It wasn’t supposed to go this way with the Browns and Steelers. Cleveland was the popular pick to win the AFC North in 2019 with their hotshot quarterback and dynamic new receiver. Pittsburgh was the afterthought, considered a team in transition after the turmoil caused last year by Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.
When Steelers franchise QB Ben Roethlisberger was lost for the season as the team fell to 0-2, gloom and doom was in the forecast. After Pittsburgh lost to Baltimore to drop its record to 1-4, speculation grew that coach Mike Tomlin’s job might be in jeopardy. At the same time, the 2-2 Browns had just beaten the Ravens in Baltimore and were headed to San Francisco for a Monday night game. They were sure to take control of the AFC North.
What a difference a month makes in the NFL. As the Steelers travel to Cleveland for a Thursday night matchup, they’ve won four straight games with their ball-hawking defense leading the way. Tomlin is in the midst of perhaps his best job of coaching and is now being touted as a coach of the year candidate after a turnaround that could lead to his ninth playoff appearance in his 13 years in Steeltown.
While Pittsburgh has been surging, Cleveland was crushed by San Francisco in that Monday nighter and dropped three more in a row before beating the Bills last week to stand at a disappointing 3-6. Now it’s Browns first-year coach Freddie Kitchens who is on the hot seat, and he can’t feel secure knowing he works for a team owner in Jimmy Haslam who has employed six head coaches in the eight years he has controlled the team.
This tale of two franchises was predictable.
Solid ownership and management form the foundation for success in sports (and any business), and that’s where the Steelers have had it over the Browns for half a century.
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For Pittsburgh and the Rooney family, the mantra is continuity and staying the course. There is never a sense of panic among the Steelers leadership trio of owner/president Art Rooney, general manager Kevin Colbert and Tomlin. Rooney learned the value of stability from his late father Dan, as the franchise has had only three head coaches over the past 50 years — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin. Colbert has been GM since 2010.
Rooney, Colbert and Tomlin stayed focused on the present during the team’s early season struggles. Before the road win over the Chargers that turned things around when quarterback Mason Rudolph was out and undrafted rookie Devlin Hodges stepped in, Tomlin said of the rumors regarding his potential departure, “I’m not worried about that. I’m the head coach of a 1-4 team going on the road to play a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback with a third string quarterback. Do you think I’m worried about anything this week other than that?”
Colbert, one of the NFL’s top personnel evaluators, helped the cause immensely by making a bold move in mid-September. He traded a 2020 first-round pick to Miami for safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, who is playing at an All-Pro level and is tied for the NFL lead with five interceptions. Fitzpatrick has injected more juice in a Steelers defense that ranks second in the league with 26 takeaways and has allowed just 17 points per game during the winning streak.
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While many fans clamored for the Steelers to trade for a veteran QB, Colbert and Tomlin stayed the course with Rudolph, who had been selected in the third round of the 2018 draft as a possible successor to Roethlisberger. Rudolph has been efficient with 11 TD passes, 4 interceptions and a 65 percent completion rate for a 93.0 rating. And he has had to do it the past two weeks without his top back due to Pro Bowler James Conner’s shoulder injury.
Last Sunday’s 17-12 win over the Rams was what has become a typical Steelers performance over the past month. The defense forced Jared Goff into two interceptions and a lost fumble while Rudolph passed for 242 yards and a TD with no interceptions (while the running game produced only 42 yards without Conner). Another important ingredient in the Steelers’ recent success is kicker Chris Boswell, who is having a great season (18 of 19 on field goals and perfect on PATs).
It’s also revealing that the Steelers’ four losses were to the 49ers, Patriots, Seahawks and Ravens — teams with a combined record of 31-6.
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Meanwhile, the Browns have not parlayed a good 2018 finish (5-2 in the last seven games to finish 7-8-1, still their eleventh straight losing season) to the anticipated success this season. Baker Mayfield was expected by many to elevate his play with the addition of Odell Beckham Jr., but the second-year QB has regressed. His 12 interceptions are second most in the league. He needs to do a lot less talking and a lot more producing. And Beckham has only one touchdown reception among his 44 catches this season.
The Cleveland defense has not been forcing turnovers at the rate of last season (31 takeaways in 2018 vs. only 9 this season). Thus, between the offense and defense, the Browns have a -8 turnover ratio, a recipe for disaster.
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Kitchens doesn’t seem to have the answers. GM John Dorsey, who learned the ropes under Hall of Famer Ron Wolf in Green Bay, won’t put up with an underachieving coach for long, and we know Haslam is always ready to change coaches and GMs. The result could be more instability on the horizon in Cleveland if things don’t turn around dramatically, starting this week against their rivals on national TV.
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The ironic part of Haslam’s lack of staying with his coaching and GM choices (three GM changes in the past five years) is that he entered the NFL as a part-owner of the Steelers.
He apparently didn’t learn much from his Pittsburgh experience.
As for where the Steelers might be headed, I experienced a similar season when I was with the Titans in 2002 — the exception being we didn’t lose our starting QB to injury. We also started 1-4, and the heat was on coach Jeff Fisher. But we knew we had good players and coaches who had recently taken us to the Super Bowl and were confident that things would improve.
That Tennessee team won 10 of its last 11 regular-season games to win the AFC South and then won a playoff game over Pittsburgh before falling to Oakland in the AFC title game.
That’s what winning organizations such as the Steelers is capable of accomplishing, while the Browns just can’t seem to figure it out.
Jeff Diamond is a former president of the Titans and former vice president/general manager of the Vikings. He was selected NFL Executive of the Year in 1998. Diamond is currently a business and sports consultant who also does broadcast and online media work. He makes speaking appearances to corporate/civic groups and college classes on negotiation and sports business/sports management. He is the former chairman and CEO of The Ingram Group. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffdiamondNFL.