Ex-Browns legend calls out Steelers amid Myles Garrett record drama

The argument of whether the Pittsburgh Steelers sold out their chance to win the AFC North to keep Myles Garrett away from the NFL single-season sack record isn’t going away in the aftermath of Week 17. Garrett and the Browns perpetuated the argument after the game, insinuating that the Steelers did just that.

“To an extent, they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron (Rodgers) than getting the win. That’s what came back to bite them,” Garrett said after the game.

Of course, the fact that Garrett was held without a sack in their first meeting of the season, too, doesn’t seem to matter much. As Mike Tomlin pointed out himself after the game, schematically, the Steelers didn’t do much differently against Garrett this time around than they have in any other game they've had to contend with him.

Mitchell Schwartz and Joe Thomas debate Pittsburgh Steelers’ strategy against Myles Garrett

While everyone seems to be taking sides, it’s no surprise that Hall of Fame left tackle, and ex-Cleveland Brown, Joe Thomas stepped up in defense of Garrett. He posted on X, “Sure seemed like the Steelers were happy to lose the game if it meant keeping Garret from setting the NFL single-season sack record.”

Another ex-NFL left tackle wasn’t going to let Thomas get away with the potentially biased take. Mitchell Schwartz, a former All-Pro for the Chiefs and ex-Brown himself, responded to Thomas in defense of the Steelers’ consistent strategies to slow down elite pass rushers.

“I don’t think you throw the ball 40+ times in a low scoring one score game if you’re going to keep a guy from a record,” he posted as a reply.

From there, the former teammates devolved into a mini-argument of their own.

“Did you watch the game?” Thomas replied. “Rodger’s held the ball longer than 1.2 seconds exactly 1x until the very last drive of the game… nothing but sideline fades and quick 5 yard dump offs the entire game.”

Shwartz snapped back with a longer, in-depth reply contextualizing the Steelers' situation, facing arguably one of the greatest pass rushers of all time with their third-string left tackle in the lineup.

“Have you watched any other Steelers games? Rodgers has the quickest time to throw in the NFL this year and lowest average depth of target for any starter, this is who he is and who they are. They do the same thing every week, and the last time they played you guys they did the same thing and Myles had no sacks (his last game with no sacks before this one),” Shwartz said. “That game was to make the playoffs, acting like they can clinch a playoff spot but they’re not going to try doing that at the expense of giving up a record is absurd.”

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For what it’s worth, the Steelers did make an obvious effort to give Dylan Cook as much help as possible on the end of the line of scrimmage. After all, Cook was making just his second-ever start in an NFL game. The Steelers chipped or double-teamed Garrett on 41% of pass rush snaps on Sunday, all while Rodgers was getting the ball out of his hands as quickly as possible.

But it’s not as though the Steelers would do anything different if Garrett only had 15 sacks coming into the game, as another commenter replied. Are the Steelers supposed to let Garrett get the record and then try to win? I seem to remember folks not being too thrilled with Brett Favre when he gave himself up for Michael Strahan to set the record, and no one let T.J. Watt tie it years later by any stretch.

No, the Steelers did what they had to do against Garrett relative to the circumstances of the contest and who they had available offensively. Bear in mind, the Steelers were also missing their starting left guard, lost their best blocking tight end in the first half, and didn’t have their top two receivers in the lineup. Rodgers was forced to make chicken salad out of chicken scratch the entire game.

But just because the Steelers were successful in keeping Garrett away from Rodgers and the record books doesn’t mean they should have done anything differently in that regard in the pursuit of victory. The Steelers don’t have an easier time beating Cleveland last Sunday if Garrett got that record in the first quarter or on the final drive.

Garrett’s season isn’t any less impressive, either, for not getting the record in Week 17 over Week 18 next week against Cincinnati. Garrett has been held without a sack in four games this season - this just happened to be the only game of the bunch that Cleveland actually won. He still has 22 sacks in the other 12 games, and if he gets that last one next week against the Bengals, no one is putting an asterisk on the record with pure intentions.