The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Ravens, Again, Edition

There's no way, a day after snapping one of the more embarrassing losing streaks in franchise history, to definitively say if the Cleveland Browns are a franchise on the rise.  But after dominating the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, 24-18, there's at least enough reason to believe that this might be the case.

This Browns team at this moment isn't exactly a playoff contender but neither is it the woeful doormat it's been for years. And if that's the only conclusion to draw from Sunday's victory that's still better than the conclusions Browns have been used to drawing on a typical in season Sunday evening.

Are they a team on the rise?  One telltale sign is when it believes that's the case. This Browns team believed, indeed assumed, it would win Sunday and not in a wishful thinking sort of way.  Some of that stemmed from the tough loss it suffered at the Ravens hands in the season' second week, a game it could have or maybe should have won.  Some of that stemmed from the way the Ravens have struggled since that win, struggles that confirm that the various off season financial moves the Ravens endured, including paying quarterback Joe Flacco as if he were Tom Brady, were ill advised. And some of that stemmed from a Browns team that simply seems more energized on both sides of the ball when Brandon Weeden serves as a backup.

The offense, led by a gritty Jason Campbell, set the tone early and closed the door late. It's actually hard to remember when that was the case, particularly with a quality team.  In between those bookends the defense forced the Ravens into a one dimensional offense by taking away any semblance of a running game and forcing Flacco and a modest  set of receivers into roles they are ill equipped to execute even against a defensive backfield as thin as the Browns'.  Flacco was pressured all day, sacked 5 times, and generally had the beleaguered look afterward that Browns fans are used to seeing on the faces of their various quarterbacks over the years. It was satisfying on many levels.

While it never completely felt like the victory was either assured or in doubt, one play that surely tipped the balance in the right direction is the very one that has so completely defined the the troubles of Campbell's backup. It was a desperate flip pass to running back Chris Ogbonnaya, the third of the season though the first from Campbell.  Where Weeden looked ridiculous for trying Campbell pulled it off with aplomb and at just the right moment. Combined with the horse collar penalty then Ravens drew trying to tackle Ogbonnaya, the Browns were able to drain the clock of most of its remaining life while setting up a 22-yard Billy Cundiff field goal that forced the Ravens into needing a touchdown from 80 yards away with 14 seconds remaining. That the Ravens didn't even much try was a particularly enjoyable coda to a game in which they never led anyway.

The other play, perhaps the game's biggest, that gives reason to think this team is rising while the Ravens are falling, was the little 3-yard catch by Davone Bess on 4th and one from the Baltimore 43 yard line with 3:12 remaining, the Ravens with a full complement of times outs, and the Browns with merely a 3 point lead. Miss on that play and the Ravens are a couple of first downs away from perhaps tying the game. Campbell was pressured but bought time and eventually found a diving Bess. It was the kind of play that a possession receiver like Bess is supposed to make and the kind of play he couldn't make a week ago. It broke the hearts and minds of the Ravens defense.

Bess had two touchdown grabs in the game, one of which included an impressive 15 yard run after catch and ankle breaking fake on the Ravens' Ladarius Webb who dove to his right at the insistence of a Bess head fake and Bess took his body the other direction and into the end zone. Bess' overall play Sunday was everything it wasn't the week before.

The game served as redemption of sorts, too, for receiver Greg Little, who had one of the best statistical days of his career, 7 catches for 122 yards.  But Little both gives and takes and so it was Sunday as Little cost his offense 30 yards on two stupid unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. He tossed a defender's helmet, apparently because he didn't like the extra curricular push in the pileup and taunted another within ready distance of a referee.  Little has much to learn and he could do worse than befriending Bess and picking his brain.

Campbell's 3 touchdown passes against a team that has bedeviled the Browns for 5 years was a welcome surprise. It's a testament too to the interesting mix of caution and abandon that head coach Rob Chudzinski and offensive coordinator Norv Turner employ on a weekly basis. Certainly a welcome respite from the stodginess of Pat Shurmur's version of the West Coast offense. Yet the better story of Sunday's win was the play of the defense.

Barkevious Mingo has a chance to be a real rarity in Cleveland, a first round pick that pans out. His quickness is wondrous and even with just a handful of games to his professional resume teams are specifically scheming against him and with very mixed results.  The presence he brings to the defensive line, along with an increasingly stout Phil Taylor, combined to make both Flacco and running back Ray Rice's Sunday miserable. Rice played like Trent Richardson but with even less burst. Had Flacco not scrambled for 25 yards while as he was trying to escape a constantly pursing defensive line the Ravens rushing total might have looked like Michigan's did against Michigan State on Saturday.

If teams weren't convinced before Sunday's game, they are now.  The Browns are a difficult defense to run on and are one of but just two teams to not give up 100 yards rushing to any one opposing player.  That's a worthy accomplishment 9 games into the season.

The Browns' defensive backfield, as thin as any unit in the league, had just as good a day Sunday as the defensive line.  Outside of Joe Haden's fingertip interception, it wasn't a particularly loud day but that's what made it so good.  There weren't any particular instances where Buster Skrine, for example, found himself with his back to the quarterback chasing a receiver.  Skrine's improving, likely, but it's clearly aided by a defensive front that can pressure an opposing quarterback.  But before we celebrate too much let's remember that a few more good quarterbacks await in the season's remaining 7 games before we can draw any particular conclusions about Skrine's long term prospects.

As for the Ravens, it was fun and just on Sunday to watch a team struggle on offense the way the Browns usually do, particularly since it was Baltimore's lost offense. Watching one Baltimore drive after another fail for every different reason was the real treat, certainly on par with watching the Steelers get taken to the woodshed by the Patriots on Sunday.

Flacco played Sunday like he's regressed since securing a big contract.  The Browns' defense was no small part of it Sunday but so too is the lack of talent around him at the moment.  Whatever Derek Anderson-like lightning in the bottle that Flacco caught in last year's playoffs has disappeared just as quickly as it did for Anderson.  Maybe he finds it again but he'll need a better supporting cast for that resurrection.

Certainly the Baltimore fans must be miserable as they watch the downfall of a team that just months ago was Super Bowl champs.  To that I just say, “welcome to the party.  I hope you remembered to bring the cupcakes.”

After 9 games, the Browns finally draw a bye week and for once it's not filled with the kind of intrigue centered around another potential regime change.  Chudzinski for now looks like exactly the right hire.  He's quirky without being odd.  He's willing to take chances especially of the high risk variety when his team otherwise has nothing to lose.  The players seem to like him but more importantly respond to him. In baseball terms, where Shurmur was Eric Wedge, Chudzinski is Terry Francona.

The latest word out of Berea is that Campbell has sore ribs after having the full weight of Haloti Ngata fall on him in a somewhat questionable fashion.  Ngata is quite acquainted with less than ethical play so his relatively late pancaking of Campbell after he already was down remains questionable.  But in the body of work that is Ngata's, it doesn't make the list of his top 50 offenses.  Campbell will have several days to recover, which is a good thing.  Because when this team has looked most on the rise is when it has had the benefit of anyone but last year's number one pick behind center.

The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Chiefs Edition

The last bastion of a bad sports team, the sport doesn't matter, is when it begins to traffic in moral victories.  The Cleveland Browns have been a bad sports team for more than a decade so it’s use to counting its good losses as half wins.  Undoubtedly a 23-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday has been put in the good loss column as fans and players grasp for anything positive to distract from the negatives of their reality.

Of course teams don’t make playoffs, let alone with championships, by piling up a basketful of good losses.  What they tend to get are regime changes every few years and early draft picks to squander.  That’s been the real story of the Browns of the last several season.  None of the good losses of past seasons ever translated into much before so it’s difficult to see progress by coming close against a team that hasn't yet been beaten this season.

The Chiefs were a two win team last year.  Even accounting that it was a team then coached by Romeo Crennel and offensively coordinated by Brian Daboll, they may be 8-0 at this point but let’s assess their worthiness once they play the Denver Broncos two times in three weeks in November.  For now, the focus should remain squarely where it’s always been and that’s on the bumbling group of stumblebums wearing different combinations of brown and orange week after week.

If Sunday’s game could be counted as progress of any sort, it would be to underscore the soundness of head coach Rob Chudzinski's brand of offense as coordinated by a guy who should never have left the coordinator’s booth in the first place, Norv Turner.  All it takes to come to that realization is to watch their game plan be executed by anyone not named Brandon Weeden.

That’s not good news for Weeden.  Not by a long shot.  Every time someone like Campbell can step in and look positively competent where Weeden looks positively befuddled hastens Weeden's exit and with it the closing of the incredibly misguided management style of Mike Holmgren.  For a guy who claims to know quarterbacks, Holmgren's hit rate is as impressive as a suit from Men’s Wearhouse.

To illustrate, Sunday, like that Sunday several weeks ago when Brian Hoyer took the start, showed that a quarterback of even modest accomplishment is a step change difference from Weeden, Holmgren's prized first round pick.  And while Campbell is most certainly a decent sort trying to survive in a league that churns players like NBC sitcoms churn viewers, let’s face it.  At best he’s a merely serviceable NFL quarterback.  A player like him was readily available to one of the worst teams in the league for a reason.

Yet there was Campbell, who seems to have been around since the Reagan administration but in fact is just a year older than Weeden, throwing for nearly 300 yards and two touchdowns against a team that was averaging 5 sacks a game until Sunday.  His quarterback rating was 105.4, which seems like about double of what Weeden’s likely would have been.  It was enough to get Campbell another start and Weeden another step closer to a backup job with another team.

What caused the Browns’ latest good loss on Sunday was not quarterback failure.  Instead it was another hole in the leaky life raft supports this team, this time in the form of two veterans who should know better, Joe Thomas and Davone Bess.

Thomas rarely comes under criticism and for good reason.  He’s as reliable as Dick Goddard forecasting lake effect snow.  Thomas stepped into his left tackle position from his first mini camp and hasn’t missed a game.  He’s made every Pro Bowl he’s been eligible for because where every thing else about the Browns has been a disaster, Thomas has stood out in the most unusual way. He’s been the exception to the otherwise ironclad rule that irrespective of who is doing the drafting, the Browns will blow their first round pick. (It’s worth noting, if only to show how ironclad the rule really is that in the year Thomas was drafted, the Browns also took Brady Quinn in the first round.  So there!)

Yet Thomas had two crucial holding penalties and a false start that had the simultaneously bad result of killing key late drives and burying the offensively challenged Browns into even deeper holes.  It was more than Campbell and his minor core of skill players could ever hope to overcome.

Bess had a game that only two players in modern Browns history could both relate to and appreciate—Braylon Edwards and Greg Little.  The difference though is that Bess wasn't signed because he had a reputation as a breakaway, Calvin Johnson wannabe.  He was signed because he was a bargain bin version of Wes Welker.  Bess is the possession receiver that’s supposed to run the underneath patterns and hold onto balls, particularly in those third down situations where the faster receivers are being pursued by defensive backs while the rest are covered by linebackers.

Bess’ drops in the first half were mostly irrelevant, just frustrating.  It was his disastrous fourth quarter that will be remembered most.

With just over 7 minutes remaining and the Browns’ defense continuing to tighten the screws, Bess fielded what looked like a routine punt.  Indeed Bess caught the ball near midfield, if just for a moment.  Suddenly he dropped it s if he were the focal point of the movie The Longest Yard and had made a special deal with the warden to lose to the guards.  The Chiefs recovered.  Though the Chiefs couldn't use that mistake to put the Browns away for good, it was enough that the Chiefs got another chance to punt a few minutes later pushing the Browns even further from a game tying field goal.

Where Thomas and Bess intersected is where the mistakes hurt the most.  The game was over 57 minutes old and the Browns still down just a field goal.  Campbell, who has a nice step up move in the pocket anyway, stepped up but couldn't find anyone open and scrambled 13 yards for a first down.  Thomas’ second holding penalty then  nullified the gain and the momentum.

Bess killed it for good a few plays later.  On 4th and 7, really the last opportunity to remain relevant in the game, Campbell scrambled, then scrambled some more.  It was at that moment, more so than any other in the game, where my first thought was of Weeden.  Watching Campbell move toward the sideline while still holding onto a ball that had to be thrown, I had two competing visions and they both involved Weeden.  The first was of him simply running out of bounds to avoid the sack as if demonstrating at the most inopportune moment that sometimes it’s best to take the sack.  The second was of something even dumber, Weeden again flipping the ball to anyone wearing any colored uniform.

What I got, what we all got instead was Campbell actually throwing the ball to a diving Bess justthismuch past the first down marker.  It was exactly the kind of pass that earns one the moniker of “possession receiver” (well, that, and his relatively slow 40 time).  But Bess couldn't secure the pass, leaving the Browns once again to chart a good loss.

It’s hard to understand, except in the context of losing teams, why week in and week out a new goat emerges to undo any good accomplished.  In some cases it’s because a player, tired of losing, tries to work outside of his limited role in order to “make something happen.”  In other cases it’s a character issue that reveals itself when character most  counts.  Still other times it’s simply that a lack of talent has the maddening tendency to show up at exactly the wrong time.  All of these are true of the Browns.

Weeden's not a major talent but what’s inhibited his progress is the self-imposed burden he carries to lift the team beyond what he’s capable of doing.  Last week, Little and Gordon failed because they have an insufficient reservoir of internal strength and purpose of mind.  And then there’s simply the fact that the Browns have all the depth of a Katherine Heigl movie.  They are what their record says they are.

There will be no celebrating a good loss because it hasn't gotten anyone, team, front office, coaching staff or fans anything in the past other than a slightly higher cliff off which to fall and the next inevitable bad loss.  The Browns are in a simple business where success is easily measured.  Unfortunately, so is failure.