The Week 4 Game Thread: Lost Beaks, Major Adjustments and a Cat in Orbit

There are easier ways to spend the hours between 1am and 5am. Sleeping, for example. But this was Steelers at Browns on Thursday Night Football, so nearly a thousand comments’ worth of UK Steelers fans chose the less sensible option: assemble in the Facebook Game Thread and see what Cleveland had in store for us.

Laura reported for duty as an “idiot”. Aaron called the rest of the idiots to assemble. Lucy paused construction of her Minecraft city and politely requested a quick win, as the children had a dentist’s appointment at eight. Ger needed a victory so he could torment his Browns-supporting neighbour. Phil declared the thread sponsored by Lost Beaks, a charity dedicated to helping ducks recover their beaks.

Lee had worked eleven days on the bounce and wasn’t sure how long he would last. Elsewhere, people were weighing the merits of coffee, beer, squash, tea and a pre-game nap. The match had not started and the group was already conducting a trial of human endurance.

Then, rather unexpectedly, the Steelers looked good.

The defence came out hitting. Jalen Ramsey made his presence felt, the corners were tackling and Cleveland’s first possession ended quickly. On offence, DK Metcalf made an early catch, Darnell Washington continued behaving like a man who regards tacklers as mild weather, and Jaylen Warren ran as though somebody had promised him an extra hour in bed if he could finish the game early.

Elliot wondered whether Warren had eaten a vindaloo before kick-off. Phil compared him to a wasp that simply would not go away. Elaine, who had already made her feelings on Warren clear approximately seven hundred times this season, announced once again that she loved Warren.

The opening drive lasted so long that Jason suggested it might have been the longest in Steelers history—or possibly the longest drive ever undertaken by anyone. It ended with a beautifully designed Roman Wilson rushing touchdown. Pittsburgh had taken its time, controlled the ball and scored in the first quarter. Again.

Laura took particular pleasure in the sight of deflated Browns fans at 2am. For a little while, this had the makings of a rather pleasant evening. Or morning. Nobody was entirely sure anymore.

The first crack appeared when Rodgers threw an interception. The defence followed with a display of tackling that suggested several players had agreed to let the Browns finish telling their stories before interrupting them. A lead that had been built patiently disappeared in a hurry.

“Can we go back 20 minutes please,” asked Lucy.

Phil responded to the collapse by opening a detailed inquiry into whether a Tyrannosaurus rex could defeat a Spinosaurus. After considering jaws, claws, size, habitat and pure strength, he declared the T. rex the winner. “I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.” It was thorough work, although the more pressing question was whether anybody in a Steelers jersey could bring down a Cleveland ball-carrier.

They could not. The defence missed tackles, Rodgers struggled to settle and the thread began to recognise the familiar shape of a primetime Steelers game. Laura missed the first quarter, “when life made sense”. Rob suggested the defence might simply be unused to spending so long resting on the sideline. Phil said watching it was like playing Monopoly with your family to calm down.

Warren continued to offer bursts of hope, but the offence could not recapture the rhythm of that first drive. Boswell missed a field goal, which added a supernatural element to proceedings: if even Boz was missing, what exactly had Cleveland done to the universe?

The conversation turned to the scale of the changes required at halftime. Rob said the adjustments would need to be “big fuckers”. Lee wanted to know who Major Adjustments was, and how an army officer would help. Elaine later reported that the Major was missing in action. Phil explained that he had set an out-of-office message and gone to Blackpool.

A nervy Boswell field goal at least gave Pittsburgh something before the break. Laura measured its margin of success in units best left to the original thread. Lucy refused to let anyone go to bed: the game was far from over, provided the Steelers scored a touchdown on their first drive of the second half.

They did not.

The second-half offence looked unsure what it wanted to do. Rodgers held the ball and took hits; receivers struggled to separate; the running game that had made the opening drive work kept disappearing from the plan. The defence improved, but for a long stretch every possible route back into the game seemed to lead to another sack.

“Remember that first drive?” wrote Aaron. “Those were good times.”

With the football offering little comfort, the thread branched into emergency trivia. Lee informed everyone that Lego makes an extraordinary number of tyres. Laura pointed out that Nintendo was founded before the discovery of the T. rex. Lee, facing a crisis of his own, announced that he was nearly out of wine. The adverts were becoming so strange that Laura wondered whether sleep deprivation had finally taken hold.

Then T.J. Watt gave the group a reason to sit up. His turnover offered Pittsburgh exactly the opening it needed. Mark thanked him and immediately realised the consequence: “Now I have to watch our offence again.”

The Steelers failed to turn that chance into the touchdown everybody wanted. But Mike McCarthy later threw a challenge flag, won the challenge and gave the thread another unfamiliar sensation. Several members asked whether the Steelers were even allowed to win one of those.

This time Rodgers found Darnell Washington. Mount Washington made the catch, the deficit shrank and the people who had been considering bed began behaving as though sleep was a rumour invented by Browns fans. The attempted two-point conversion failed, leaving the game tantalisingly close and everyone’s heart rate less so.

Phil briefly typed that he could imagine the Steelers “wok” this game, corrected it to “won”, then clarified “not wok”. It was well past four in the morning. We knew what he meant.

The defence got the ball back. Rodgers began finding receivers. DK, after another night of prompting both cheers and exasperation, made catches when they mattered most. Rob asked where this offence had been all night. James asked the same question with slightly less patience. Lucy hid behind her Terrible Towel. Laura felt ill.

At this point the clouds parted above the Game Thread, and Jason’s voice came down to the mortals in five measured thunderclaps:

“Give. The. Ball. To. Warren.”

The Steelers chose their own route. Freiermuth scored, the thread erupted in a chorus of increasingly long “MUUUUUTH”s, and the two-point conversion brought the game level. Laura celebrated so vigorously that she accidentally launched the cat from the foot of her bed. She apologised, but there was no time to check his landing. The defence still had a job to do.

For a moment, after a game that had looked lost for hours, overtime seemed possible. Aaron admitted he had never wanted extra football at 4.30am so badly. Simon begged the defence to go and win it. Lee reflected that being a Steelers fan had somehow not affected the blood pressure reading at his last MOT.

Cleveland moved downfield anyway and kicked the winner. The comeback had given everybody just enough time to believe before taking it away.

“Heartbreaking,” wrote Laura. Martyn, due at work in three hours, began reassessing his life choices. Lucy noted that she stayed up until five for these Thursday games despite knowing better. Phil called it a rollercoaster and thanked everyone for sharing the drama.

That was the feeling at the end: furious about the long, flat middle of the game; proud that the team found a way back; and gutted that the ending still belonged to Cleveland. Around the thread, people were wishing each other a good weekend, comparing what had gone wrong and promising to do this to themselves again.

Rob looked at the turnout and put it simply: nearly a thousand comments on a Thursday night. “You guys are the best.”

If you watched alone and found yourself shouting at the television at four in the morning, join the UK Steelers Facebook Group for the next Game Thread. There will be football opinions, running jokes, questionable snacks and friends to keep you company until the final whistle.

Phil will almost certainly have conducted more research by then. We can only hope the duck has found its beak.