Halicke: Puzzling decisions cost Steelers in weighty moments

CLEVELAND -- It was only a matter of time before the Steelers lost a game again. And while teams never want to lose, they especially don't want to lose games in which a win was within reach.

The Steelers' five-game winning streak was snapped on a snowy Thursday night, falling to the Browns at Huntington Bank Field, 24-19. And, after this team has been fortunate enough to walk out of stadiums with notches in the win column in spite of self-inflicted wounds, there were too many of those moments to overcome. Yes, even to a 2-8 team.

"I can't believe we lost that game," DeShon Elliott told me after the game. "That's not the game you lose for a team that's trying to go to the Super Bowl."

I'm not even going to get into the short-yardage situations on third and fourth down. As painful as those were, Dejan Kovacevic has got plenty on that. It's bad. Really bad.

No, instead there are several moments in this game that, added together, arguably cost the Steelers the game. This isn't your typical breakdown of Xs and Os, but sometimes the strategies that go into clock management and decisions through other sequences affect the game just as much as what happens on the field between the whistles.

TIMEOUT USAGE/CLOCK MANAGEMENT

I don't even know where to begin on this. For starters, the Steelers needed to run their two-minute offense in the closing minutes of both halves. However, they were down to just one timeout each time.

In the first half, the offense burned a timeout after slowly reacting to a play in which Najee Harris had the ball punched out on a loss of three yards after Russell Wilson recovered. Turns out Harris' forward progress was stopped prior to the fumble, so it wouldn't have counted anyway. Nevertheless, the offense was slow to move past it, didn't get a play called in time and had to burn a timeout.

The second timeout was used as expected, given the situation. Trailing 7-3, the Browns were driving near the end of the first half and were already in field goal range. After a completion of six yards to bring up third-and-7, Mike Tomlin called a timeout to try and preserve as much of the clock as possible in case his defense were to make a stop and hold the Browns to a field goal, that way the offense would have a better chance to go down the field and at least salvage some points.

The Browns then gave the Steelers a gift by simply handing the ball off to Nick Chubb on that third-and-7, gaining only one yard to bring up fourth down and pretty much conceded they were fine with settling for a field goal. But, Tomlin opted to not use his final timeout. Instead of calling a timeout at 1:24 on the clock, Tomlin let the clock roll before Cleveland called a timeout with 43 seconds left, keeping that final timeout in his back pocket.

Now, if he can help it, Tomlin prefers to keep the final timeout preserved to guarantee himself the ability to stop the clock in case an opportunity for points, such as a field goal, presents itself. But, that final timeout was never used. The offense didn't execute plays the way they needed to on the final drive of the first half, ending with Wilson taking a sack to knock them out of any type of conceivable field goal range.

In the second half, the Steelers burned their first timeout after a failed attempt on third-and-1 at the Cleveland 22-yard line. At this point, in which the Steelers were trailing 10-3, the snow had picked up, making any field goal attempt over 40 yards far from a guarantee. Tomlin sent the field goal unit out onto the field for fourth-and-1, but used his first timeout of the half after there appeared to be confusion over whether or not the offense would stay on the field. After the timeout, the offense did stay on the field and they converted the fourth down, only to settle for a 28-yard field goal, making the score 10-6.

The second timeout of the half, well, I'll save that for later.

The final timeout wasn't used until way later, when the Steelers were trying to make another comeback and overcome the 24-19 score that wound up being the final. But, it's deciding to not use it when the Browns were about to score on the previous drive. On first-and-goal at the Pittsburgh 9-yard line, Chubb ran the ball, broke out of the scrum in the middle and was making his way for the end zone. Instead of letting him score, which would have preserved as much time as possible, the defense managed to tackle Chubb at the 2-yard line:

Had he scored, the clock would have stopped with around 1:35 remaining. While that would have conceded the go-ahead score, it would have given the offense more than a minute and a half with a timeout to try and drive down the field for a score, which they had done on two of the three previous possessions.

I get not expecting defenders to just let someone score. But, it's all about situational awareness. The Browns milked the clock, scored on the next play and then the offense was facing the same predicament had they let Chubb score, only now with 50 seconds remaining (after the ensuing kickoff, too).

Timeout usage and clock management has been a criticism of Tomlin for years. This game didn't do him any favors.

WHAT ... WAS ... THAT?!

This one's quick. After Calvin Austin III scored the go-ahead touchdown to put the Steelers ahead 19-18 with 6:15 left in the fourth quarter, they predictably went for the two-point conversion to give themselves a three-point lead.

But, the play call for the two-point conversion was a fade to ... George Pickens? No. Mike Williams? Nope. Darnell Washington? Nuh-uh. Uh ... Van Jefferson?! No.

It was a fade to ... wait for it ... Cordarrelle Patterson:

I mean, when that's the play call, it deserves the way it looked. And it cost them two points.

THIRD-AND-4, SO ... HEAVE IT DEEP?

Another questionable play call came after Donte Jackson had intercepted Jameis Winston late in the fourth quarter. The Steelers were clinging to a 19-18 lead. There was 4:22 left after Jackson's interception, so that should then allow Arthur Smith to run the four-minute offense, especially since the drive started at their own 24-yard line. A well-executed four-minute offense would either never give the ball back to Cleveland, or only do so with at least a four-point lead instead of a one-point lead.

After the first-down run with Harris gained just three yards, the Steelers deployed their Justin Fields package to try and move the chains. They ran a read option and Fields let Harris run with it and gained another three yards. Facing third-and-4, with 3:34 remaining after Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski used his first timeout, Fields stayed on the field, and this was the play call:

They needed four yards. I get there was nobody deep for Cleveland. But, the Steelers needed four yards. And no, this wasn't Fields going rogue. That was the play called. Meaning, take a shot.

"Just kind of pick a side," Fields explained after the game. "I chose (Pickens). He's a top-five receiver in the league one-on-one. He's made a lot of plays."

They needed four yards. A higher-percentage play would have given them a better opportunity to keep the chains moving, keep possessing the ball and bleed the clock. It's just not good coaching. And, while Fields throws a good deep ball, if that's going to be the call, why not put Wilson out there, who had connected on several throws downfield?

I don't think anyone can explain this one to me.

BAD TIME FOR A SHANK

To make matters worse after that third-and-4 debacle, this is the punt that followed:

15 yards. The punt went 15 yards. That gave Cleveland the ball at the Pittsburgh 45-yard line.

Corliss Waitman has truly been a godsend for the Steelers after Cameron Johnston went down for the season with a serious leg injury. But, this was a bad moment to have the worst punt of the season. This one hurts.

CHAOS LEADS TO DISASTER

As for that second timeout in the second half, and perhaps the most crucial part of the Browns' scoring drive that put them ahead ...

On third-and-2 at the Pittsburgh 25, Patrick Queen pressured Winston as a free runner and forced him to throw a pass away at the last second. A Browns lineman turned around and appeared to think Winston had fumbled and attempted to corral the ball. In doing so, he was called for illegal touching, as offensive linemen are not eligible receivers.

So, the decision came down to one of two options: Accept the penalty, giving the Browns third-and-7, backing them up further for a potential go-ahead field goal attempt or decline it and make it fourth-and-2. But, there was confusion on the Steelers' sideline.

"I thought it was (intentional) grounding, initially," Tomlin said after the game. "I couldn't hear the officials. I thought it was a grounding. When I realized it wasn't ruled a grounding, I got the information from them and made the call we wanted to make."

Initially, the officials thought the Steelers had declined the illegal touching penalty, bringing up fourth down. Twice, the Browns broke the huddle to try and convert the down, as they had been a perfect 3-for-3 on fourth down already. Meanwhile, Tomlin and the coaching staff remained confused. After it was finally explained to them, Tomlin accepted the penalty, the ball was moved back for third-and-7.

"The distance was more important to us," Tomlin said. "If it wasn't grounding, we wanted to move them five yards back. They were potentially kicking into the wind. We wanted to stop them and make the field goal a longer one."

But, according to two different players I spoke with after the game, the Steelers weren't allowed to change personnel to match what the Browns had on the field. So, Tomlin had to burn that second timeout to make sure they had all their ducks in a row.

The problem is, after all of that, the defense went out there, with plenty of time to prepare, and let this happen:

After a delay of game penalty put the ball at the 9-yard line was the aforementioned play in which Chubb should have probably been allowed to score.

All of these mistakes add up. And again, this doesn't even weigh the Steelers' ineptitude on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1. This doesn't even weight Wilson taking four sacks and losing a fumble on one of them. This was a game scattered with mistake after mistake after mistake. It doesn't matter if the opponent is undefeated or 2-8, football games can't be won that way in the NFL. The Steelers learned that the hard way Thursday night.