The Browns Can't Let Loss To Steelers Derail Promising Season

There's a saying in sports that you can't let a team beat you twice. What does it mean? Well, essentially, a team that suffers a brutal loss of some sort can't let the fallout from that game spill over into the next one and cost the team its next game. 

That's exactly what the Cleveland Browns are looking to avoid going into Week 9. There were a lot of emotions that accompanied the team's 27-6 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers this past Sunday. It was a game that was for first place in the AFC North, an opportunity to snap a 22-game regular-season, road losing streak in Pittsburgh and prove to everyone that this really was a new era of football in Cleveland. 

Instead, the Browns showed up to Acrisure Stadium on Sunday, more equipped to run their mouths than to play football, and thus, a lopsided loss ensued. It's fair to say that Cleveland simply didn't handle the emotions of such an important game very well. Call it the byproduct of being a young football team. 

It happens, but the key now is moving on, especially considering what the Browns still have to play for. Their 5-3 start to the season may be unexpected, but it's put them in position to be a factor in the AFC playoff picture in the coming weeks and months.

As things currently stand, they're eighth in the conference standings, just outside of the projected playoff bracket, but with 10 weeks to go a lot can and will change. 

Even though the loss to Pittsburgh hurt their standing in the AFC North, the Browns have still earned a 2-1 record against their division foes and remain right in the thick of a hotly contested battle for the North.

Not only that, but the hierarchy of the division seemingly changed in a major way over the weekend after two-time MVP QB Lamar Jackson injured his thumb on the first play of the Baltimore Ravens matchup with the Buffalo Bills. He's now on the IR and may be done for the season, leaving the darlings to win the North and contend for the Super Bowl in flux moving forward.

And so, with three more division games to go, the ninth-easiest remaining strength of schedule and not a lot of elite QBs staning in their way, everything the Browns hope to accomplish is still in front of them. 

That journey begins this weekend in New Orleans against a struggling Saints team that's currently 2-5 and in the basement of its own division. The Saints are slight home favorites, but it's certainly a game the Browns can win, so long as they don't let Week 8 spill into Week 9. 

They can't lose to the Steelers twice and let one emotional loss become multiple, unraveling a promising season in the process. 

There's evidence Todd Monken's group won't let that happen. After getting punched in the mouth via a 34-10 blowout loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1, Cleveland quickly got itself up off the mat to earn a 23-19 Week 2 road win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A three-game win streak soon followed. 

Young as they are, the Browns do seem to have the mental maturity to treat each game as its own individual entity. That mindset is needed down in the Bayou this weekend, as they look to keep a promising season from rolling off the tracks.