Rookie Helps Complete Browns Win
by Bo Marchionte
@bomarchionte | College2Pro.com
Published December 28, 2025, 5:28 PM
Cleveland, OH – The Browns don’t have to be good to ruin the Steelers. They just have to be home.
Cleveland’s 13-6 win over the Steelers provided another pendulum swing for Mike Tomlin and his Pittsburgh team.
“I thought the game was kind of unfolding in the way that you would anticipate,” said Tomlin postgame. “But we never made that signature play that kind of got us over the hump, that that generally is the deciding factor in games like this, and we generally make them. We didn’t make them today.”
Sunday afternoon at Huntington Bank Field was another reminder that Pittsburgh’s most annoying opponent isn’t Kansas City, Baltimore, or January football itself it’s the clumsy usually insufficient Browns, armed with nothing but spite, cold air, and the uncanny ability to derail a Steelers season at the exact moment it matters most.
The Browns entered Week 17 at 3–12, buried in the standings, irrelevant to the playoff picture and already looking toward draft position. The Steelers arrived at 9–6, needing one more win, one clean, professional performance to clinch the AFC North.
Instead, Pittsburgh walked into another Cleveland buzzsaw and left with a 13–6 loss that felt heavier than the score, a game that exposed a familiar flaw.
When it’s time to knock out a division rival, the Steelers hesitate, flinch, and let them hang around.
Historically, this rivalry isn’t supposed to look like this.
From 1946 through 1995, the Browns owned the series, leading it 53–42–1. Cleveland was a real franchise then, one with standards, expectations, and championships baked into its identity.
Since returning to the league in 1999, however, the Browns have mostly been a cautionary tale. From 1999 through 2025, Cleveland has endured 20 seasons with 10 or more losses, a staggering stretch of futility that dwarfs anything Pittsburgh has experienced in the Super Bowl era.
Since that return, the Steelers have dominated the matchup overall, posting a 41–12–1 record, with Mike Tomlin himself owning a 28–8–1 mark against Cleveland. On paper, this is supposed to be routine.
In practice, especially in Cleveland it has become anything but.
Something shifted in 2019, when the Browns beat the Steelers 21–7 on a Thursday night and announced, however briefly, that they weren’t interested in being a doormat anymore, at least at home.
Since then, Cleveland is 5–1 against Pittsburgh at home, a stunning reversal that has turned what used to be a scheduled win into a recurring humiliation.
Sunday followed the same script.
Cleveland struck first, marching 41 yards on its opening drive before Andre Szmyt drilled a 50-yard field goal. Rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders looked calm, decisive, and most damning for Pittsburgh comfortable.
The Browns doubled their lead moments later when Sanders lofted a perfect strike to Cedric Tillman, then followed it with a 28-yard touchdown pass to rookie tight end Harold Fannin, stunning the Steelers into a 10–0 hole less than six minutes into the game.
Pittsburgh responded with movement but no punch. Chris Boswell field goals replaced touchdowns. Opportunities turned into indecision. Fourth-down chances evaporated. By halftime, Cleveland led 10–6, and the Steelers had already begun relying on survival football instead of assertion.
“The start doesn’t determine anything other than the start,” Tomlin said afterward, referencing the early deficit. But the problem wasn’t the start it was everything that followed.
The second half became a slog.
Aaron Rodgers, harassed and uncomfortable, never found rhythm. Pittsburgh’s offense crossed midfield repeatedly and came away empty. A missed Boswell field goal loomed large.
Turnovers briefly offered hope an interception by Jack Sawyer, another by Kyle Dugger but the Steelers did what they’ve done too often in Cleveland.
Nothing with them.
“I thought they played well,” Tomlin said of the Browns. “I thought the game was kind of unfolding in the way that you would anticipate, but we never made that signature play that kind of got us over the hump.”
That “signature play” never comes in Cleveland anymore.
As the fourth quarter drained away, the Browns did what spoiler teams do best.
Shorten the game, bleed the clock, and trust Pittsburgh to trip over itself. With 1:40 remaining, Szmyt connected on his third field goal to make it 13–6. The stadium roared not because the Browns were suddenly relevant, but because they understood exactly what they were stealing.
Pittsburgh got one final chance. Rodgers drove the Steelers inside the Browns’ red zone for the first time all day. On fourth-and-7 from the 10, with the division on the line, Rodgers sailed a pass toward the corner of the end zone. Incomplete. Season altered.
Browns win. Steelers stagger.
“We’ve been here before,” Tomlin said. “And so certainly we got a big week ahead of us.”
That’s the bitter truth.
Once again, Pittsburgh failed to finish when a rival was begging to be put away. Once again, Cleveland lousy, undermanned, and irrelevant dictated the terms. The Browns earned their fourth win of the season not by being good, but by being opportunistic at the perfect time.
For Pittsburgh, the embarrassment is layered in embarrassment.
Rookie Shedeur Sanders threw to picks but completed 73.9 of his passes and early on made the plays needed to build a small 10-point lead that turned out to be enough for victory. Going 17-of-23 for 186 one touchdown along with two picks, Sanders was solvent in his performance.
In his previous games, Sanders had averaged 55.1 passer rating, and today Pittsburgh bailed him out time and time again.
They didn’t clinch the division.
They didn’t silence a rival. They didn’t rise above the mess. Instead, they head into a winner-take-all showdown against Baltimore because they couldn’t handle a 3–12 team in Cleveland.
That’s why the fan base toils with the dislike of Tomlin. On the precipice of the season, Tomlin swung three straight wins, but the final step they fall short. All the luxury that camw with winning today for focusing on the playoffs, will now come down to prime time.
But in this rivalry, at home, they’ve become something worse for Pittsburgh. A mirror, reflecting every hesitation, every missed opportunity, every failure to deliver the knockout blow.
And that’s a spoiler role they now play frighteningly well.
