CLEVELAND — Between the snow whipping around and the miscommunication with the officials, it seemed nobody wearing black and gold knew what was going on.
At a critical juncture with fewer than two minutes to play in near-whiteout conditions at Huntington Bank Field Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ heads were spinning. Yellow flags were thrown after Cleveland Browns quarterback Jameis Winston’s incomplete pass on 3rd-and-2 from the Pittsburgh 25-yard line.
What came after?
“A whole bunch of chaos,” linebacker Patrick Queen said. “We’re trying to find out everything. Mike T.’s trying to find out. (Defensive coordinator Teryl Austin) is trying to find out. Everybody’s trying to find out what the down and distance is.”
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin detailed the confusion that ended up being an illegal touching call on Cleveland center Ethan Pocic. The infraction pushed the Browns back four yards and gave them another crack at third down, rather than a larger yardage loss and a wasted down.
“I thought it was a grounding, initially,” Tomlin said. “I couldn’t hear the officials. I thought it was a grounding. When I realized that it wasn’t ruled a grounding, I got information from them and made the call that we wanted to make. The distance was more important to us. If it wasn’t grounding, we wanted to move them five yards back. They were potentially kicking into the wind, so we wanted to stop them and make the field goal a longer one.”
The Steelers would’ve been kept waiting for such a try based on Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said after the game.
“My mindset was that 4th-and-whatever-the-distance-was, I was not going to kick from back there,” he said. “I don’t think it’s in those conditions, into the Dawg Pound with that footing, you’d have to kick a really short field goal down there. … I just think that was very challenging footing for a kicker.”
Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward felt there was another penalty that brushed over blind eyes on the play.
“I thought there was a holding, too,” Heyward said. “Because I was wrapped around my waist, but there was no call. I don’t know what we were confused about, but Mike T. was communicating. Then they said we were not taking the penalty. Then we were like, ‘Mike T. wants the penalty.’ We were just waiting on them to get it right.”
Heyward was asked if the confusion had an impact on the following play, a 15-yard connection between Winston and Jerry Jeudy. Two plays later, Nick Chubb charged in from two yards out for the go-ahead touchdown in a 24-19 Browns win.
“No,” Heyward said.
Queen didn’t particularly share the same belief.
“Then the offense runs on,” he said, implying that his unit was still trying to process what was going. “They’re trying to pace and stuff and then the ref ain’t giving us time to substitute.”
Queen confirmed that there wasn’t enough time to make personnel changes.
“Not at all,” Queen said. “Nope.”