‘I don’t think the Cleveland Browns are a good team at all’

The Pittsburgh Steelers fell 24-19 to the Cleveland Browns in a veritable snow globe Thursday night, snapping a five-game winning streak. After the loss, Steelers receiver George Pickens blamed the weather instead of crediting the opponent.

“The conditions played a huge, huge role in today’s game,” said Pickens, by Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “I don’t think the Cleveland Browns are a good team at all. I think the conditions kind of saved them today.”

A blinding, heavy snow fell throughout the match and was particularly disruptive in the second half. At one point, Pickens appeared to lose a potential touchdown but couldn’t connect with Russell Wilson. The bank blamed the snow for the accident.

“The snow, the conditions were so bad,” he said. “I don’t even think the QB could see sometimes. And when you get conditions like that, on the opponent’s home field, it kind of works in their favor.”

Pickens finished with four catches for 48 yards, his lowest since the Week 5 loss to Dallas. In Wilson’s previous four starts, Pickens had averaged 91.25 yards per carry. match.

Less flamboyantly, Wilson agreed that the Steelers’ foul shots cost the club more than the Browns’ play.

“We should have won that game,” Wilson said. “We felt like we wrestled. We wrestled our butts off. Obviously, it was a tough environment. We wanted to win this one. Unfortunately, we fell short.”

The offense was unable to puncture the end zone until the fourth quarter, with drives constantly stalling. Mike Tomlin’s club didn’t score until 3:22 left in the game, but a missed field goal, two turnovers on downs and a fumble cost them a shot for more points.

Pittsburgh also messed up the closing script. The offense couldn’t stay on the field after getting the ball back with a lead. The Steelers called a deep pass from backup Justin Fields on third-and-4 that missed badly. Then the defense couldn’t get off the field on the Browns’ final drive. Tomlin elected to accept an illegal touch penalty to push Cleveland to a third-and-7 instead of a fourth-and-2. The Browns converted and marched into the end zone with 57 seconds left.

On the final Hail Mary attempt, Pickens and Browns corner Greg Newsome II got tangled up. CB claimed that Pickens was trying to “do something WrestleMania” on the play.

“Yeah, he’s a fake tough guy,” Newsome said via Cleveland.com. “He does a lot of that. The pranks and stuff. Yeah, he didn’t even go up for the ball.”

Newsome probably isn’t surprised to hear that Pickens blames the weather.

The Steelers’ loss dropped them to 8-3, one game back of the Kansas City Chiefs (9-1) and Buffalo Bills (9-2) in the race for the AFC’s top seed. It also moved the Baltimore Ravens (7-4) into striking distance in the AFC North race. Cleveland improved to 3-8, with a chance to play spoiler, especially in the division down the stretch.

The Steelers and Browns meet again in 16 days in Pittsburgh.