It probably wasn't the best idea by Freddie Kitchens to wear this T-shirt before his Browns' Week 13 rematch against the Steelers at Heinz Field:
Freddie Kitchens the Browns Head Coach wearing a Pittsburgh Started it Shirt. #NFL pic.twitter.com/EEwUPGJ764
— Blitzburgh ? (@SteelBlitzburgh) November 30, 2019
"I thought it was pretty stupid," David DeCastro was saying of Kitchens' wardrobe decision after his Steelers wiped out the Browns, 20-13, on Sunday. "That's a lot of bulletin board material. I don't know why you do that as a coach. I just don't get that. Of course it's going to motivate us. What are you thinking? It's just not smart."
Kitchens, even now after likely getting eliminated from the playoffs by these division-rival Steelers, wasn't going to take it back. Instead, he doubled down on it.
"I wore a T-shirt," Kitchens was telling reporters after the game. "I wore a jacket with it. My daughters wanted me to wear the shirt. I'd wear it again ... The T-shirt didn't cause us to give up 40-yard passes. We were ready to play. That's the only thing people need to be concerned about."
Ramon Foster put it as bluntly as anyone:
"I'm glad Coach doesn't do anything like that," Foster said, referring to Mike Tomlin.
Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield had a similarly deadpan response — and my personal favorite — when probed about the now-infamous shirt:
"I don't really have a comment on that," Mayfield said just one second before having a comment on that. "It's just a T-shirt. I've done much worse."
Thing is, this game isn't and was never about the T-shirt. Sure, DeCastro, Foster and the Steelers saw it. They tucked the emotions it generated away and — pardon the Tomlinism here — unleashed hell on Sunday. Just two weeks after falling to these Browns in Cleveland, however, it wasn't needed. The Steelers were 6-5 before Sunday's showdown, barely clinging to the sixth seed and final playoff spot in the AFC.
The Ravens, now 10-2, will win the AFC North Division. And the Bills, now 9-3, are almost guaranteed to take the fifth seed. That leaves one spot up for grabs if the postseason is the goal. And for these Steelers, it is. That hasn't changed since they limped to the finish line and the curtain closed on a disappointing 9-6-1 season last year right here at Heinz Field.
So all that extra noise fueled by the Browns?
"We weren't concerned about it to be quite honest with you," Tomlin said. "We were concerned about beating them today. That's how you deal with some of that stuff. You beat them."
One coach wore a controversial and tone-deaf T-shirt. The other said that. It's a fitting juxtaposition for a Browns-Steelers series that is entirely one-sided.
The Browns haven't swept the Steelers since 1988. They've now lost 16 in a row here in Pittsburgh. There's no rivalry in this equation, so go ahead and forget about that in the context of Sunday's game.
"It was only about us," Foster put it after the game. "And that's how we have to treat it the rest of the season, too. I mean, you see it: We've got too many other issues to be worried about other teams."
But there had to be some extra tension out there, given the last encounter, right?
"No," Foster fired back. "The game has to be played a certain way, and I think they knew it, and we knew it, too. You can't be jaw-jackin' and having to play some four-hour game. You might get your head knocked off. Guys don't need to be doing that."
OK, OK, but at least the personnel on the Browns' side this year gets you fired up to go, right? I mean, you've got to cover Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, Jr. on a regular basis. That's gotta get you hyped up, right, Steven Nelson?
"Definitely not," Nelson offered without hesitation when I asked him at his locker. "They're just like any other receivers. We're not too much worried about it. It's just hype. I don't know where their hype comes from."
Nelson shut down that idea with a quickness, but he kept rolling. That's when things got extra spicy:
"I saw some, like, bulletin stuff last week or whenever we played them. They were saying they should've put up 40 on us or something like that. I don't know where that came from. We got nine three-and-outs as a defense. Besides the deep play he [Beckham, Jr.] had early in the game — that was just a busted coverage, obviously — he had zero catches after that. It's just hype. All this [stuff] is hype. We went out there and handled business as a defense and came out with the win."
Safety Kam Kelly, a newcomer to this Steelers team after impressing throughout training camp and OTAs, offered a little more there.
"Of course, we didn't forget what happened last game," Kelly was telling me. "That's just like a silent burning sensation. We're not talking about it or making it a big deal, but obviously it made guys play with a little bit more fire."
That's just it with the 2019 Browns. It's hype, as Nelson put it. They were predicted by some to win the Super Bowl. By others, myself included, they were considered locks to win the AFC North. But they play the game on Sundays, and to this Steelers squad, it was just another contest against another AFC opponent. After starting 1-4 to kick off the 2019 season, every game matters for this team. No amount of helmet-swinging or T-shirt wearing or anything else could loom larger than that point.
"A win's a win," Bud Dupree was saying after the game. "The other stuff ... it's not like we went out there looking at payback for the helmet thing."
They didn't, because it wasn't needed. Instead, the Steelers went out there looking solely for a win. Literally nothing matters more right now for this team. They'd said it all week leading into this matchup, then it played out on the field just as they predicted. They were hungry and focused, registering five sacks, six tackles for a loss, a forced fumble, an interception and five passes defended on defense.
On the other side of the ball, Devlin 'Duck' Hodges played an effective game with just one blemish — an interception midway through the fourth quarter — and established rapport with James Washington, who finished with four catches for 111 yards and a touchdown.
Wait, wait. Calling it "a" touchdown isn't fair. It was this touchdown:
And while the win was pinned to the tippy top of the Steelers' bulletin board, let's not misconstrue: This was still an AFC North football game. Of course there was something there, particularly for a guy like Joe Haden, who played the first seven years of his career in Cleveland.
"I was there [in Cleveland] for a while, so you want to get back at them," Haden was saying after the game. "But for the bigger picture, I am just excited for my team, for my guys."
Nelson, who played for the AFC West's Chiefs to kick off his career, feels it, too.
"I like it, man. It's hype. It's amped-up," Nelson was saying. "The fans get into it. It's one of those highly anticipated type of games each and every time we play an AFC opponent. I like it."
Now with these Steelers, Haden and Nelson get to enjoy the winning side of this particular matchup — and they're understandably loving it.
"I just feel like we never give up hope, we never feel like we are out of it," Haden said. "We always feel like someone is going to make the play instead of someone messing it up. We just have so many guys out here, we just feel like, 'Man, let's get back up here, let's make a play. Let's strip-sack, let's get a pick.' You never feel like you are out of the game until it is zeroes on the clock."
That could apply to this particular Sunday afternoon victory over the Browns ... or it could apply to the Steelers' season as a whole. Take your pick.
But now, the focus remains the same. The Steelers head into Arizona next week to face the struggling Cardinals, but it could be any team on earth.
"Man, this time of year, forget the opponent," Tomlin said. "They're nameless, gray faces. It's about you being able to execute your plan to a level that allows you to win games. So I want to keep the focus on our guys and what they did."
The Steelers will do one thing: Trust each other and focus on the win above anything else, because with this squad ...
"We know we're good enough to beat everybody that we play," Kelly put it when I asked him about how this squad is maintaining its focus.
Do that — maintain the focus and win again against the Cardinals – and the Steelers will take another step toward doing something the Browns haven't done since 2002: Make the playoffs.
And, oh, just for fun ... You'll never guess how that one ended.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Steelers vs. Browns, Heinz Field, Dec. 1, 2019 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS