The Browns scored more than one first-quarter point for every year spent as the NFL’s punch line.
How does 25 years of irrelevance manifest itself? In a first-play defensive touchdown. In two touchdowns off turnovers. In three touchdowns in the first 10 minutes. In four touchdowns in the first quarter. In a complete takedown of a bitter rival.
The first half featured two Baker Mayfield touchdown passes, two Kareem Hunt touchdown runs and four takeaways by the Browns defense to build a 25-point halftime lead on the way to a 48-37 victory over the sleepwalking Steelers in an AFC wild-card game.
“We knew that everyone was counting us out,” Mayfield said, “and we knew what mentality we were going to have — to cut it loose. It’s a huge win, but no one here is satisfied.”
If anything is worth waiting 18 years to return to the playoffs, it was this performance, which surely had head coach Kevin Stefanski partying in his basement. Stefanski led the Browns to 11 regular-season wins in his first year at the helm, but was in NFL-mandated quarantine Sunday night due to a COVID-19 positive test result.
Special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, a Cleveland native, filled in and kept his foot on the gas.
“Any time you slow down a little bit,” Priefer said, “it would’ve been a mistake.”
The Browns won a playoff game for the first time in their current incarnation. The last playoff win came after the 1994 season — it was on Jan. 1, 1995 with Bill Belichick as an unproven head coach — before the original Browns franchise moved and became the Ravens. The Steelers eliminated the Browns in their two most recent playoff trips (1994, 2002).
Two-time Super Bowl champion Ben Roethlisberger was dreadful in throwing three of his four interceptions in the first half. If this was the final game in the 38-year-old quarterback’s Hall of Fame career — he was teary-eyed on the bench after the final whistle— it was an unsuitable goodbye despite a huge final stat line of 47-for-67 passing for 501 yards and four touchdowns.
The Steelers started the season 11-0 but without looking dominant. But even a 1-4 finish didn’t suggest this much fraudulence.
“We didn’t make enough plays in the critical moments,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “We were a group that died on the vine.”
The Browns became the first team to score 28 points in the first quarter of a playoff game since 1969. That’s the same year as what was their most recent road playoff win.
“There’s a new standard here,” Mayfield said. “And we’re going to try to keep it that way. We’re turning this into a winning culture.”
Disaster struck the Steelers on the first play when nine-time Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey snapped the ball over Roethlisberger’s head and it rolled into the end zone. Karl Joseph dove on the ball for a touchdown.
The quick strikes kept coming. When the Steelers finally found the end zone late in the second quarter, the Browns needed only 70 seconds to respond with a touchdown and 35-7 lead.
“There wasn’t a lot to say,” Tomlin said of addressing the locker room. “Our performance speaks for itself.”
JuJu Smith-Schuster made 13 catches for 157 yards and a touchdown but has egg on his face. The trash-talking receiver this past week said “the Browns is the Browns” — a dig at their hapless history.
“I don’t regret saying what I said,” Smith-Schuster said. “Wasn’t our night.”
The Steelers scored 16 straight points to cut a deficit from 35-7 to 35-23. For whiplashed Browns fans, it stirred feelings of 2002 and blowing a 17-point second-half lead against the Steelers in the wild-card round.
“Now, after the game, I can understand why people were nervous,” Priefer said. “It’s the Steelers and the Browns and this rivalry, but the way our offense responded made everybody feel a little better.”
Tomlin — who earlier punted from the Browns’ 38-yard line facing a 28-0 deficit — helped put those fears to rest when he inexplicably punted again on the first play of the fourth quarter.
With all the momentum on his side, he bypassed going for a fourth-and-1 just shy of midfield and the Browns’ ensuing touchdown sealed a trip to face the Chiefs next weekend.