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Cleveland Browns defensive end Jared Verse reacts Oct. 1 after a play against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Cleveland. Associated Press<\/p>\n
PITTSBURGH \u2014 Time to find out if the Cleveland Browns<\/a> are for real.<\/p>\n Maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n A month after the Browns pulled off a last-second home victory<\/a> over their longtime rivals, an upset in name only at a place the Steelers have struggled to win of late, Cleveland (5-2) heads two hours southeast to Pittsburgh (5-2) with first place in the AFC North on the line.<\/p>\n It’s still far too early to start talking about the playoffs, sure. Yet, Cleveland is well aware of what’s at stake in a stadium where they’ve won just twice since it opened in 2001.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother opportunity for us to go out there and play and try to get a win for the city and showcase that we\u2019re a team that we can play in this league at a top level,\u201d quarterback Deshaun Watson said.<\/p>\n A level this iteration of the Browns has never seen, at least at the season’s midpoint. Cleveland hasn’t been 6-2 after eight games since 1994, back when Bill Belichick was a young head coach still finding his way and about a year before the franchise packed up and moved to Baltimore.<\/p>\n The Browns have turned things around behind a gritty defense and a steady dose of some late-game heroics by Watson. All five of Cleveland’s wins have been decided in the fourth quarter, including a 27-24 thriller<\/a> on the road last week in Tennessee.<\/p>\n The Titans, however, are struggling. The Steelers are not. While they’ve not been particularly dominant so far in head coach Mike McCarthy’s<\/a> first year, they’ve responded to the loss in Cleveland by ripping off three straight workmanlike victories while remaining very much a work in progress.<\/p>\n Quarterback Aaron Rodgers<\/a> has stressed repeatedly there is room for improvement on offense, which has bogged down in the red zone and whose lone touchdown run of the season came on a 50-yard sprint by Jaylen Warren<\/a> against Indianapolis three weeks ago.<\/p>\n Still, when it has mattered late, the Steelers have found a way. They scored the last 10 points to pull away from the Colts, rallied from 13 down<\/a> in the fourth quarter to edge Tampa Bay and expertly drained the final 5:52 off the clock in Paris on Sunday<\/a> to turn away the Saints.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re growing up, for me my favorite players all had the ball in their hands late in the game,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cQuarterback, guard, Michael Jordan, pitchers, because you know that\u2019s the guy making the impact. And so, in the fourth quarter, you want the ball in your hands and have a chance to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n The winner Sunday will be alone at the top of one of the most competitive divisions in the NFL as November opens. If the Browns can sweep the Steelers, it will validate their status as legitimate contenders. If Pittsburgh can do what it almost always does when Cleveland visits, the veteran Steelers will head into their bye with momentum and a firm belief their best football remains in front of them.<\/p>\n And if it’s close late \u2014 and it is almost always close late for both teams \u2014 then that’s just how they like it.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, we all know what the goal is,\u201d McCarthy said. \u201cWhen you get to the playoffs, every game comes down to a one-possession game. So, I think your team, we all train those situations and you try to live them, but there\u2019s nothing like being in them in real time. So, it\u2019s great for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n For the winners, anyway.<\/p>\n Need to know<\/p>\n Cleveland (5-2) at Pittsburgh (5-2)<\/p>\n When\/where to watch: 1 p.m. Sunday, CBS<\/p>\n Latest odds: Steelers by 3 1\/2<\/p>\n Matchup to watch<\/p>\n Watson against Pittsburgh’s pass rush. The Browns have been wildly inconsistent in protecting Watson and his surgically repaired Achilles tendon, but kept Steelers edge rushers T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig relatively in check in an upset victory in Cleveland at the start of October. Pittsburgh had just two sacks \u2014 matching the season low allowed by the Browns \u2014 while Watson passed for 278 yards. The most direct path to disrupting Watson is making him uncomfortable, something Pittsburgh didn’t do nearly enough on the road a month ago.<\/p>\n Stats and stuff<\/p>\n The Steelers are 24-1 in the regular season at home against Cleveland since Acrisure Stadium opened in 2001.Pittsburgh allowed 18 yards rushing last week against the Saints, the second-lowest single-game total surrendered by any NFL team this season. Steelers edge rusher TJ Watt has 18 1\/2 of his 120 1\/2 career sacks against the Browns.Pittsburgh running back Jaylen Warren is fourth in the NFL in yards from scrimmage (855) and is on pace to smash his career high of 1,291 set last season.Cleveland\u2019s defense is first in the league with 46 tackles for loss and sixth with 20 sacks. They have 11 players with at least one sack.Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson leads the league in passer rating (132.2) and completion rate (73.2%) in the final two minutes of the first and second half.Cleveland wide receiver Denzel Boston is tied for second in the NFL with three receptions of at least 40 yards. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland Browns defensive end Jared Verse reacts Oct. 1 after a play against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Cleveland.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3035,3027,3022,3042,3048,3051,1610,3030,3028,31,3029,3034,3025,3047,3041,3024,3045,3033,3023,3036,182,3049,3039,139,3026,28,3040,73,75,74,39,3031,3044,3043,3032,3050,3038,3037,3046],"class_list":["post-317907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bruin","tag-butler","tag-butler-eagle","tag-cabot","tag-callery","tag-cherry-valley","tag-community-news","tag-connoquenessing","tag-cranberry","tag-crime","tag-east-butler","tag-eau-claire","tag-education-news","tag-evans-city","tag-fairview","tag-government-news","tag-harmony","tag-harrisville","tag-high-school-sports-news","tag-karns-city","tag-local-news","tag-mars","tag-mount-chesnut","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-pennsylvania","tag-petrolia","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-political-news","tag-portersville","tag-sarver","tag-saxonburg","tag-slippery-rock","tag-valencia","tag-west-liberty","tag-west-sunbury","tag-zelienople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}