Pittsburgh Steelers Steelers Gameday
Where Do Steelers Go After Crucial Loss to Browns?
CLEVELAND — There are a lot of negatives that come with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 24-19 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night.
Veteran quarterback Russell Wilson is more fixated on what the positives could end up being.
“I think this is going to be a great story to tell,” said Wilson, who’d just suffered his first loss as the Steelers’ starter behind center. “We’re looking forward to that.”
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was matter-of-fact about the setback, as well. The film won’t go by the wayside, but it isn’t something he’ll dwell on with another road matchup — at Cincinnati on Dec. 1 — not far in the distance.
“It’s painful, but it’s life in this business,” Tomlin said. “We’ll take a look at the tape and learn from it. We’re in the midst of some think AFC North action, so no rest for the weary. We’ve got a big one coming up.”
Pittsburgh will reconvene with Cleveland the week after. That grudge match will be a prelude to a gauntlet made up of trips to Philadelphia and Baltimore and a Christmas Day clash with Kansas City. At the moment, those teams are a combined 24-7.
The defeat to the Browns snipped a five-win string for the Steelers. Don’t suggest to veteran defensive tackle Cam Heyward it’s the first time the team has hit any bumps in the road during that time, though.
“Wait, we just had adversity last week,” Heyward said, correcting a question he was asked with such an assumption. “We just beat (the) Baltimore Ravens. There’s adversity every game. We just didn’t win through the adversity. I think we can learn from wins, we can learn from losses. Adversity was displayed on both sides. Adversity was displayed almost every week.”
Heyward was then asked if a loss hits differently.
“It doesn’t change the way we prepare,” he answered. “If you’re not learning from your wins and you’re only learning from your losses, shame on you.”
Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen also looks at what can be gleaned from the shortcoming.
“We’ve just got to get off the field,” Queen said. “When we’ve got a chance, we’ve got momentum, we’ve just got to ride that momentum — and I feel like we didn’t do that today. We didn’t capitalize when we needed to. … We’ve just got to come back to practice, lock in, and get better. It’s never a loss, it’s a lesson. There’s always stuff that we can learn.”