The Steelers were once undefeated in the 2020 season going 11-0. Then after the Washington Football game, the Steelers were exposed especially towards their run game. They ended up losing 4 out of 5 games and were eliminated in an embarrassing loss at home to the Cleveland Browns. Before that game, the Browns have not beat the Steelers at Heinz field since October 3, 2003. From the beginning, the Steelers were getting beat by the Browns and almost made a comeback, but it wasn't enough.
JuJu Smith-Schuster made a comment in the media prior to that game saying the 'Browns is the Browns.' This is true because again the Browns have not beat the Steelers at home since 2003, but I think Cleveland finally caught the Steelers off guard after JuJu made those comments. Do I think the Browns beat the Steelers just because of JuJu? Absolutely not. The Steelers as a team played awful in that playoff game and JuJu was actually one of the best players on the field for the Steelers in that game.
Could have JuJu done without those comments on the Browns? Yeah, he could have, but he wasn't lying when he said the 'Browns is the Browns.' Cleveland has not shown they're a legitimate football team until 2020. Now I hope the Steelers will take them more seriously going forward. JuJu is standing by his comments before the Steelers playoff game and he recently said he thinks his comments motivated the Browns 'probably a lot.'
JuJu on his Browns comments motiving Cleveland: “Probably a lot, honestly,” Smith-Schuster said. “I’m not going to lie to you. It got to a point where the Cleveland Browns had a billboard up in Cleveland that said, ‘The Browns is the Browns.’ I think by me saying that, it says that a lot of people care about what I say. At the end of the day, I said what I said. I don’t take anything back. They did come out there, they did whoop our ass. It is what it is. We lost that game. We lost early in that game in the first five, 10 minutes. We still fought. I’ll tell you one thing about our team, we still fought to the end. It wasn’t good enough. I just know the AFC North [is] just probably the hardest division right now to win in. Guys like Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, and Ben. I think every team is getting to the point where it’s like, ‘Man, they’re really good.’ It is what it is.”