{"id":1016470,"date":"2026-10-02T09:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T09:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1016470\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T09:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T09:12:18","slug":"denzel-ward-flips-momentum-with-interception-against-the-steelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1016470\/","title":{"rendered":"Denzel Ward flips momentum with interception against the Steelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denzel Ward changes momentum of game with interception<\/p>\n

As the second quarter began with the Steelers on the 23-yard line, and the Browns down a score, the defense was looking for a stop.<\/p>\n

CB Denzel Ward<\/a>\u00a0was covering WR Michael Pittman Jr., with Pittman on the inside, and Ward saw QB Aaron Rodgers throw the ball. Ward said he was able to speed turn and track down the ball to come up with the first interception of the game. The interception marked his first of the season, and the 19th of his career.<\/p>\n

Ward said the interception on Rodgers was his first against the Steelers since his rookie season when he picked off QB Ben Roethlisberger in 2018.<\/p>\n

“It felt good, man, just to be able to help this team out and make a play,” Ward said. “I pride myself on being a playmaker for this team and being that number one guy. So just grateful I was able to do that and you know, all glory to God, man.”<\/p>\n

That pick proved to be the momentum shift the Browns needed on both sides of the ball. The offense capitalized off the turnover with their first touchdown of the game, as Watson led the Browns down the field and RB Jaleel McLaughlin<\/a> ran for 28 yards into the end zone for the touchdown. The defense also began to settle in, after they had four defensive penalties in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Ward finished the game with four tackles, one quarterback hit, one interception and one pass defensed. Yet, his presence in both their man and zone coverages limited the number of targets Rodgers threw to receivers on Ward’s side of the field.<\/p>\n

“Big credit to Denzel Ward,” Monken said. “I mean, he changed the momentum of the game. We just didn’t convert the first drive, and then we had a big play and then stalled, and Denzel flipped it. And then we kind of got things going a little bit, got in a good rhythm.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denzel Ward changes momentum of game with interception As the second quarter began with the Steelers on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1016471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[39212,198,7,6,520,57,132563,2360,426,5150],"class_list":["post-1016470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-adpartnerthree_big_takeaways_article","tag-featured","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburgh-steelers-at-cleveland-browns-2026-reg-4","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-takeaways"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117370548633662985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1016471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}