DeShone Kizer threw for 222 yards with a rushing and a passing touchdown to go with an interception in his first NFL game to lead the Browns.
Cleveland (0-1) will travel to Baltimore next week for a meeting with the 1-0 Ravens,who won their road opener over the Bengals...
Brownie Bits
1) I know there are many plays that determine a win or loss,but the blocked punt is the one play that I circled.
I don't even blame Britton Colquitt,the Steelers drove straight through and gave him no chance to get that ball off.
2) Still,the half full note-Take that play off the board,the Cleveland offense with a rookie quarterback outscored the mighty Steelers offense 18-14.
Now there is plenty of nuance that I'll add to flesh this out,but among a few things to feel a little good about,try that on for size.
3) I didn't think the offensive line that had so much money poured into it played that great.
Seven sacks are never a positive stat,but I can spin that with a rookie quarterback that will hopefully learn to get rid of the football as he progresses.
My issue was that the running game that has to be effective if the Browns have any chance of showing the improvement some expect,wasn't.
Much of that goes on the offensive line.
4) That running game produced just 57 on 23 rushes with Isaiah Crowell,who is being counted on as the main mail carrier gaining a paltry 33 yards on 17 carries.
If the Browns are going to win a handful of games,the running game will have to do better.
That ranks near the top of things that I am interested in seeing next week in Baltimore..
5) I was dubious of the signing of Kenny Britt and he showed nothing to change my mind as he finished with just one catch for 13 yards.
DeShone Kizer threw to him three times,which tells me he wasn't open often and he had a key drop in the fourth quarter.
6) Pittsburgh still has Antonio Brown,who is one of those receivers that the various Browns regimes seem to hold in low regard.Brown made a huge play in the first half for over 50 yards despite a tip by Joe Schobert and his play that essentially made it time for the Steelers to kneel down was a hustle play that he simply went up and pulled down among a handful of Browns.
Until the Browns get their own Brown or at least corral this one against Pittsburgh,the gap between these two teams will continue to be huge...
7) To DeShone Kizer,who showed some signs of being a pretty good quarterback,but one that made mistakes and has 15 games to show what he truly is.
I think he needs to get the ball out quicker and his deep ball to Kasen Williams in the first half drifted just enough to carry Williams out of bounds on what should have been a 40 yard touchdown pass.
Kizer's interception to T.J. Watt was out of a miscommunication with Williams later in the game and can be tagged on his lack of time to gell with the newly acquired receiver.8) What did I like from Kizer?
I like the arm,it's the kind of arm that the Browns haven't seen since Derek Anderson (who had such a big arm that he had no touch at all) and he showed poise against the rush that rookies don't often.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves,but good start..
9) I also liked what I saw out of Seth DeValve,who caught four balls out of five targets.
DeValve seems to have a knack of getting open,especially along the sidelines.
DeValve has a problem though-he hasn't picked up the blocking game as it was DeValve that allowed the Steelers to blow up the middle and reject Britton Colquitt's punt.
10) I also question Hue Jackson a bit.
On the play that essentially ended the game,the Antonio Brown jump ball,Jackson used both of his remaining timeouts.
How can one do that? By calling a timeout and then deciding to challenge.
When the challenge was lost (as it should have been),the game was over.
Would one timeout have made a difference? Doubtful,but Jackson needs to improve as a game coach...
11) It was finally nice to see officials that were not afraid to call roughness penalties on the Steelers.
Four of them in this game and they all were cheap and deliberate.
The Steelers have gotten away with this for years-If the league is truly serious about improving player safety and eliminating cheap play,the referees need to make those calls consistently and not just for a week or a month.
You call these every game over the course of a season,the off season will be spent by teams stressing avoiding dumb play because winning and losing will be affected..
At least,we didn't get to see these helmet first hits and then the sheepish and tacit smiles of approval from Mike Tomlin this time...
12) I liked a lot of what I saw from the Gregg Williams defense,but still some ways to go.
Not a lot of heat on Ben Rothlisberger (1 sack by Carl Nassib and a batted ball by Emmanuel Ogbah),but I was confused by his alignment that had Jabrill Peppers 20-30 yards off the ball.
Now I might have gotten that if Peppers was being used as a shadow to help cover Antonio Brown,but he usually wasn't.
I've been vocal about thinking Jabrill Peppers was not a player that I was thrilled about in the first round,but if you are serious about using him to the best of his ability and allowing him to roam as a ballhawk,you cannot have him that far off the ball and expect him to make plays..
13) I think that this game was better than I expected.
The Steelers were in a dogfight and they know they were lucky to come away with the win.
That's encouraging,but plenty of questions still remain.
This is still a team that will be undermanned most Sunday's and I'm not exactly thrilled with the moral victory,but there were a few steps forward on this day.
There is still a long race to run....
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