Cleveland Browns’ season finale at Pittsburgh Steelers to Sunday
The Browns at least know the day of their season finale. The exact time will be known at some point Monday.
The game at the Pittsburgh Steelers will be played next Sunday, something that wasn’t certain until late Sunday night when the NFL announced that its Saturday Week 18 doubleheader would be the Kansas City Chiefs-Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans-Jacksonville Jaguars games. The league still must decide whether or not the Browns-Steelers game will kick off at 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m.
The Browns will have a chance to play a role in spoiling another team’s playoff hopes, as they did on Sunday with the Washington Commanders. The Steelers kept their hopes to be the AFC’s No. 7 seed alive by defeating the Baltimore Ravens 16-13 on Sunday night.
“I mean, we’d love to do that,” defensive end Myles Garrett said after the 24-10 win over the Commanders. “We consider them our rivals. And divisionally, if` we can’t make it, no, we’re definitely going to make sure those guys can’t. We’re going to do everything in our power. Much respect to them for being in this position. But we live for times like this.”
Pittsburgh will need some help in order to get into the playoffs, even with a win over the Browns. However, there’s no scenario in which they can get in without beating Cleveland.
The Browns’ win over Washington was half of a one-two punch delivered to the Commanders’ hopes. It left them on the brink of elimination, which then occurred once the Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings 41-10 later in the day.
“I mean every time we step on the field we step on there to dominate and win,” safety Grant Delpit said. “So no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what we might be not be playing for whatever. We step on the field, it’s the NFL, next guy’s up and we on the field to win at the end of the day. So despite what they got going on, we’re here to win.”
The Browns defeated the Steelers 29-17 in their first meeting this season in Cleveland, played on “Thursday Night Football” in Week 3. However, there’s a couple of major differences between that Pittsburgh team and the one awaiting them in the finale.
Mentor native Mitch Trubisky was the starting quarterback that night for the Steelers. He’s since been replaced by Pittsburgh’s first-round draft pick from last April, Kenny Pickett, who’s gone 6-5 since taking over the job in Week 5 against the Buffalo Bills.
Another difference is the fact the Steelers All-Pro edge rusher, T.J. Watt, did not play in the game. Watt missed seven games, including the first game in Cleveland, due to a partially torn pectoral muscle sustained in their season-opening win at Cincinnati.
The Browns are looking to sweep the season series against the Steelers for the first time since the franchise was reborn in 1999. The last time they won both regular-season meetings in a single season came in 1988, when it won 23-9 in Pittsburgh and 27-7 in Cleveland, part of what was a seven-game win streak for the Browns in the series between 1986 and the 1989 season opener.
Contact Chris at [email protected].
On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ
Read More: Cleveland Browns’ season finale at Pittsburgh Steelers to Sunday