There are no moral victories, let’s be clear about that. At the end of the regular season you have a column with the number of wins, and a column with the number of losses. End of story. That’s advantageous when you’d rather dismiss games like the 38-6 and 38-7 losses the Browns had earlier this season. But the fourth loss of this season is different. (Worth noting that the fourth loss of this season came in December) Three days later, and I am still trying to make sense of how the Browns were down 14 points twice in the second half, and still had the game tied with a minute left. I can’t quite wrap my head around how the Ravens had 12 completions and scored 45 points*, or how Lamar Jackson pulled a Joe Paterno in the middle of a game only to return and throw a 44 yard touchdown on fourth down that crushed the collective souls of Browns fans near and far. Also, it’s confusing why the Browns threw the ball 48 times when they have one of the best rushing offenses in the league. In the bizarre stat department, the Browns somehow fumbled 4 times, but recovered each fumble, and there were a total of 9 rushing touchdowns in the game. Suffice to say, it was a weird, weird night along the lakefront, and whether you want to attribute it to the misses by Cody Parkey, or the Baker interception, or shoddy defense, the Browns came up a hair short in probably the best game of the season in the NFL.
About the defense, it’s terrible. Like historically awful, certainly among the worst units the Browns have put out there. However, I’m not ready to fire Joe Woods quite yet, without Denzel Ward and Jerome Harrison the secondary was on thin ice against the Ravens. Coming into the season we expected that Grant Delpit would be an immediate contributor and it looked like Greedy Williams would be reliable as well, but obviously injuries have derailed both of those guys. But the problem isn’t only in the secondary, the Ravens ran for 231 yards in the game, averaging 7.4 yards a carry. It’s pretty hard to get stops when they can get chunks of yardage like that. In the offseason, the emphasis was clearly on bolstering the offense (Hooper, Conklin, Keenum, Wills) so we knew coming into the season that it was going to be frustrating on the defensive side of the ball. Despite allowing close to 30 points a game (more if you take out the games played in terrible weather) the defense has made some plays late in games to help seal a win. They were just unable to do that against a desperate Ravens team last week, and were literally one play away from moving to 10-3, when a Willis Reed type moment happened and the MVP led his team to a crucial win. A freelance contributor to 4338 put it like this: “Great Game. Played well. Defense stinks. That will not change until they get some more players.” That’s 100% true and for the remainder of the season, we’re going to need this offense to hold on to the ball and score 30 or more to give us a good chance of winning.
Speaking of winning, I think the Browns must be feeling a little bit of pressure, maybe for the first time all season. The prognosticators at 538 have the Browns with an 89% chance of making the playoffs and I think they will, barring something crazy like losing the remaining three games on their schedule. I’m confident that at least they will beat the Jets, who aren't even trying to win in an effort to get the chance to draft Ronnie “Sunshine” Bass from Clemson University. Cleveland hosts the Steelers in the last week of the season, and my sense is that Pittsburgh will rest everybody they can, it’s been a grind for that team the past couple of weeks. But there are no gimmees for the Cleveland Browns, so a win tomorrow against the Giants could go a long way to put a lot of minds at ease in Cleveland. Despite the fact that the Giants are 5-8, missing their starting QB and best defensive player, I still don’t feel super confident about traveling to New York tomorrow. The Giants still have a slim chance at making the playoffs, and their defense has been good as of late, and we’ve seen that the Browns can give up a lot of points to anybody. (Although it favors the Browns that Colt McCoy is starting and Freddie Kitchens is calling plays. I can’t imagine that combination is going to put more than 20 points on the board) Still, the Browns ought to be able to score on this team, and the defense only needs to be average to have a big lead in the second half and then we can hand it off to Chubb and Hunt the rest of the way.
It’s tough to pick a score in a game like this, especially when the Browns had such a tough loss last week. To get a truly objective perspective I had to go to an outside source, in this case the Prague-based U.K. correspondent for 4338, Mr. Oliver Hill. His analysis is succinct, and spot-on: “Looks like it’s do or die time for the Browns. The big people from the Big Apple have been on a great recent run. Time for the Cleveland folk to turn up and put in a top class display.” That confirms my opinion, and I think the Browns go to NYC, run all over the Giants, and come back with a much needed victory, something along the lines of 34-17.
Go Browns.
*I refuse to acknowledge the last two points scored in the game on that nonsensical lateral garbage that resulted in a safety. Those plays are so dumb, the NFL ought to consider a rule that limits the number of laterals to three. Also, it’s one thing if it is special teams guys out there, but we had Baker and Chubb on the field. What a needless catastrophe it would be if they were injured as part of that nonsense. Not to mention the effect it had on the betting scene for the game. I had no action on the game, but if I had Cleveland +3, I would have lost my mind about that.
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