Steelers | 20 |
Browns | 7 |
PITTSBURGH — Forget the 0-4 start. Forget the remarkable finish, the one that kept the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoff picture until the final minutes of the regular season.
There's no such thing as partial credit in the NFL.
''We were an 8-8 team,'' safety Troy Polamalu said.
One that will spend January at home for a second straight year.
Le'Veon Bell ran for 90 yards and a touchdown as the Steelers drubbed the lifeless Browns, 20-7, on Sunday, though Pittsburgh's bid to become the second team in NFL history to go winless in September and make the playoffs ended when San Diego edged Kansas City, 27-24, in overtime.
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''We are going to build on this,'' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. ''I think we have put together a good foundation.''
One that went 6-2 over the final eight weeks, recovering from a potentially franchise-altering 55-31 loss to New England Nov. 3 to play perhaps the best football in the AFC by someone not named Denver over the second half.
Or, the exact opposite of what happened in Cleveland. The Browns (4-12) lost their final seven games and went just 1-10 since early October — not exactly the step forward new owner Jimmy Haslam was looking for with a roster featuring five Pro Bowlers. After the game the team announced it had fired coach Rob Chudzinski after just one season on the job.
Cleveland let the Steelers roll to victory for the 26th time in 31 meetings since the Browns were revived in 1999.
Roethlisberger passed for 179 yards and a touchdown against two interceptions as Pittsburgh won its third straight game to avoid the franchise's first losing season since 2003.
Jason Campbell completed 23 of 41 passes for 240 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Josh Gordon caught seven passes for 82 yards to finish with an NFL-high 1,646 yards receiving, a first for the franchise. It proved little solace on a wet, miserable day at Heinz Field in which Cleveland looked very much like the same old Browns.
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Eventually, most of the attention turned to the scoreboard. The biggest roars were for scores by the Bengals and Jets, who both won to boost Pittsburgh's playoff chances.
Kansas City nearly did the same in a late-afternoon game, but Ryan Succop missed a 41-yard field goal late in regulation and San Diego survived in OT.