The Steelers got redemption on Sunday, dropping the Cleveland Browns to 0-11 on the season while breaking their own 4 game losing streak.

Several Steelers stepped up on Sunday, logging more time than usual. Here’s the breakdown for both sides of the ball.

Offense

As is no surprise, the offensive line hung in for the entire game.

The Killer B’s: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell played all 69 offensive plays on Sunday.

Jesse James was one play shy (68) of playing the full game; a surprising stat, as Ladarius Green was held out for all but 8 total snaps. Roosevelt Nix only logged 5 snaps, as the team leaned on David Johnson in 1/3 of their sub packages (23 plays, 33%) with a ground-based attack due to the high winds in FirstEnergy Stadium.

That’s also why Chris Hubbard found himself in for 12 snaps (17%) as an extra blocker.

Opposite AB, Cobi Hamilton logged 43 snaps (62%) while Eli Rogers played two more reps with 45 (65%). Rogers caught 2 passes for 40 yards while Hamilton added 2 for 11.

The coaching staff continues to shy away from using Sammie Coates, who was on the field for a single play. Fitzgerald Toussaint wasn’t much of a contributor either, playing two snaps with no touches.

Moving forward the Steelers will deploy a similar split. I don’t envision Bell ever leaving the field, and Jesse James is entrenched as a starter while Green continues to ease his way into the offense (and getting back to football shape).

With Markus Wheaton added to IR, Hamilton and Rogers will likely see about 2/3 share of the receiver snaps, unless one of them makes a mental error. Coates’ drop in playing time appears to be mental, as he’s played quite a bit on special teams (15 snaps) as a kick returner, and is also trusted to not only handle the football, but also make tackles.

Mike Tomlin mentioned in his press conference that having two broken fingers makes it more difficult to catch the ball cleanly, as opposed to making special teams tackles; a glimpse into the drop in Coates’ snaps.

Defense

Three Steelers played the entire game: Lawrence Timmons, Sean Davis and Ryan Shazier.

The inside linebackers, particularly Timmons, are the most intriguing snap totals, as Timmons was largely thought of as a situational player, one who would come off the field on third downs.

That wasn’t the case at all on Sunday.

Also Davis has supplanted Robert Golden as the starter; the latter only played 6 snaps on defense.

Bud Dupree returned on Sunday, but only came in for one play.

Replacing Cameron Heyward was a focus against the Browns. Stephon Tuitt played in 51 of the team’s 66 defensive plays. His 2.5 sacks Sunday were a career-high for an individual game.

Javon Hargrave played the next most with 41 reps (62%) followed by Leterrius Walton (22/33%) Ricardo Mathews (20/30%) and Daniel McCullers (16/24%). Walton is the outlier here: a 2nd-year 6th round draft choice, he was inactive often throughout the first half of this year.

The outside linebackers were productive, lead by Anthony Chickillo with 38/58% of the snaps, followed by an even 50% share for James Harrison and Jarvis Jones. Arthur Moats logged 41% of the snaps (27) with Dupree getting the extra lone snap taken from the Chickillo/Moats rotation.

Another rookie seeing a lot of playing time is Artie Burns, who played all but two snaps against Cleveland. Fellow corner Ross Cockrell had the same, while William Gay saw 50 reps (76%).

Mike Mitchell only left the field 4 times.

The lack of plays in the first half is what likely kept Dupree off the field; a lack of opportunities. The defense is otherwise full of youth: Chickillo and Walton are second year players, Cockrell is in his second year with Pittsburgh and first as a starter.

Three rookies saw a lion’s share of playing time: Hargrave, Burns and Davis.

To see the type of impact they had Sunday, even with a bad Browns team, is encouraging, and potentially momentum shifting. Chickillo continues to play more often, and is making plays. This has helped James Harrison in the rotation, and should help Bud Dupree’s involvement going forward.

A healthy Ryan Shazier is a game changer as well.

The only bad news against the Browns? Pittsburgh allowed Cleveland to convert a perfect 5-for-5 4th down attempts, after having a stellar 4-15-27% 3rd down conversion rating. That will need to improve going forward, but then again, the Browns had nothing to lose going for it on fourth down, and I can see giving the defense a pass due to this strategy.