We all knew it was coming, right?
I found it somewhat amusing when a lot of NFL pundits and the national media painted it as a massive positive for the Pittsburgh Steelers when news broke that the team would be facing backup rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
Of course, why would they think anything else?
In any common sense world, the Steelers would be at a major benefit playing against a QB making just his second career NFL start.
But any Steelers fan knew that this game was going to be tough regardless, and in some sick and twisted way, DTR being in might actually boost the Browns’ chances in this game.
But the biggest takeaway from this game? Kenny Pickett is not an NFL quarterback.
Pickett went 15/28 for 106 yards. No touchdowns, and no interceptions.
Once again, the offense stalled out and could not pull their weight in the game. Pickett missed throws, again. Pickett spun into sacks, again. Pickett was bad, again.
And unlike his sole saving grace to this point in the season, fourth quarter Kenny Pickett was missing in action again this week as the Steelers were afforded chance after chance to steal this game away from Cleveland, and did not take it. But we’ll come back to that.
From the very first snap of this game, we knew we were in for a rough one. Pickett gets sacked by Myles Garrett, who should have earned his team a safety on this play.
How this wasn’t a safety is, to be honest, beyond me, but I guess for the sake of argument, we should be lucky that this won’t be a huge talking point this week, or an asterisk on any kind of Steelers win.
This opening drive would be the theme of the day for the Steelers. Pickett gets sacked, Najee Harris gets nowhere, and a 3rd and long throw that is thrown well short of the sticks.
To be honest, there are not a whole lot of individual plays to point out here. Both offenses were sloppy and eerily similar, but that is part of the problem. Pittsburgh is operating as if they are playing with a backup quarterback. All of these short throws and the leaning on the running game are very reminiscent of the 2019 Steelers, who cobbled together games with Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges at QB.
Instead, what the Steelers actually have is a former first round pick from a year ago, who they are very clearly hesitant to trust with taking over games. At best, Pickett has been a game manager for Pittsburgh, and with the 20th overall pick, a team should be hoping to get a lot more than that.
They don’t allow Pickett to throw down the field more than a few times per game, but even when they do, Pickett can’t connect. He missed throws to both Diontae Johnson and George Pickens in the game, on throws that were nowhere near their respective targets.
Meanwhile, he was outplayed by a rookie QB making just his second NFL start. Thompson-Robinson, who was a fifth round selection by the Browns, went 24/43 for 165 yards and an interception. He was not great by any stretch, but he did a much better job of moving his offense down the field as opposed to Pickett.
The only real spark the Steelers had on offense came courtesy of Jaylen Warren, who has to be running away with team MVP, at least on the offense.
Despite this, Warren was still not utilized enough in this game, and Harris got more carries on the ground than Warren did.
Harris, on 12 carries, ran for a total of 35 yards, and struggled to break out of the backfield, which has been a common struggle of his here in 2023.
Warren, meanwhile, more than tripled that yardage on only 9 carries.
In the fourth quarter, where Kenny Pickett is supposed to shine, the Steelers were afforded two late game chances to win it and somehow, some way steal this game from the Browns. But both drives resulted in a punt.
In the first of these two chances, Pickett connected on a 12-yard pass, before throwing a 2-yarder and an incomplete helped force the Steelers to boot it away.
On the second, Pittsburgh went three-and-out on a drive that took just 14 seconds, giving the Browns a chance to go down the field, kill the clock, and win the game.
And that’s exactly what Cleveland did. Their defense was amazing all day long, and absolutely balled out for their rookie QB.
However, and I don’t say this to take anything away from the impressive work they did, they were not facing a difficult offense to stop.
Pittsburgh’s defense played well too. They held a skilled Cleveland offense to 13 points, but unlike last time these two teams met, they could not score multiple touchdowns on their own.
And when your offense is relying on something like that, you are destined to lose to the good teams.
More thoughts down below:
-Jaylen Warren is an absolute beast, and every time I watch him play I cannot believe that the Steelers were able to scoop him up like they did
-Diontae Johnson was not targeted enough in this game, but he needs to come down with those catches when he gets those rare looks.
-Elandon Roberts was very noticeable, in a positive way, on the field today. With such a thin LB room now, he is going to be counted on more and more as the season drags on. I thought he looked rather good today.
-In this chapter of Watt vs Garrett, Myles definitely got the better of TJ.
–Odd stat of the game: Shoutout to Adam Gertz on this one, who has some more details in his post, but I’m just going to take the first part: even if you took away Jaylen Warren’s 74-yard TD run, he still would have averaged 6+ yards per carry. Truly some elite performances by him lately.
(Featured photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images)
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