The Steelers opened the 2020 season with 11 straight wins, but you wouldn’t have guessed that at the end of the first quarter of Sunday night’s wild-card game against the Browns.
Cleveland scored a defensive touchdown on the game’s opening drive when Pittsburgh’s Maurkice Pouncy snapped the ball over Ben Roethlisberger’s head and Karl Joseph recovered it for the score. The Browns went on to put up 28 points in the first quarter en route to a 48–37 win over Pittsburgh.
After the game, coach Mike Tomlin struggled to explain the loss and his team’s late-season collapse.
“We didn’t do enough,” Tomlin said, via NFL.com. “We didn’t position them in enough good circumstances. We didn’t make enough plays, particularly in the critical moments. We were a group that died on the vine.”
After the team’s incredible 11–0 start this season, Pittsburgh suffered a 1–5 finish and a first-round playoff exit.
On Sunday night, the Browns’ defense intercepted Roethlisberger three times in the first half and forced four first-half turnovers.
The veteran quarterback threw an interception on the Steelers’ second drive, and a 40-yard touchdown pass from Baker Mayfield to Jarvis Landry gave Cleveland a 14-0 lead in just over five minutes. Two rushing scores from Kareem Hunt would give the Browns a 28–0 lead by the end of the quarter, marking the first time a team has scored 28 first-quarter points in NFL postseason history.
The Steelers attempted a comeback and even trimmed the Browns’ lead to 35–23 by the end of the third quarter. Despite having the ball at midfield early in the fourth quarter, Pittsburgh opted not to go for it on fourth-and-one and never got closer than that. Leading 45–29, Cleveland sealed the victory by intercepting Roethlisberger for the fourth time with just over three minutes to play.
“We didn’t perform well enough tonight, not coaching, not playing,” Tomlin said. “You can chalk it up to the turnover game but we weren’t good enough in a lot of the other areas and communication, in terms of detail. Just not a good night for us. In a single-elimination tournament, when you don’t have a good night, you go home.”
Since joining Pittsburgh in 2007, Tomlin has a .500 record in the playoffs. He led his club to a Super Bowl XLIII win in 2008, and the Steelers’ last postseason appearance ended in a divisional-round loss to the Jaguars at the conclusion of the 2017 season.
