CLEVELAND — When it was all over Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium, the Steelers lost a game they thought they might win, found a deep passing game they thought they had lost and helped the Cleveland Browns gain a playoff spot that it appeared they might lose.
But, to coach Mike Tomlin, it didn’t matter that the Steelers 24-22 loss to the Browns didn’t affect their playoff seeding. Or that his team nearly came back from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter, Or that they were playing without eight starters.
It didn’t matter to quarterback Mason Rudolph that he passed for 315 yards and two touchdowns in his first start of the season and injected some life into the deep passing game with three completions of at least 41 yards.
Tomlin was upset the Steelers lost — their fourth in the final five games of the regular season — and Rudolph was upset he missed the two-point conversion pass that would have forced overtime.
“We weren’t in rest mode,” Tomlin said. “The guys that we wanted to rest, we left at home. The guys that got on the bus to come over here were ready to play.”
It all added up to the Browns (11-5) getting into the postseason for the first time since the 2002 season and sending them right back to the scene of their previous playoff appearance — Heinz Field. The Steelers and Browns will meet again in the first round at 8:15 p.m. Sunday (WPXI) at Heinz Field, ending an 18-year playoff drought that had lasted since the Browns lost to the Steelers, 36-33, at Heinz Field on Jan. 5, 2003.
The Browns finished as the sixth seed in the AFC when the Miami Dolphins lost to the No. 2 Buffalo Bills, dropping them from the playoffs. Even if the Steelers had completed the comeback and beat the Browns, they still would have remained as the No. 3 AFC seed.
“It’s too early for that, really” Tomlin said when asked about the third meeting with the Browns. “I am just assessing what transpired in that stadium today and making decisions relative to that. We will have tomorrow waiting on us in the morning.”
After a franchise-record 11-0 start to the regular season, the Steelers lost four of their final five games to finish at 12-4.
The Steelers left four of their best players back in Pittsburgh — quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, center Maurkice Pouncey, defensive end Cam Heyward and NFL sack leader T.J. Watt — and were also without cornerback Joe Haden, tight end Eric Ebron, safety Terrell Edmunds and kicker Chris Boswell. Haden and Ebron were placed on the Reserve/Covid-19 list on Saturday.
The Browns rushed 31 times for 192 yards — second most by an opponent this season. Nick Chubb had 108 yards on 14 carries, including a 47-yard touchdown run on the Browns’ sixth play of the game. Quarterback Baker Mayfield, who passed for 196 yards, had a 28-yard scramble to the Steelers 16 to set up the Browns’ second touchdown — a 2-yard pass to tight end Austin Hooper.
“We were playing and playing to win,” Tomlin said. “Pressure is ever present. You are either feeling it or applying it. It was our goal today to apply it, so that was to be aggressive, particularly with the downfield throws. I thought Mason’s performance was great.”
But, the performance of the offense the past six quarters should at least indicate the Steelers are on the verge of re-discovering an attack that appeared to leave them during a three-game losing streak. And, somewhat surprisingly, it was heightened by the performance of Rudolph, who completed 22 of 39 passes for a career-high 315 yards, and a running game that gained a respectable 85 yards on 20 attempts.
There was even a limited package for back-up quarterback Josh Dobbs, who dressed for the first time this season and provided a different dimension with two runs for 20 yards.
“It came down to one play,” Rudolph said of the failed two-point conversion. “It was a combination of we didn’t get it done there, and I thought the defensive back kind of sling-shotted him a little. We lost, that’s all that matters.”
Rudolph kept attacking the Browns secondary, completing five passes of at least 26 yards, three of which were longer than 40 yards. The final one was a 47-yard throw to receiver Diontae Johnson to the Browns 10 that set up a 2-yard touchdown to JuJu Smith-Schuster with 1:23 remaining.
No matter how well he played, Rudolph kept coming back to the two-point conversion pass that sailed over Chase Claypool’s head that would have forced overtime. Never mind that he connected with Claypool for a sensational 28-yard touchdown on fourth-and-10 that cut the Browns’ lead to 24-16 and made the tying two-point conversion attempt possible.
“That was a part of the game plan,” Rudolph said. “We knew we wanted to challenge them deep and take our shots carefully. I’m really proud of the way the guys played for me, played for the offense. I got to make a better throw there on the two-point conversion to send us into overtime.”
Actually, Rudolph’s only mistake came when he tried to force a throw under pressure to JuJu Smith-Schuster and cornerback M.J. Stewart intercepted the pass at midfield and returned it to the Steelers 20, setting up a 3-yard touchdown run by receiver Jarvis Landry that gave the Browns a 24-9 lead on the first play of the fourth quarter.
At that point, it looked as though the Steelers might go quietly home and get ready for a rematch with the Browns. But that wasn’t the case.
Rudolph came back with a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to cut the lead to 24-16, converting a fourth-and-6 with an 8-yard pass to Johnson to keep the drive alive and ending it with the 28-yard touchdown to Claypool with cornerback Terrance Mitchell draped over his back.
Then, after the defense stopped the Browns on fourth-and-7 at the Steelers 35 with 3:37 remaining, Rudolph went on the attack again. He hit Johnson with a 47-yard pass to the Browns 10, then found Smith-Schuster three plays later for a 2-yard touchdown with 1:23 remaining.
“We were playing and playing to win,” Tomlin said. “Pressure is ever present. You are either feeling it or applying it. It was our goal today to apply it, so that was to be aggressive, particularly with the downfield throws. I thought Mason’s performance was great.”
And yet, despite that aggressive plan, the Steelers had to settle for three Matthew Wright field goals before they managed their first touchdown. Their best chance came late in the first half when a 41-yard completion to Johnson and a 13-yard designed run by Dobbs moved the ball to the Browns 12. But the drive stalled there and they had to settle for Wright’s 29-yard field goal.
“I felt like we made enough plays to put ourselves in the game there at the end,” Rudolph said. “It really came down to those four-point swings — the lack of touchdowns in the first half when we got field goals. We got to come away with seven there instead of three.”
Nonetheless, it wasn’t enough to disappoint the Browns and keep them from their first playoff spot in 18 years. They were without three coaches and six players who were on the Reserve/CDOVID-19 list, but they managed to hold off the Steelers for their long-suffering fans.
“It is a moment I will definitely never forget,” Mayfield said. “I truly do mean this and everyone in our locker room honestly believes it — we are not satisfied. We expected to be here. We have worked extremely hard to get here. We are excited to have a chance to be in the playoffs.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com; Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: January 3, 2021, 9:19 p.m.