PITTSBURGH — Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Browns trailing by multiple points, chants began to rain down from the Pittsburgh crowd, echoing the terrifying towel waving gleefully above their heads.
“Cleveland sucks! Cleveland sucks!”
The Browns’ 27-14 loss was the perfect exclamation point in a revenge game, two weeks after Cleveland beat Pittsburgh 24-19 in prime time on Thursday Night Football.
But as the chants intensified, Cleveland’s star edge rusher Myles Garrett signaled for the crowd to listen for more fanning.
Why did he want it to be louder? Will the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year obsess over such things and use them as motivation?
“Oh yeah,” Garrett said afterward.
So what does he hope will turn out in the end?
“See you next year,” Garrett said. “Ultimately, when we come to their home next year, they will have the same energy.”
All the Browns really have now is next year. At 3-10, Cleveland is officially eliminated from the 2024 postseason.
But regardless, one of Garrett’s “whys” is that he loves getting excited about this rivalry. Look at his three-sack performance against Pittsburgh in Week 12.
Before the game, he revealed that he was berated by Steelers star pass rusher TJ Watt for disrespecting Garrett’s NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award, which he won in February.
After the Browns won that game, Garrett continued to talk and show how motivated he was.
“I’m No. 1,” Garrett said on the Amazon broadcast after the game. “Now from Edge 1 to Defensive Player of the Year, I’m that guy. That’s run through me, to be defended like me, to be planned like me, to be planned like me. No one else does. I’m telling you, you can throw it out the window. I’ll find a way.”
In Sunday’s loss, Garrett finished with one sack and now has 99.5 total sacks, but he had three quarterback hits and recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter.
But while the Steelers had a better game plan this time against Garrett, their performance wasn’t enough to make up for the penalties, missed kicks, missed assignments, and overall lack of complementary football. There wasn’t.
“It’s as expected,” Garrett said. “In the first game, they wanted to cut the game off quickly and stay on time, and they did something similar to what the Broncos and managers have done in the past to try to slow me down. .
“We just have to make plays, put more pressure on them early on, whether it’s batted balls. That’s how we ultimately free up and if we extend those routes and develop them over a long period of time. If they can make plays, they have a better chance to get back in there. But we had some pressure and then we had some hits, but we just had to be a little more consistent and a little more persistent. ”
As much as Steelers fans add fuel to Garrett’s fire, they have a history on their side when it comes to poking the bear.
Sunday’s loss continued the Browns’ depressing losing streak. They have yet to win a regular-season game in Pittsburgh since 2003 (they won there in the 2020 wild-card matchup) and haven’t dominated the Steelers in a season since 1988. .
Garrett will spend a lot of time talking about this and the history here.
Football Insider Newsletter Free Trial: Take a moment to sign up for a free trial of the Football Insider Newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.
