Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin announced in his inimitable manner on Tuesday his intention to “airmail a player or two to the post season.” (How many stamps per player?)
Tomlin’s announcement did not surprise, except for his choice of words. More important to the Cleveland Browns chance of reaching the NFL Playoffs for the first time since 2000, is the fact that Tomlin’s team will refuse to mail it in in the form of an engraved playoffs invitation for its once bitter AFC North Division foe. (Ain’t like the old days, folks, though some bad vibes could still be present from a year ago.)
The Steelers Junior Varsity will not entirely replace their betters. Tomlin committed only to resting one of quarterbacking’s Methuselahs, Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben is 38 years old and creaks. Before a good half against Indianapolis last week let Pittsburgh lock up the North championship, Roethlisberger and his offense had been struggling.
Mason Rudolph will start, which has the potential of creating a distraction, if not an out-and-out sideshow. (Hire the carnival barkers now.) Rudolph and his nemesis, Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, may need corner men in the huddle to minister to their wounds if they consider this a rematch of their 2019 extracurricular bout that led to Garrett’s suspension for braining Rudolph with the very helmet he extracted from Rudolph’s head, claiming Rudolph had hit him first with the N-word. (An NFL investigation found no evidence Rudolph did this, and the Steelers denied it as well.)
While there might be, in theory, another ticket into the playoffs for the Browns, it would be foolish to even contemplate those convoluted, farfetched possibilities. There is one way in: Just win, baby, as the late Al Davis preached to his Raiders. Davis, hair slicked back and decked out like no other NFL owner, loved to spout that imperative to his team. He imagined himself to be football’s version of The Fonz (Henry Winkler), who displayed some of the same mannerisms or affectations on Happy Days, the ABC-TV sitcom that ran for 255 episodes between January 15, 1974 and September 24, 1984.
A week ago it was the coronavirus and the irresponsibility of the big boys who play the game that proved self-defeating for the Browns. They ignored the protocols, including proper masking, and the NFL was watching (even when they were in the therapeutic hot tub). Assume the NFL is always watching and if it is not, then it’s the team or some civilian with a smartphone camera. The league brooks no such willful violations of its edicts, especially those put in place to protect players from one another and themselves. Practically the entire wide-receiver room—Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and KhaDarel Hodge—was placed on the COVID-19 reserve list without get-out-of-jail free cards. After a series of negative tests they were supposed to be able to return to practice Thursday and play against whoever it is Tomlin uses.
Everyone knows the result. The unworthy team—the now 2-13 New York Jets—beat the Browns who could have not had to worry about today’s game if they had won. Everything went wrong in that game, particularly ascending quarterback Baker Mayfield who crashed back to earth. Coaching decisions betrayed him, and his powerhouse offensive line, with fill-ins working in place of the sick (rookie left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr.) and the lame (right guard and run-game mauler Wyatt Teller), added to his fumbling woes.
So the Browns have arrived at a new and final opportunity to which the Steelers could unintentionally cut Cleveland the slack the NFL pooh-bahs would not. Rules are rules. Denver similarly lost its quarterback room and played on, if ineptly. There are no rules governing how Tomlin responds but as Tony Grossi pointed out in a post on The Land on Demand, which is a pay-to-view website but worth it (I received no monetary compensation or even a thank-you for my regular drooling over Grossi’s perceptions). This situation is not a rarity and Browns fans might not like the history.
“The Steelers often have been in the position of resting regulars in their 16th game,” gridiron historian Grossi explained. “In the 2004 season finale, the Steelers were 14-1 and traveled to Orchard Park, New York, to play the 9-6 Buffalo Bills. The Bills needed to win to earn a wild-card berth. (Sound familiar? Now here’s the scary part:) The Steelers won, 29-24, behind quarterback Tommy Maddox and a breakout 102-yard rushing game by rookie back Willie Parker, plus three defensive turnovers.”
A year later Maddox found his career at an end. Rookie Roethlisberger, whom the Browns passed on in the 2004 draft, took over and won the first of his two Super Bowls. Now he will rest for his next shot—and last?—while the Browns struggle, in what for them, or most teams, would be considered a really good year. Wednesday morning, the coronavirus won another round. The Browns shut down their facility and, as they have so often this plagued season, resumed meeting virtually because a practice-squad player and an assistant coach tested positive for COVID-19. Contact tracing began again. At least it wasn’t Saturday, as it had been during the Jets week from which the team never recovered. By afternoon the facility reopened and the team practiced briefly.
It has been a long, hard, wonderful, rewarding, disconcerting, encouraging season. Down follows up. Good comes after bad. And everyone sweats out where it will all end. Here is the question that suddenly gained equal rank with who the Steelers rest and when? How many will start and then sit down? What will be the status of the Browns from last week’s fiasco and those who may join the long, painful Orange line this week.
“The Browns are well-acquainted with the primary question that matters to the league when it comes to matters of postponement,” Terez Paylor, Senior NFL Writer for Yahoo Sports, pointed out. “Is the outbreak contained in the building? If it isn’t, you don’t play. If it is, you do, even if you are missing multiple key players on Sunday.” Paylor wrote this after the Jets game, but this is another week, another test, perhaps another crisis.
There is one difference: It is the last week of the NFL regular season. Is it also the Browns’ last?
