(Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
It has been well documented now that two Steelers' wide receivers made headlines before and after their 48-37 loss to the Browns in the wild-card game.
Intentional or not, JuJu Smith-Schuster gave the Browns bulletin board material for his infamous line of “the Browns is the Browns” in an interview in the week leading up to the game.
The Browns used Smith-Schuster's infamous line for motivation and Cleveland players trolled him after their upset win by saying "the Browns is the Browns!"
Browns fans even made hoodies and T-shirts of Smith-Schuster's quote on sweatshirts and T-shirts and it appeared on several billboards in Ohio.
Browns' defensive end Myles Garrett thought Smith-Schuster's comment was disrespectful toward the Browns.
"Any talk like that is going to be disrespectful to anybody on any team," Garrett said after the game about Smith-Schuster's comment. "We definitely did not appreciate it. I think we made that known tonight with our performance. We just have to carry on with this momentum we have getting this big win in their house. I think we have what it takes to keep it going."
Chase Claypool made headlines when the day after the game he said on TikTok live that the Browns would get "clapped" by the Chiefs in the divisional round game. A few days later Claypool in an interview said the Browns were "super classless" for the way they mocked Smith-Schuster during and after the win.
Garrett hasn't forgotten about Smith-Schuster and Claypool's remarks and he took great pleasure in beating them in the wild-card game on Jan. 10.
“It was fun. It's always good to hurt some feelings of some of those Steelers receivers," Garret said via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal. So we had to get after it. We got a little battle with the Chiefs. All in all, it was a good season. It was fun. But we're trying to come back and make something special happen next year.”
It should be interesting to see when the Steelers and Browns square off twice in 2021, as these two teams clearly don't like each other. Smith-Schuster most likely won't be back with the Steelers as he's set to become an unrestricted free agent in March and will cost too much to keep. But Claypool for sure will be looking for revenge against Cleveland.