Pittsburgh Steelers Massacre Cleveland Browns, 38-7

The Pittsburgh Steelers demolished Cleveland Browns in AFC North division derby, inflicting the big rivals a very painful loss. Mike Tomlin’s guys slashed the visitors from Ohio, 38-7, making a statement that will be noticed throughout the entire league.

The Steelers’ defense once again showed its full potential, beating down Baker Mayfield and crushing his confidence in a very rough manner. The former No.1 pick was benched at the end of the third quarter, following a very poor performance.

Browns’ head coach, Kevin Stefanski, also wanted to spare his starting quarterback from receiving additional beating, because he suffered four sacks.

“I didn’t want to see him get hit one more time,” Stefanski stated.

Pittsburgh’s defensive players raised their voices due to some comments that they aimed to hurt Mayfield. Bud Dupree wanted to clear all the doubts about those allegations.

“Baker is a good quarterback. … we don’t really think about hurting a player. We hit him a couple times, we knew his ribs were hurting, but we don’t intentionally go in and try to hurt somebody.”

In the end, Mayfield had 119 yards, 10-for-18 for one TD pass, two interceptions, one of them pick-six, when Mikah Fitzpatrick returned the football all the way for 33 yards. Both of Mayfield’s interceptions were in the first half, one in each quarter.

“I think it sent a message to them, that third down wasn’t going to be easy sledding today,” Tomlin said about Fitzpatrick’s interception.

The Steelers were already up 10-0 at the end of the first, before getting away to 24-0 after James Washington’s 28-yard TD catch at 5:43 until the break. The guest’s only time score was with 61 seconds before the halftime, with Mayfield throwing the football to Rashard Higgins for a 13-yard TD.

Similar to Mayfield, Ben Roethlisberger also exited the game earlier, but his reasons were much different. Mike Tomlin spared his QB from unnecessary risk, replacing him with Mason Rudolph midway through the final sequence.

“I don’t know the last time I came out of a game with 8 minutes to go, so that was a good feeling,” said Big Ben, who ended the game with 162 yards and a TD pass.

The Steelers had three touchdowns on the ground, one each from James Conner, Benny Snell, and Chase Claypool. Conner had 101 yards on the ground on 20 carries. The rookie WR, Claypool, was Roethlisberger’s favorite target with four hits for 74 yards. James Washington had 68 in the same number of receptions.

MIKE TOMLIN DOES NOT LOSE TO CLEVELAND. @steelers remain undefeated in 2020! pic.twitter.com/wPFEQBduDT

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 18, 2020

Rushing game was supposed to be Cleveland’s no.1 weapon, even without Nick Chubb sidelined, but Kareem Hunt wasn’t in the mood for playing today. He posted just 40 yards in 13 snaps.

The Browns, who are 4-2, came into this contest with high confidence, after four straight wins. During that streak, Stefanski’s boys beat Bengals, Washington, Cowboys, and the Colts, dropping at least 32 points on each rival. They would learn a valuable lesson today, against arguably the best defense in the league.

Up next, Cleveland travels to Cincinnati to meet Joe Burrow and the Bengals, whom they beat 35-30 in Week 2. After that, the Browns await the Las Vegas Raiders at home.

On the other side, the Steelers are perfect with 5 wins, looking better and better as each week goes by. They will face two challenging rivals in the next two games, both them on the road. The first ones are the Tennessee Titans, before other divisional rivals, the Baltimore Ravens.