Steelers 62 Browns 56

[WindyCitySteel]

All time series. When I was a kid I took crap from Browns fans citing the all-time record despite us pushing them around in the 70s. Well, I don't know that the pendulum is swinging back anytime soon.

Browns won the first eight and 16 of the first 18 meetings.

[url="http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/game_query.cgi?tm1=pit&tm2=cle&yr=all"]http://www.pro-football-reference.com/b ... cle&yr=all[/url]

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Steelers 62 Browns 56

Domination of Browns as old as Steelers' youngest star

Thursday, December 08, 2011
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


What passes for conventional wisdom around here has long held that it would be a cold day in hell, or Cleveland, when the Browns beat the Steelers.

Dec. 10, 2009, was such a day, and much worse a night, so the Browns won, 13-6, in another unfortunate installment of Thursday Night Football, which, by the way, is certainly no better an idea now than it was then, or, really, from the moment it was hatched.

Ben Roethlisberger mentioned this week that among his recollected motivations that night was getting off the field and adjacent to a sideline heater, where the wind wasn't forcing the CO2 back down his windpipe so mercilessly and the ice from his watering eyes wasn't forming so relentlessly.

And even though that Cleveland victory extended a Steelers losing streak to a playoff-killing five games, it's remembered more as a meteorological menace than a certified any-given-Thursday NFL upset.

Here almost exactly two years later, normalcy has been restored, and the Steelers will be pulling a full load of momentum to the lighted lawn of Heinz Field on a relatively tropical 30-degree night. They have beaten the Browns in 14 of the past 15 meetings, and in 20 of 22, but for a current Steelers-Browns stat you can really tattoo to your consciousness, you might refer to the upper sternum area of Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey. There among the full display of Pouncey's body ink are these two words:

Est. 1989.

Yes, LaShawn Maurkice Pouncey was indeed "established" in 1989, July 24 to be precise, but so was something else.

Also beginning in '89, the hard truth that Browns have never beaten the Steelers twice in the same season since.

"Wow!" Pouncey smiled. "Now there's a stat!"

Pouncey will be one of five Steelers, and one of 10 players on both teams tonight, who were not alive the last time the Browns swept the Steelers.

"I hope this isn't the year they start winning," Pouncey laughed.

It would take something like that, a total inversion of conventional wisdom, to curdle this Steelers season beyond repair, but in addition to all the basic football logic that would indicate the Browns aren't up to it, you may now add to the evidence the emerging competence of some of the youngest of Steelers.

While Pouncey's importance is as plain as his tats -- he was an All-Pro center last year as a rookie and in the only game he wasn't able to start since arriving from the University of Florida, the Steelers lost the Super Bowl -- the play of rookie tight end Weslye Saunders and rookie defensive lineman Cameron Heyward has suddenly made Mike Tomlin's team deeper than it's looked in months.

"I'm just trying to hang in there; trying to get comfortable," said Saunders, also established in 1989. "This offense isn't the easiest playbook to learn."

Saunders apparently knew enough of it to get free for a toe-tapping back-line touchdown in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago that enabled the Steelers to escape Missouri with a 13-9 victory. He contributed another catch Sunday against the Bengals and he isn't real enthralled with the stuff about the Browns never sweeping the Steelers in his lifetime.

"No," he said. "I really would have preferred not knowing that stat."

You're welcome.

Born four months after Saunders, No. 1 pick Heyward has made ample progress through John Mitchell's equally intricate defensive line assignments, but his first real impact came Sunday when he helped the Bengals avoid taking an early lead.

After a false start erased their first-possession touchdown and a delay call rubbed out the resultant field goal, Heyward stepped in front of Mike Nugent's second try and blocked that kick. When the Bengals finally did score, they were behind 21-0.

Heyward said this week he didn't exactly sky for that block, but did remember his exact vertical leap measurement from the Indianapolis combine.

"Thirty-five point five inches," he said.

Apparently, when you see a guy who is 290 pounds who can nearly jump over a vertical yard stick, that guy's pretty draftable. I mean I'm no expert.

But like Saunders, Heyward had little use for the information that the Browns have never swept the Steelers so long as he has been on this earth.

"It doesn't make me nervous or anything," he said, "but I'm looking forward to the challenge."

That's pretty much where the whole team is mentally.

Last time these teams met, the final regular-season game of last season, the Steelers scored on their first six possessions and Colt McCoy threw three interceptions to help Pittsburgh win, 41-9.

That was not a terribly cold day in Cleveland, or hell.

[url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11342/1195391-150-0.stm#ixzz1furIaklz"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11342/11 ... z1furIaklz[/url]

[Slapstick]

Re: Steelers 62 Browns 56

I was at that Thursday night game in Cleveland.

That blew.

I took my wife and she froze her @$$ off...she has never wanted to go to any game since then.

[flippy]

Re: Steelers 62 Browns 56

I don't think this record counts anyway. It belongs to the Ravens. The real Browns. The used to be Colts.

I feel no rivalry with the Browns any more. They're like an expansion team to me. They might as well be the Carolina Panthers.

[ikestops85]

Re: Steelers 62 Browns 56

I don't think this record counts anyway. It belongs to the Ravens. The real Browns. The used to be Colts.

I feel no rivalry with the Browns any more. They're like an expansion team to me. They might as well be the Carolina Panthers.

I feel the same way you do Flippy. These aren't the real Browns. The real Browns play in Baltimoronsville. That team from Baltimoronsville is our real rival and we better never forget it. The guys from Cleveland just provide us with 2 extra bye weeks a year.