Rich: What to Read Into the Steelers’ Loss to the Browns on Thursday Night Football

Seventeen plays. Four eye rolls. One F-bomb. Seventy-eight yards.

That is how Rich summed up the Steelers' opening drive on Thursday Night Football in Cleveland, and it is a fair summary of the whole night. Pittsburgh scored on that drive and then lost the game, its fifth straight loss in Cleveland. The last time the Steelers dropped five in a row there was 1986, and they lost two more after that. This is the longest such streak since those days.

The drive was must-see television for reasons that had little to do with the scoreboard. The broadcast caught Aaron Rodgers fuming that the plays were not coming in fast enough from Mike McCarthy, barking profanely at the sideline, and then cut to McCarthy, whose response needed no lip reader. "Stevie Wonder read his lips," Rich said. He called the coverage "absolute cinema" and gave credit to the Thursday Night Football producer, a longtime colleague he loves working with.

Rich cited the line from the booth comparing the pair to an old married couple that got divorced and got back together. Whatever the analogy, these are two guys who have been around the block with each other and without each other. The drive ended with a flip to Roman Wilson for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Then the Steelers gave up 21 unanswered points, including a missed field goal by the kicker the crew lovingly calls the serial killer.

T.J. Watt did what T.J. Watt does. Rich called him "the king of the forced fumble game changer," the guy who gives the Steelers life when it looks bleak. He came up with a sack, a forced fumble and a recovery in one swoop. Rich noted Watt now has 119.5 career sacks, tied with Derrick Thomas for the fifth most in a player's first 10 seasons, trailing only Reggie White, Jared Allen, DeMarcus Ware and Myles Garrett. Watt is headed to the Hall of Fame, Rich said, where he and his brother will share busts in that room. Cam Heyward, a Tuesday regular on the show, was visibly livid as well.

Pittsburgh flipped it in the second half. Rodgers tied it, and his touchdown throw to Darnell Washington was a thing of beauty, a rollout-right, back-shoulder throw that Rich said looked straight out of the McCarthy-Rodgers Lambeau days. But Rodgers missed throws, too. It was not consistent enough, and the Steelers made more mistakes than Cleveland when it counted. On the final drive, there was even a moment when a Steelers defender celebrated a pass as if it were incomplete, only for Jerry Jeudy to have caught it. Rich compared it to Swaggy P thinking he had hit a three.

So where does that leave Steelers fans? With some things to hang a hat on and some reason to ask, as Rich put it, "are we going to be nine and eight again?" Jaylen Warren is really good. Darnell Washington is "a wagon," and Rich thinks McCarthy is turning him into a red zone weapon nobody can guard. Rodgers went to him three plays in a row, drawing a flag on the third, which surprised Rich because there was nothing for DK and nothing for Warren out of the backfield. Freiermuth caught the touchdown that set up the tie. Pittman has not come to the fore yet. At 2-2, Pittsburgh is in the mix.

Then there was the postgame. McCarthy owned it. "Any negative communication on my part, I wish I wouldn't use those words," he said, adding that what is said on the field usually stays on the field, "that's not the case today."

Rich loves McCarthy, and he read the moment as human. Rodgers is at the point of his career where he does not suffer fools, Rich said, quick to add he was not calling McCarthy one. "This is why we're not miked up live throughout every second of every game," he said. As one voice in the studio put it, if someone barked at him like that on national television, he might wonder where the respect was. Then again, these are two guys who have known and worked with each other a long time. The closest Rodgers came to addressing it was noting the crowd was loud and "some of the calls it was hard to hear for sure."

As for the Browns, Rich was enjoying it. They are in the mix for the division and the playoffs through four games, with Deshaun Watson being cheered at home, something nobody saw coming. The Jets are next, then a monster week six home game against Baltimore, then Tennessee, then back to Pittsburgh to start November. As Todd Monken said, the games matter now. "And that's fun," Rich said.