The end of JuJu Smith-Schuster’s 2020 season was one to forget. The Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver seemed to constantly be motivating his opponents whether he intended to or not.
The most notable example of this came before the Steelers’ AFC Wild Card game against the Cleveland Browns. Smith-Schuster infamously dismissed the opponents, stating that “the Browns is the Browns” and shrugging off the threat from them. The comment was seized upon by Browns players and fans, and looked particularly bad for Smith-Schuster after Cleveland’s 48-37 win.
Smith-Schuster reflected on the comment recently, and said while he was aware it motivated the Browns, he didn’t have any regrets.
“Probably a lot, honestly,” Smith-Schuster said on “PFT PM” when asked how much the remark motivated the Browns, via Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk. “I’m not going to lie to you. It got to a point where the Cleveland Browns had a billboard up in Cleveland that said, ‘The Browns is the Browns.’ I think by me saying that, it says that a lot of people care about what I say.
“At the end of the day, I said what I said. I don’t take anything back. They did come out there, they did whoop our a–. It is what it is. We lost that game. We lost early in that game in the first five, 10 minutes.”
Credit to Smith-Schuster for owning it, because he’s definitely correct about it being a motivating factor. While he may have no regrets, he may want to be a bit more careful about handing opponents bulletin board material in the future. It went wrong for him a lot in 2020.
