think it was the Benz Scorronic, but Metcalf was wide open. So it made sense to go back to that play. But their answers against man coverage were essentially just throwing slot fades in Go-Balls. Like that's what they were trying to do. And you're, if you hit a couple of them, it looks great, but I still have my real concerns other than running the ball. This team should be driven by how they run the ball in Pittsburgh with the offensive line with Jalen Warren. That is the thing they do best. Other than that, I still have some pretty severe reservations about how sustainable this passing game looks considering some of the coin flip plays that they needed to move the ball in the second half of this game. Like that's what they were relying on. And I just say, and it really, it won't have that big of an effect on the Steelers overall like offensive success or where they're going this year. And it might change depending on what happens with Rico Dowddle. But that's the thing. Like Jalen Warren has been stuck in a committee for his entire career and like fantasy players hate him because you can't know for sure whether he's going to score the touchdowns or have the big day. Jalen Warren kicks ass. He's awesome. He's so awesome. He's so fun, man. He is impossible to tackle. He moves like a water bed, you know? Like when he's taking contact over here, he's just like shifting his weight in the opposite direction. He's so shifty. While also being so physical, he's so underrated. And I'm convinced it's because you probably can't count on him to score more than 10 or 11 fantasy points on a regular basis, but I should. I mean, if he's going to get a vast majority of the work, you should. And when Rico Dowddle gets back, I'm not sure we need to be handing Rico Dowddle the ball 12 times the game of Jalen Warren's going to do this. Mike McCarthy found Rico in Dallas, though. So I don't know. Don't keep that in the back of your mind. Like that's his guy. The offensive line had tough some tough moments in past protection tonight. But I still think that moving forward, that should be the foundation of how this offense operates. That group just trying to mash people up front and lean on the run. And again, and have the play action be a compliment off of that. You know, when they were using that in this game, again, that shot to DK was a play action pass. Like a you look at what they did against the bangles last week. Some of the stuff that they were doing off play action. The worst version of this offense is them spreading things out in the gun. And Rogers picking and going based on whatever matchup he likes. Because at this point, before those two goal balls to DK, they weren't, they didn't have any advantages in those matchups. Like this thing being spread out and static in the gun. I don't think is helping anybody. I think the foundation of this offense should be them running the ball and then trying to hit some shots off of play action. And so again, this is another game where I think you have plenty of evidence pointing that direction. Have you ever seen a video of a zookeeper or somebody like that feeding a crocodile or an alligator? And they're just like, I've watched that happen before. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And they're like tossing the chicken to the alligator and they're like trying to keep their feet away. And like they want to feed them, but like you're keeping a safe distance. That's what Rogers looks like when he's throwing in a remotely like muddy pocket. Like he's like, he's falling away. He's kind of, he's kind of shooting it like a dart. And I'm sick of it. And like two or three times, it looks really cool. Like the balls to decay at the end were they brought me back arm is still incredible. Like the guy's arm is app is still incredible. The two throws to decay and on the go balls that chunk the off play action. And then the throw he had to Darna Washington for the touchdown. Yeah. And the ball still jumps out of his hands. That's not the concern. I think the concern is everything else. He just every time he gets up after taking a hit, he just looks like he would rather be anywhere else. And I don't blame him, by the way. He's like 40 years old. But my wife walked past as they were recording and she goes, God, he looks old. He's really, he's ruining they like, you know, they said on the broadcast, he's the oldest player in the NFL. And he's ruining our favorite meme where it's like, here he comes the oldest player in the league at 33. Like no. Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers absolutely looks like the old player in the NFL, like he's old by regular standards. The other concern, I think for the Steelers is just what the state of their defense looks like, particularly the back seven. I mean, they're just decimated now. Jamel, Dean went out with an injury in this game. They obviously trade Joey Porter Jr. this week. So you're down to day one Everett and Satya Samuel Jr. on the outside. You're safety start getting hurt in this game. So you're digging into the depth there. They really struggled to tackle in the first half of this game. And so, and you then you wash what happened on the final drive. They're playing all this really soft zone against the Browns, I think, in part because they don't trust the guys they have out there to play a little bit stickier. So that would be along with my remaining concerns about how sustainable the passing offense is, depending on how they want to play. The other thing that would stick with me if I were Steelers fan in this game, just something to be worried about moving forward is how banged up the defense looks and whether you can hold that thing together. Obviously the front is good. Derek Harmon also got hurt in this game, but they are pretty decimated on the back end right now. And I think it's going to be hard to sustain any sort of good defense when the second area is in the state that it's in right now. Hoping like hell, Mason Graham's injury is not a big deal. And yeah, like they need some of these guys to be the Steelers that is. They need some of these guys, particularly on the back end to be short term situations. Because I mean, even like Jalen Ramsey played banged up and then you lose Dean, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how viable you can expect it to look if these are like long lasting problems. And the offense, I just think it's just destined to be frustrating. Yeah. Like the way they try to play, it's just destined to be frustrating because I think he's always going to have the ability to make those three or four throws a game because of the physical talent that he still has as a thrower, but his inability to really move in the pocket and how he wants to play. And I think how they want to play. I was looking at the numbers before this game, just trying to drill down on all right, why did the, why did the offense feel so much different against Cincinnati? So three weeks after the first two games of the season, they were in spread formations 40% of the time per next trend. It was just spread out static again, playing into the worst impulses of the players in the quarterback. And Cincinnati, they cut that in half. They were just, they were playing a different way and the offense looked different. And so I just think trying to be closer to that world is the best way to make this thing feel a little bit steadier and not be completing 50% of your passes against man coverage. We got like coin flip tight window go balls is the foundation of the offense in the second half. And that's just a really unfortunate, frustrating place to have to live. You've talked about it a ton going back, I mean, probably even before Rodgers was in Pittsburgh, but definitely all of last year, just the amount of deep routes where he's letting that thing go immediately and just like let go and let God and yeah, it's, I mean, it's still really kick ass when it works. I still get like a sick little thrill out of it like the, the two ball, yeah, I brought it up already. The two balls to DK. I just was like hooting and hollering because it's fun as hell, but it's not a sustainable way to build an offense and I don't want to do that thing where we relitigate the Steelers whole build every time they play a stinky game. But just watching it when it doesn't click, you're just forced to ask questions about like what the realistic ceiling is for this team. And I'm sure that's annoying to hear if you're a Steelers fan, but they, I mean, yeah, they built the team where the ceiling for this year does matter. You look at the, they're a financial situation heading, heading into next year. This team has a lot of young players, but they're already $9 million over the 2027 cap. And there are, there are a lot of things they can do, right? Like Jalen, they can move on from Jalen Ramsey after this year and save a bunch of money. They can move on from Michael Pitt in this year and save a bunch of money. Like they could hit the reset button after this season and just kind of start over and I assume that's what's going to happen. But a lot of the moves they made this off season in particular were when now moves. And I, I'm just not sure how realistic it is for this team to win much of anything right now. Well, that's, I mean, no, they're in win now mode. It's just winning now is having a winning record and getting the playoffs and not looking like you belong there. Like we, I mean, we've done this and we might do it again. Like the Steelers could make the playoffs. I don't think that's out of the question. But so what? And like I said, I mean, we're doing this on October 1st. We'll probably do it again on November 10th, but it is what it is. And like every two or three weeks, the Steelers are just going to play a game like this where you're like, well, yeah, it can look like this when you commit to this build, unfortunately. Looking at the Brown schedule, they have the Jets next week. And so absolutely potential to go to 4 and 1. And then after that, they play against the Ravens. So and that I think there's a buy, there might be a buy in there as well. I don't know. It's sorry. It's because they have a 10 day thing here. So they have the Browns and the Browns in week five, they have the Jets in week five, they have the Jets in week five. Yeah. And then the Ravens have the Titans this week, the Falcons the week after that on Sunday night. And then they play the Browns. And so think there's a real chance that the Ravens have one loss going into that game with the Browns. And then that really becomes the game potentially for first place in the AAC North. Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, the Browns have an opportunity. I can't believe I'm saying this. The Browns have an opportunity to make some hay because it's a road trip to Tennessee after that Ravens game. And then you get the Steelers again. So, you know, it's tempting to say this is an early season Cinderella story in Cleveland, but not necessarily. Yeah. Again, it goes back to the beginning of the conversation. I think there's a lot of stuff to be excited about with what the Browns are doing right now. A lot of the bets they made this off season seem to have worked. And I'm looking forward to seeing if they can keep this thing going because watching Boston and Concepcion and the defense like that, that's what I hoped we would be able to do with the Browns this year. And so far, they've made good on that. It feels so good not to have let big separation talk me out of loving Denzel Boston. Like it feels so good to just be like, yeah, big, big fast receiver good at football. I don't care what his separation analytics look like. He's such a fun player. Concepcion too, obviously. But yeah, there's plenty of stuff, plenty of stuff in Cleveland to feel good about. It's just such a fun compliment too. Like there's such different types of players and to get them in the same draft and potentially just be able to build around them as your pass catching duo for the next however many years. I'm already really excited about that because they have checked every box over the first month of the season that you want to see from them. All right, that is all we've got for tonight. You can check out our week for preview on the YouTube channel if you're watching this on Friday. If you are listening to this in the podcast feed, the week for preview is going to be available to you right now. Encourage you guys to go check that out. If you're watching this on YouTube and you are not subscribed to the channel, encourage you to do that. Please hit that like and subscribe button below for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. [MUSIC]