The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Cultural Overhaul Edition

If you want to know the real benefit of being the new regime for the NFL’s most pathetic franchise, it’s this: you can clear the decks of the mistakes that aren’t yours and no one will criticize.  Indeed you’ve set yourself up for praise.

That’s how it is at the moment for new Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer and new head coach Mike Pettine.  In succession on Wednesday, Farmer settled most of the family business by cutting loose the two quarterbacks that started most of the team’s games last season, Brandon Weeden and Jason Campbell.   For now, the only complaints are those directed at Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert, a long gone previous regime.

The moves weren’t unanticipated.  Nothing gives cover for making a harsh move than the absence of the knuckleheads responsible for drafting them in the first place.  Yet for those of you keeping track at home, this means that again as always the Browns officially are looking for a quarterback. Unofficially, nothing’s changed.  It also means that the books are now closed on the fate of the 2012 draft as both first round picks are no longer with the team, Trent Richardson having been traded to Indianapolis during last season.  Usually it takes a bit longer to evaluate a draft.

I’d have to do the kind of research that would really be a fitful waste of time to determine the last time a team had two picks in the first round and neither was with the team two years later.  Let’s just peg the number at zero because that’s what it probably is anyway.  (Interesting factoid:  3 times in this golden decade plus of the Browns 2.0, the team has had two draft picks in the first round.  The only non-bust of all 6 picks—Tim Couch, Courtney Brown, Joe Thomas, Brady Quinn, Trent Richardson, Brandon Weeden—has been Thomas.  Couch and Brown lasted 5 lamentable years with the Browns, Quinn 3 and Weeden and Richardson 2.  Fascinating record, isn’t it?)

That Weeden was a colossal waste of a first round pick is a given.  Weeden was a bad decision from the outset.  No one drafts a 28 year old rookie quarterback in the first round.  Check that.  No one drafts a 28 year old rookie quarterback in any round.  No one, that is, except the Browns.  The thought process at the time was that Weeden would be more mature.  That was supposed to translate, I guess, into a shorter learning curve.

If there was one thing that was clear about Weeden, though, it was that virtually nothing translated.  Whatever he studied, whatever he worked on almost didn’t matter.  Weeden had the unusually consistent inability to put thought into positive action or learn from his mistakes.  The 3 straight weeks of awful off-balanced shovel passes late in games is the testament to his trend.  In fairness, there was one mistake he did learn from and that was that he had to get off the field during pregame more quickly after having gotten trapped under the American flag being unfurled in his first game.  The fact that he got caught under the flag in the first place and the struggle to free himself from its clutches ended up being the perfect metaphor for his NFL career.

Where to place Weeden in the Parthenon that is the Browns’ colossal waste of first round picks is far more difficult for two reasons.  First, the list is long, the hall is filled.  Second, some of those picks (Couch, Browns) hung around longer than their shelf life because the regime that blew the picks hung around longer than its shelf life.  So tenure in and of itself is most irrelevant.

But let’s ponder it just for a moment anyway.  Is Weeden closer to Tim Couch or Brady Quinn?  Is he Gerald Warren or Courtney Brown?  Braylon Edwards or William Green?  Does it matter?  Not at this point.

This is of course what really ails the Browns most.  They have been systematically, almost deliberately, awful at the draft.  No matter the pedigree, no matter the resume, the paid professionals put in charge of picking from among the 10 or so best college players repeatedly guessed wrong.

This record, too, extends beyond the first round.  The Browns have been phenomenally unsuccessful in the second round as well during this 2.0 era.   Their most “successful” second round picks have been Dennis Northcutt and D’Qwell Jackson.  The least successful is a far longer list and includes the particularly golden trio, all drafted in 2009 by Eric Mangini, of Brian Robiski, Mohamed Massaquoi and David Veikune.

This is the key to why the Browns have been so awful for so long.  It’s hard to add depth when there’s no core to work with.  The inevitable undrafted free agents that fill out every team’s rosters end up holding much more prominent roles with the Browns because the supposed studs drafted as starters rarely have panned out.  No team can progress past a 4-5 win season until it can find a way to draft a player in the first or second round that can actually contribute not just immediately but for the long term as well.

All this is the history that Farmer has stacked up in his office in Berea like musty boxes in an attic or containers of yogurt in the back of the refrigerator. Someone had the idea that it was best to keep them but moved out before you could ask them why.  So the task fell to Farmer to clean the place up and that’s essentially what he did by parting with Weeden and Campbell.

Weeden may latch on to another team looking for a back up, similar to Colt McCoy, similar to Brady Quinn.  But his fate is cast.  A quarterback that fails in Cleveland doesn’t get a fresh start anywhere else.  Weeden is 30 years old now and has failed in two professional sports.  Farmer did him a favor.  It really is time for Weeden to move on to his life’s work.

So kudos to Farmer for not staying vested in a player based on his draft position.  The only way to build a new culture is to actually build the new culture and keeping players around that were responsible for the old culture can’t be part of the new equation.

Perhaps that was really the thinking behind Farmer’s free agent signings this week.  Farmer’s been active in the market but active in the same way that a person running on a treadmill is active. He likely feels better for having exercised but he’s stayed in place accomplishing that task.  Swapping out T.J. Ward for Donte Whitner and Karlos Dansby for D’Qwell Jackson doesn’t necessarily signify progress unless the real goal is cultural overhaul.  Statistically, the players are interchangeable.

Undoubtedly there are more moves to make.  The Browns seem to have swung for a few fences, particularly in the case of Darrelle Reavis, and missed.  That’s not a surprise.  The Browns are a tough sell, as their coaching search attests.  But money often does trump nearly everything else so expect a few more signings to fill in some of the gaps.  Recently signed tight end Jim Dray is an example, Running back Ben Tate , if they sign him, is another.

Teams like the Browns can’t improve through free agency alone, even when the goal is cultural. But the key to the Browns’ free agent acquisitions stem from the new attitudes in the locker room.   Guys that sign big new contracts tend to bring a new enthusiasm and perspective. 

The real trick for Farmer will be the draft.  He has plenty to work with and a fairly deep draft class.  The most difficult decision he faces is the same faced by his predecessors.  He needs to find a permanent, competent occupant for the quarterback position.  It won’t be easy.  It hasn’t been for anyone else.

The popular thought at the moment is that the Browns will place their near term faith in Brian Hoyer, sign an experienced back up, and then take a quarterback a bit later in the draft with the hope of developing him over time.  That sounds like the typical NFL executive plan, the kind of thinking Holmgren used in drafting a quarterback late every year.  I’m still waiting for that plan to work just once in this era.

The Browns don’t need to draft a quarterback for the indeterminate future.  They need to draft a quarterback who can play tomorrow.  Quarterbacks out of college are far more prepared for the NFL than they’ve ever been owing to all of the specialized coaching they’ve received over the years.  Teams, and as importantly, fans expect as much production out of a rookie quarterback as they do out of a rookie linebacker. 

If this team wants to develop a quarterback then they need to take the plunge and draft one in the first round and throw him into the mix right away.  If Hoyer proves to be the better quarterback in training camp, great.  But the notion that a blue chip quarterback will develop down the road out of the scrap heap that is the later rounds of the draft is just wishful, worthless thinking at this point.

The fans in Cleveland can tolerate plenty, obviously.  But on the list of things that will push them over the cliff number one is a front office that continues to do the same things in the same way hoping for a different result.  There’s a reason Holmgren failed here and it starts and ends with his horse and buggy approach to constructing a NFL team.  This is Farmer’s time.  He’s begun the process of changing the culture and now he needs to take it to the next step by sending the clear message that there is nothing about how the Browns previously went about doing business, be it through free agency or the draft, is worth preserving.

The Numbing Sameness of it All, Again--Jets Edition

There is a point in every team’s season, it doesn’t matter the sport, doesn’t matter if the athletes are paid, where it becomes clear that ultimate success will not be achieved.  What separates good organizations from the bad is how their players respond in those circumstances.

In the NFL the Cleveland Browns have written most of the current chapters in the book on seasons played without consequence.  Everyone following the team should be well used to that.  Still, the seasons disappoint not just because of the results but because of what this franchise lacks institutionally.  It isn’t just a winning attitude.  It’s a sense of pride, a sense of purpose, a sense that its athletes share a common reason for getting out of the bed in the morning to try and accomplish something that may be beyond your physical talents.

Losing does beget losing and athletes are only human.  But that still doesn’t serve as any excuse for the way this Browns team went about losing against the Jets on Sunday, 24-13.  It laid bare to whatever New York audience cared to watch that this franchise lacks any sense of pride.  The team played without a sense of urgency, passion or pride.  It was mentally already in the offseason.  Head coach Rob Chudzinski may have shown the appropriate anger afterward, but the vastness of the charge that lays before him in instilling a larger sense of purpose in this group must seem nearly insurmountable.  It has proven that way for everyone that’s come before him.

The Browns had a chance Sunday to win for the first time since early November as they entered the fourth quarter.  Then again, that’s a sentence that could have been written for each game in the last month.  And like each game in the last month the Browns did what the Browns do.  When a play needed to be made, on offense or defense, those being well compensated to do just that instead barely went through the motions.  In the end, the defense collapsed and the team lost.

The Browns do all the big and little things it takes to be a bad team, so you have them that.  If there’s a 3^rd and 7 to face, an indifferent linebacker looking to avoid contact and injury will lose the slot receiver over the middle and give up a completion for 8 yards.  If 2 yards are needed for a first down, the offensive will get one.  If the offense is first and goal a lineman will commit a false start.  Wide open receivers will drop balls in the end zone.  Play calls will get botched.  Time outs will get taken at the wrong time.  There’s almost no aspect of the game that this Browns team can execute.

It really does come down to a lack of pride.  What others franchises build around, the Browns treat like a staph infection to be avoided.  It’s not that the players quit on Chudzinski.  It’s worse.  They quit on themselves.

Consider just this little stat: Four times the offense was in the red zone on Sunday and only once did it come away with a touchdown.  One time it came away with nothing.  The other two were chip shot field goals because, well, it simply isn’t good enough and doesn’t care enough to do anything more.

It’s not as if the Jets were a model of efficiency, either.  In the first half alone they tried two gimmick plays that were laughable in their ineptness.  One was a fake punt that involved an underthrown pass to a receiver who fell down without anyone around.  Another was a wildcat-based end around that lost 11 yards.  But awful, like water, find its level and on the pecking order of awfulness the Browns deliberately don’t care how low they can sink. 

When a team is this bad and has such little integrity in terms of how it goes about its business of performing for its fans it’s like knocking bowling pins down in an alley where the gutters have cushions to find the telling examples.  Almost every critical play on Sunday served as its own specific microcosm of the season, of the last 10 + seasons.

Consider first the series that followed the Jets’ goofy and unsuccessful fake punt.  The Browns had the ball on the Jets 43 yard line.  The offense then ran off 13 plays and still only covered 34 yards.  True, they were victimized by Greg Little dropping the ball after being wide open for what would have been a touchdown, but that’s what Greg Little does.  He hasn’t caught a meaningful pass all season.  He could be the poster child for the “mail it in” attitude that permeates this team.  The 15^th game is no time for him to find religion.  Look at the bigger picture.  The offense ran 13 plays and only got to the Jets 9 yard line before Billy Cundiff’s field goal gave the Browns a 3-0 lead.  I doubt you could find a longer series in the league this season by any team, including the Browns, that went for less yards and didn’t involve a turnover.  It’s almost an impossible accomplishment.

Consider next the series where the Browns were parked on the Jets’ two yard line and used 4 plays to gain zero yards. (The official play by play suggests the Browns’ gained a yard.  The official scorer was being generous.) That phantom one yard came on a first down run.   The next three plays featured ill-conceived passes and no points Chudinski can’t be faulted for using all four downs.  He can be faulted for not overruling offensive coordinator Norv Turner’s play calls.

That series doesn’t illustrate the ineptitude enough?  Then how about with the Browns trailing by 7 midway through the fourth quarter and in the midst of moving the ball on the ensuing drive? It was at that very moment when pride can push a team through.  Not this team.  It has none.

On first and goal from the 6 yard line, Edwin Baker gained four yards to, you guessed it, the Jets 2-yard line.  On second down, some tight end no one’s ever heard of and I’m going to keep it that way (Ok, Gary Barnidge) false started, pushing the ball back to the 7 yard line.  One terrible pass by Jason Campbell and one dump off pass to get the ball back to the 2 yard line forced the Browns to settle for the chip shot field goal.

And if that doesn’t do it, then the fully expected, completely inevitable defensive collapse on the very next drive should do it.  Again, it was a test of pride and again the lack of same was on display.  On their way to the touchdown that would officially put the game out of reach, the Jets converted four third downs.   That final conversion was a 17 yard scramble for God’s sake by Geno Smith, the second worst quarterback in the league.  (If you have to ponder for a moment who the worst quarterback in the league is, then stop reading now.  Just stop.  You live in a bubble that doesn’t receive whatever broadcast signal shows Browns games on a weekly basis.)

The final measure, though, was the late garbage time interception Campbell threw to Ed Reed.  It had no impact on the game.  It had more of a historical flavor if only to demonstrate that nothing changes even as everything does.  Reed could be wheeled out on a gurney 10 years from now against whichever of the next 21 quarterbacks the Browns will cycle through over the next 10 years and still get an interception against this team.

In terms of what else happened in the game, ask yourself whether or not it really matters and then tell yourself it doesn’t because it doesn’t.  Campbell was the epitome of his 9 year journeyman career.  Some good plays, lots of bad plays and the overall inability to lead a team that desperately is in search of anyone to lead them anywhere.

While nothing that happened in the game qualified as a surprise, the question Chudzinski needs to ask defensive coordinator Ray Horten is how, exactly, has he gone about preparing his charges.  Horton bragged a month ago about how well his defense was playing, results notwithstanding.  He had a pile of statistics to prove his point.  As Jim Bouton once said, “tell your statistics to shut up.”

Horton’s defense has done little the last several weeks to justify his misplaced braggadocio..  You could pick nits about a secondary without Joe Haden but it’s not like the defense was playing well with him.  Besides, the secondary has always been the weak link of the defense.  That was true in week one and is just as true in week 15.  Bad players don’t get good just by playing more and no team can be armed with Buster Skrine and Leon McFadden and expect to stop anyone, including  Dave Nelson, a receiver who wasn’t even good enough to make the Browns’ pitiful team.

The real issue against the Jets, as it was against the Bears a week before, was the incredibly lousy play of the defensive line.  Forget about the healthy chunks of yardage they were giving up on the run against very average Jets’ backs.  Focus instead on the complete lack of pressure they got on Smith.  He wasn’t sacked once.  To give you an idea of how embarrassing that is, Smith has been sacked 47 times this season, or more than 3 times per game.   In fact, it’s hard to find an offensive passing statistic that Smith isn’t last or close to last in the league. 

Going into Sunday’s game Smith had the worst completion percentage, the fewest touchdown passes, the second most interceptions, the worst interception percentage per pass thrown, the worst adjusted passing yards per attempt (which takes into account interceptions) and the worst quarterback rating in the league. (Maybe he is the worst quarterback in the league.   Memo to self: email Mike Lombardi and see if the Jets want to trade for Brandon Weeden.)  But on this particular Sunday the Browns treated Smith like he was Peyton Manning.  Unable or unwilling to apply any pressure, even a hack like Smith can play as he did in college.  He completed 20 of 36 passes, had two touchdowns and gave up no interceptions.

Horton should be embarrassed and probably is.  The defense should be embarrassed but probably isn’t.  There have been some low points for this franchise over the years making it very hard to discern between the dozens upon dozens of putrid performances.  But the effort against Tampa Bay a few weeks ago and Sunday’s effort against the Jets were something special all together.  Teams with pride have awful games.  Teams without pride have awful existences.

There’s one final game of the season and it is the annual last game beat down against the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Neither team will be playing for anything but that won’t stop the Steelers from pushing the Browns around, just because they can.  The Steelers are still a proud franchise.  The Browns are a franchise that couldn’t spell proud if you spotted them the p, r, and u.  As they know, as we all know, you need a an “o” and a  “d” and this team doesn’t have either one.

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

The temptation, of course, is to slap a new headline on last week’s story and call it a day.  That’s basically what the Cleveland Browns did on Sunday, losing in inglorious fashion once again, this time to the Chicago Bears, 38-31.

There wasn't anything particularly new to report, the details of this particular loss irrelevant.  Suffice it to say that the Browns blew a lead as the defense collapsed. Gee, when have I written that before?  Oh year, nearly every freakin' week.

So if the manner in which the team lose is irrelevant was there anything of relevance to ponder?  Yes.  If you’re looking for meaning in a cold city with a cold stadium and an even colder season then it is that this team continues to lose, that it continues to lose with such regularity in fact that it is threatening to undermine whatever fan base remains.

Watching the Browns lose again on Sunday in much the same manner as their other 10 losses this season, I wondered whether even the players get bored losing in the same way each week.  Either they have the deepest reservoir for absorbing boredom imaginable or they aren't bored at all.  No matter.  They are, sadly, still losers.

A defensive collapse by this team isn't news this season or any season.  It’s just what they do irrespective of the players, irrespective of the coaches, irrespective, really, of who they are playing. Maybe losing like this is habit forming as D’Qwell Jackson suggested after the game.  Maybe it just doesn't matter.  When you’re playing out another string in another meaningless season does the manner in which your next loss happens really matter?  It does but only if you’re earnestly trying to improve.

Feel free to make the case that this Browns team isn't the worst team the front office has put on the field in recent years. I’ll readily concede that this team seems more talented than in previous seasons as long as you readily concede that your point notwithstanding the results still aren't any different.  That is the numbing sameness of it all in a nutshell.

The problem with this team since its reintroduction into the league until this past Sunday starts with the quarterback and flows from there.  It’s almost hard to fathom that the Browns are no closer to having a good serviceable quarterback than at this same point during its first in 1999.  That is institutional incompetence as practiced at the highest level of professional sports.

Without a quarterback that the team or the fans can believe it, there's little to rally around.  A strong defense can win you a few games.  Perhaps your hack quarterback can do likewise occasionally.  But there is no end game except the unfulfilled belief in the results of next year's draft.

In Sunday’s New York Times sports section there was an article pondering whether the Jets, whom the Browns play this coming Sunday, will follow the same path of the Carolina Panthers and once again try to draft a franchise quarterback.  The Panthers, as most recall, drafted Jimmy Clausen late in the first round in 2011 only to watch him perform like a baby-faced Brandon Weeden.  In 2012 they conceded their mistake just one season into the experiment and drafted Cam Newton and now find themselves, in Newton’s second season, as one of the better teams in the NFL.  In doing that they did what most teams won't even contemplate—cutting losses instead of grasping to the thin reed of the potential you saw in the player when you first drafted him.  NFL quarterback may be the toughest position in professional sports but that doesn't mean that conclusions can't be drawn after a season.

This past season the Jets drafted Geno Smith in the second round.  He’s been awful in the way that only an unprepared rookie quarterback could be awful.  Think Akili Smith and you’you've essentially captured the awfulness of Geno Smith.  The Jets face the issue of whether to cut bait with Smith, just like the Panthers did with Clausen.

The Browns of course faced this issue last off season and punted, which is why Weeden started the season.  Now deep into Weeden's second season, there can’t be anyone in Berea that believes he’s a viable, reliable NFL starter.  The game just hasn’t slowed down enough for Weeden and who knows if it ever will.  Meanwhile the Browns continue to have a quarterback problem and they need to continue to turn over every rock, spend every high draft choice they have, until one is found.   Quit using hope as a strategy.

The Browns don’t need a “franchise” quarterback, for whatever that even means at this point.  They just need a guy who can consistently and efficiently manage a game, minimize mistakes and get the ball where it needs to be.  Maybe that is asking a lot. No matter.  Until that quarterback is found, the Browns will remain stuck on 4 to 5 wins a season.

Look at it this way.  In their 15th season since re-entering the league, the Browns are averaging just over 5 wins a season.  The franchise has had just two winning seasons overall.  The common denominator is the lack of a quarterback.  The correlation is near perfect.

Which brings us back to Sunday’s game.   Those brave few that continue to watch know what happened.  The defense had another, yes another, monumental 4th quarter collapse that gave the Bears 21 points, the last of which was on a 40 yard touchdown run.  This continues to be a major problem with the team but let’s also be fair: it’s not as if this collapse spoiled fine play on the offensive side of the ball.

Jason Campbell didn't lose the game.  But where he failed is where every other similarly situated Browns quarterback has failed.  He can’t win a game on his own.  He doesn't have the presence and doesn't have the skill to lift a team’s spirit and push it forward in the tough moments of a game.  He’s in very fitting company with all the other ones who have tried and failed in a Browns uniform.

Sunday Campbell helped put together a decent first drive but he couldn't finish, a consistent theme on both sides of the ball.  Campbell did throw a 43-yard touchdown pass with under a minute remaining.  The Bears were up 14 points.  In other words, it was garbage time.  What Campbell was able to do, once, was put together a drive that mattered that resulted in the Edwin Baker 2-yard touchdown run.

Is this all Campbell’s fault?  Of course not.  The holding penalty on Shaun Lauvao early in the fourth quarter negated a nice run by Chris Ogbonnaya that had taken the ball deep into Chicago territory.  The penalty ultimately pushed the Browns back far enough where they had to punt.  If that penalty doesn't happen, maybe the Browns go in for the touchdown and maybe they go up 14, just like a week ago.  But given Campbell’s play, there’s at least as much reason to think that the Browns end up getting another field goal, at best.  At worst, he throws an interception.

Either way, it was still on the defense to help make a paltry lead stand.  It was at that point where my future son-in-law leaned over to me and asked me if I thought the Browns could seal the deal for once.  How do you think I answered?

As if on a timer, the defense then collapsed.  The capper was not the Michael Bush 40-yard touchdown run.  That was icing on a cake that was fully baked.  Once the Bears had overcome the deficit and gone up by 7, the defense was waiving the flag of defeat.  It might be they lacked confidence in Campbell and the offense.  It might be that they lacked confidence in themselves.  It was probably both.

The capper was the 45-yard improbable touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffery.  What was remarkable was the fact that Cutler threw the ball in the first place.  He saw Jeffery seemingly well covered by Tashaun Gipson and Julian Posey and still figured “why the hell not?”  Why the hell not indeed.

Gipson seemed perfectly positioned in front of Jeffery.  It didn't matter.  Gipson jumped and missed and the ball landed perfectly in Jeffery’s arms.  Give Jeffery credit for good concentration certainly but that play, more than any other this season, succinctly documented this team’s massive defensive shortcomings.

Safety T.J. Ward, who had a fumble recovery for a touchdown, said that the team won't be folding in it's last two games.  Who is he kidding.  This team is neatly folded with crisp hospital corners.  It couldn't possibly fold any further.

What we’re left with then is what we’re always left with: a team without a quarterback it can believe in and a defense that’s all shit no hit.  In other words, wash, rinse, repeat.  There’s two more weeks to go.

The Numbing Sameness of it All, Again--Patriots Edition

It should have been a story about how the Cleveland Browns stepped out of character to get what for this team counts as a signature win even despite being mired in its 9^th losing season in the last 10.  Instead it’s just another story about how an out of character effort came up short for much the same reasons the Browns continue to come up short.  The Browns lost, improbably it turns out, to the New England Patriots 27-26 mostly by yielding 13 points in the last 2:39 of the game.  It might feel better to think the Browns deserved better and maybe they did, but they also likely got what they deserved.

After taking a 26-14 lead on a Jason Campbell 4-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jordan Cameron, the game appeared to be over to fans with a rooting interest in either team.  Even Patriots fans, long used to late game heroics by one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play had to take a measure of the context and conclude that this time the luck of their design would not arrive.  At least it looked that was as fans headed to the exits to get an early jump on traffic.

Those fans weren’t the only ones fooled.  The ones prematurely celebrating in Cleveland had their own head slapping moments.  With just 2:39 remaining the Patriots had labored just to get 14 points against a Browns team that statistically if not actually, is one of the best in the league.  Tom Brady seemed mostly frustrated all day as the secondary kept the coverage tight and the defensive line kept the pressure on.  Indeed, the touchdown pass to Cameron felt like the final nail.

This Browns team needs more nails, particularly on defense.

Starting from their 18-yard line after the ensuing kickoff, the Browns’ defense was a victim in the way so many others have been against New England.  Brady did what Brady does.  The Patriots’ offense wasn’t particularly effective all day but yet Brady was able to summon a reservoir that this Browns team, bereft of significant talent at most positions and constructed with a spinning carousal of players over the years, can’t yet comprehend.

Where early Brady couldn’t find seams, suddenly they were there and his vision improved.  The Browns were playing soft and it yielded 6 yards, here, 9 yards there, another pass for 19 yards, another for 23.   The clock was ticking, which is what the Browns wanted, but it came at the expense of the Patriots being inside the Cleveland 20 just a minute later.  Then, with 1:09 remaining, one timeout and sitting on the Browns’ 2 yard line, the Patriots did something odd.  They tried to ram the ball into the end zone with running back Shane Vereen.  It didn’t work.  It also forced the Patriots to use their last time out, which, too, seemed to be to the Browns’ advantage.

The timeout gave the Patriots a chance to clear their heads.  Afterward Brady hit receiver Julian Edelman in the back of the end zone.  For good measure, the Browns’ Jordan Poyer (who?) was penalized for unnecessary roughness, perhaps a questionable call, perhaps not.  It was enforced on the kickoff which was most assuredly not to their advantage.  It allowed the Patriots the chance to the onside kick that the Browns not only knew was coming but had plenty of time to scheme, from the 50 yard line, meaning that if successful it would give the Patriots even better field position.

And of course that’s exactly how it worked out.  Stephen Gostkowski drove the ball in the ground and ran in front of it, poised to pounce once it went the requisite 10 yards.  The Patriots didn’t need to wait that long.  Fozzy Whitaker tried to field it after 9 yards only to see it bounce off his chest and into the arms of Kyle Arrington.

What happened next, at least in terms of the ultimate outcome, was entirely in the realm of the expected by fans of both teams.  For New England, its fans have seen Brady do it for years.  For Cleveland, its fans have seen every collapse imaginable.

As it happened Brady hit Danny Amendola for 10 yards because apparently defensive coordinator Ray Horton saw no reason to tighten the coverage, despite the Shermanesque march that was the last drive.  Then Brady threw deep to Josh Boyce in the end zone.  In one of the more questionable calls in a day of very poor officiating overall, defensive back Leon McFadden was called for pass interference.  It gave the Patriots the ball at the 1 yard line.  The Patriots were on the precipice of scoring having used barely 25 seconds.  When Brady passed to Amendola for the go ahead touchdown, the collapse was complete.

Still, there were 31 seconds remaining and Jason Campbell and the Browns almost pulled it off.  Campbell, who played brilliantly throughout, moved the team just outside of Cundiff’s field goal range with 1 second remaining.  On a day when a new NFL field goal record of 64 yards was set, Cundiff gave it his best effort, but his best wasn’t good enough.  On target but yards short, the game ended with the outcome that most expected anyway and the Browns further solidifying their hold on a good draft pick.

In some sense it really was too bad.  By now nearly everyone from your local barber to national sports pundit has weighed in on the interference call against McFadden with the strong consensus being that the call against McFadden was wrong. There was definite jostling in the end zone but far less, for example, than the mugging that Carolina did on Rob Gronkowski a few weeks back with no call.  More accurately, had McFadden been called for holding prior to Boyce getting to the end zone few would have quibbled, mainly because it would have carried only a 5-yard penalty.

But let’s acknowledge a few points.  First, the penalty didn’t cost the Browns the game.  The Browns had several last clear chances to avoid the official’s negligence.  The defense could have stopped Brady on the prior drive.  The return team could have cleanly fielded the onside kick.  McFadden could have better covered Boyce and not let him get behind him.  Inconvenient truths, I know, but truths just the same.

Second, those are exactly the calls that go against poor teams like the Browns and in favor of good teams like the Patriots.  The NFL is not the NBA where superstars get a pass and rookies are hazed with ticky tack calls.  But human nature is what it is and teams as consistently lousy as the Browns can’t expect to get the benefit of the doubt.  Factor in as well that McFadden was chasing Boyce and the Browns’ secondary does have a fair number of interference calls against them this season so a call going against them is not justifiable necessarily but understandable or at least explainable.

You could also make the case that the Patriots didn’t deserve the win.  That’s a much tougher case to make.  The game lasts 60 minutes for a reason.  Teams rarely play solid throughout.  There will be peaks and valleys so while the Patriots spent most of the game walking the valleys, a team with that kind of talent will eventually find the trail to hike the peaks.  The opposite tends to be the case with a team like the Browns.  And when one team’s peaks line up with another’s valleys, well, the results tend to line up as you’d expect.

That was true early in the game when the Browns were building their lead while the Patriots were struggling and was just as true late when the Patriots found their magic and the Browns regressed to their norm.

It was in most other ways though a really solid effort by a Browns team that only a week before had been thoroughly embarrassed a week before by Jacksonville.  It’s the kind of performance that the team can build on if it wants to.  It really is a choice.

Campbell, as mentioned, was brilliant.  It may have been the best game of his career.  He played with poise and was accurate throughout.  On the day he was 29-44 for 391 yards and 3 touchdowns.  He hit Josh Gordon in stride on a 10-yard slant that turned into an 80-yard touchdown and the 4-yard touchdown to Cameron was an exquisite rendering of deception in action.  Gordon beautifully faked a handoff and by the time the Patriots recovered Cameron was wide open in the end zone for what appeared to be the backbreaking touchdown.  This doesn’t mean Campbell’s presence has solved the Browns’ quarterback problems.  But if nothing else when the Browns do pounce on still another quarterback savior this offseason, Campbell should be kept anyway.  He does have value.

Gordon was elite,  again.  Though the Patriots keyed on him early, Gordon still found his way to 7 catches and 151 yards.  The aforementioned 80-yard touchdown was essentially a footrace that Gordon won by several lengths. 

This is the 4^th straight week Gordon has been well over 100 yards in receiving.  In two of those weeks he was well over 200 yards.  While much of the yardage he gained against Pittsburgh was late and the game long since lost, the other 3 weeks were far more critical.  I mentioned this last week but it bears mentioning again.  What makes Gordon’s performances so eye-opening are the quarterbacks he’s had throwing to him.  Imagine if Gordon played for New England.

And yet, even with performing like Calvin Johnson and causing opposing defensive coordinators to scheme against him, the Browns still can’t find a way to win.  The one consolation for Gordon is that his agent will have plenty to talk about during contract negotiations.

Although this 4-9 version of the Browns doesn’t look or play like those 4 and 5 win teams under Pat Shurmur and Eric Mangini and Romeo Crennel and Butch Davis, the results are nonetheless the same.  Perhaps the Browns are building.  Surely if they can hold on to Gordon and Cameron and find someone who can at least run for 60 or 70 yards a game, the offense will score consistently.  And if the Browns can keep the defensive line mostly intact and build more depth in the defensive backfield, the defense won’t collapse as much late.

Of course those old similarly situated Browns’ teams had similar “if only” scenarios and they never seemed to follow through.  Still you get the feeling that this ship won’t sink completely to the bottom of the ocean.  You’d just like to still be a fan by the time that proves to be the case.

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

Depending on one’s perspective, the Cleveland Browns either never or always disappoint.  For those watching long enough to know which way that particular wind blows, nothing much about the Browns 41-20 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals was particularly surprising or disappointing.

For reasons almost completely untethered from the reality of the environment, the Browns had briefly entered the national conversation about potential playoff teams.  Ensconced in a division that suddenly has gone weaker than the Big 10, the Browns and found themselves near the division lead relatively late in the season while still sporting a losing record, as if.

The headiness of those modestly inflated expectations were well served in a first quarter that featured 3 Browns scoring opportunities and a quick 13-0 lead against a Bengals team that almost looked like it was playing scared, not loose.   The planets realigned in a quick and jarring fashion.

Letting a team score 31 points in any quarter, indeed in any half, in football played at almost any level is a relatively rare occurrence generally reserved for the most obvious of mismatches.  To see it happen at a professional level was stunning.  The level of ineptitude a team must exhibit to allow itself to be tossed about like a Frisbee on a Saturday afternoon in the park is actually hard to describe.  When the final points of Sunday’s second quarter were tacked on by Cincinnati’s Mike Nugent after the Browns frightful punt unit couldn’t contain Adam Jones felt like piling on.  The Browns were finished and they knew it.  So did everyone else.

Remember, too, that this was the Cincinnati Bengals doing the piling on.  The Bengals’ record is better than it should be by virtue of the company they keep within the AFC North.  It will surely continue to improve as they prance their way to a division title that no one else much wants.  That doesn’t mean that this is a good Bengals team.

Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis may dream of playing in late January but right now there isn’t a playoff worthy team in the whole of the AFC that is worried about the Bengals.  I don’t expect that to change.  The Bengals are simply too average in virtually every aspect of their operations to do much damage to talented or even modestly talented teams, as the Browns 17-6 victory against the Bengals earlier this season attests.

Sadly, the Browns aren’t one of those talented teams.  It’s not so much that the Bengals game exposed the Browns as some have suggested.  It’s more that this Bengals game came at that point in the season where the highs and lows tend to even out.

If you want to be disappointed about something specifically in Sunday’s loss then let it be the absence of any clamoring to have a clearly struggling Jason Campbell, a quintessential nice guy journeyman, replaced by last year’s number one pick.  That’s the kind of disappointment that really lingers.  Teams like the Browns can’t afford to miss on first round picks and when they do they inevitably suffer untimely occasional drubbings at the hands of even lesser lights like the Bengals in subsequent seasons.

This isn’t to say, however, that folks like head coach Rob Chudzinski will be so existential in their analyses.  They already know about the holes.  Chudzinski and his staff need to figure out why his team, which had two weeks to practice, played like it hadn’t practiced in two weeks.

There were the obvious signs early, of course.  The Browns did have that 13-0 lead but it should have been more, much more.

Consider, for example, the sequence that followed running back Chris Ogbonnaya’s 43-yard run.  On a first and goal from the 8 yard line, Willis McGahee got the ball to the 4 yard line.  A penalty then put the ball on the Cincinnati 2.  McGahee was able to get it to the one yard line but then two particularly lousy throws from Campbell made it 4th and goal at the 1 yard line.

Chudzinski, who has not seemed particularly wedded to conventional coaching conservatism most of the season, got married in a hurry.  He clearly cherished early points of a modest amount as paramount to the payoff of a low-risk gamble and kicked the chip shot field goal.  It suggested if anything else that Chudzinski only gambles when the stakes don’t matter.  His Browns were in what he had been told was the most meaningful football game played in these parts in over a half a generation and so he decided that any points were better than none even if an unsuccessful 4th down attempt would have given the Bengals the ball at their own 1. Considering that the two most immediate runs had gained at least 1 yard each, it set the wrong tone.

A similar decision wasn’t necessary a few minutes later when Joe Haden, who played wonderfully now twice against one of the league's best receivers, A.J. Green, had his first interception.  Haden returned it to the 14 yard line but the offense couldn’t move it beyond the 10.  Again, conventional coaching conservatism says to take any points off a turnover, though truthfully but for the Ogbonnaya run the Browns hadn’t shown any ability yet to execute a successful 4th and 6 anyway.  Fourth and 1 a few minutes earlier was far more manageable. The easy call was made in the form of another chip shot field goal attempt and a disappointing 6-0 lead, assuming any lead can be disappointing, was acquired.

What this particular brand of lousy and conservative offense did was to actually provide the bounce, the springboard, to the dizzying 31 point second quarter that the Bengals slapped on the Browns.  As bad as the start was for the Bengals, they had to look up at that scoreboard and think “at least it isn’t as bad as it could be.”  When the half mercifully ended it was the Browns looking up at the scoreboard and thinking “that’s as bad as it could be.”

Though the two blocked punts (one was technically not a block because though it was tipped it garnered 7 positive yards) and the Jones punt return near the end of the half tend to make the game look as though it was a special teams meltdown, what Chudzinski will see as he replays the game over and over in his mind were all the little things, too, that were hallmarks of an unfocused, undisciplined team; things like fumbles, interceptions, false starts and holding penalties.

Even as the game spiraled beyond its control, the Browns never really did much to shake things up, particularly on offense.  Likely the gravity of the game that pushed Chudzinski into a careful, plodding approach had an impact on players like Campbell.

Looking almost nothing like the quarterback who had a better than 100 rating in his last two starts, Campbell repeatedly checked down to receivers hovering near the line of scrimmage.  It was hard to tell whether the Bengals’ secondary was just so good that no receivers could break open (unlikely) or that Campbell was just too scared to take a shot after throwing an early interception (more likely).  Either way there was a point up until about the 74 yard touchdown completion that Campbell made to Josh Gordon early in the third quarter on about as well thrown of a ball as there could possibly be that Campbell was averaging less yards per completion than Jim Brown averaged yards per rushing attempt for his entire career.

To illustrate the point more forcefully, consider that after the pass to Gordon, Campbell attempted 27 more passes the rest of the game.  A grand total of two of those were thrown beyond that series’ first down markers and one of those two were intercepted.  Giving due notice to the two sacks Campbell also suffered, that means that 23 of 27 passes attempted were intended to garner but a few yards vertically and perhaps more only if tackles were broken and one of those passes also was intercepted.  Even with nothing to lose Campbell played as if there was.

Sunday’s game, to the extent it was hell bent on proving anything, was that the Browns are still a franchise very much in the midst of still another transition.  This particular version has already won 4 games which at this point in the season gives it a leg up on the various other versions that were tried but failed.

That is, I suppose, a positive but even as I ponder that thought I’m haunted really by another more disturbing one:  that this franchise’s high water mark is still measured by Romeo Crennel’s 10-win non playoff season of 2007.  With a record that dispiriting how could anyone really feel a lingering sting of disappointment after Sunday?

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.

Browns: The Numbing Sameness of it All

In the numbing sameness that serves as Cleveland Browns openers, or the Cleveland Browns generally, the only good news was reserved for the delusional.  The rest of the AFC North also lost the first week and thus, technically, the Browns lost no ground except, I suppose, in the wild card race.  So there’s that.

The popular spin following Sunday’s route at the hands of a very, very average Miami Dolphins team was that the defense played well until it was worn down by the amount of time it had to spend on the field on an otherwise beautiful, low humidity first day of the season.  Don’t buy it.

Miami has a boat load of offensive problems and still managed to score 23 points, which isn't much when measured against conventional NFL standards but was 13 more than the Browns could muster.  When you have Buster Skrine in your secondary, your defense can never truly play well.  As Don Criqui said during the touchdown pass from quarterback Ryan Tannehill to a wide open Brian Hartline, “the receiver there was able to get separation from Skrine.”  Get used to hearing that, often.  Skrine is barely a legitimate nickel back on an average team.  That he starts for the Browns is the alpha and omega of the team’s myriad of problems.  It lacks players who can make plays (Joe Haden and T.J. Ward come immediately to mind.  There are others.) It lacks depth.  It lacks heart.  It lacks.

As for the Browns offense, which in its awfulness and mismanagement almost made me forget what was happening when the defense was on the field, Sunday proved yet again that until the Browns find a quarterback fans should not tire of being wrong about blaming the defensive breakdowns on the fact that the defense is on the field too much. The offense is that horrible to contemplate.

What the hell were Tom Heckert and Mike Holmgren really thinking when they drafted Weeden anyway?  He’s old by NFL veteran standards, let alone rookie or second year player standards.  And that’s the least of his issues.  If the only requirement to play quarterback in the NFL was the possession of a strong arm, why not resurrect Akili Smith?  For that matter, why didn't offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski just go with his gut and re-sign Derek Anderson?

The best that can be said about Weeden is that he’s not a coach killer.  That is, he’s not the kind of player whose raw athletic skills and occasional flashes of brilliance commit a coach imprudently to spending day and night trying to devise a way to harness that potential into consistent performance until, at least, the coach finds himself out of a job due to poor judgment.

Instead Weeden is simply a middling talent, another in a long line of back up quarterbacks that the Browns have spent the better part of 12 years developing.  He is occasionally strong armed and accurate.  More often he’s strong armed and inaccurate, befuddled by the simplest of defensive schemes and panicked by a blitzing defensive back.

It was said that Weeden was ill suited for the West Coast offense run by former head coach Pat Shurmur and that given Chudzinski’s and offensive coordinator Norv Turner’s track record, this would be a break out year.  It was likewise said the Weeden operates best out of the shotgun, like he did in college.  Both could still be true but I’m skeptical.  Nothing Weeden did in the preseason, including his awful performance in the  third preseason game, or as it’s now officially known, “The Only Preseason Game That Counts,” or in Sunday’s game even hints at significantly better things to come.

Team president Joe Banner, who has spent his entire tenure thus far diminishing anyone’s expectations about the fortunes of his team to the point where it would be easier if he just wore a shirt that says “We Suck. Quit Asking,” said that the new offense is a work in progress and will evolve over the course of the season.  The question is, will Weeden be a part of that evolution?

This isn't a call so much for either back up Brian Hoyer or Jason Campbell so much as it is a reminder that there’s no reason not to play either one or all 3, in the same game, in the same quarter, even in the same drive.  Weeden is no more an established starter than either of Hoyer or Campbell and isn't likely ever to be so what would be the harm?  Or the difference?

There are probably a hundred reasons that the coaching staff can come up with to justify their misplaced confidence in Weeden and to rationalize what was abundantly clear to everyone else.  The right side of the offensive line, with Oniel Cousins and Mitchell Schwartz, was simply incompetent.  Greg Little still channels the decaying ghost of Braylon Edwards as he celebrates routine catches, lets balls go off his fingertips and into defensive backs not named Joe Haden or T.J. Ward hands on difficult ones.  Josh Gordon, in absentia, was talked about as if he was Terrell Owens in his prime.  He may be the team’s number one receiver, but that’s more by default than actual accomplishment.  And of course there’s the bizarre play calling that makes weirdly insufficient use of their best weapon, Trent Richardson.

Chudzinski may claim that the game dictated more passing because they were playing from behind, but that’s just Chudzinski covering for Chudzinski (and Turner). The strong impression was that the Chud and Turd show was hell bent on proving the skeptics wrong about Weeden by forcing a game plan for which the he and the rest of the offense were ill suited to execute.

Consider the evidence.  With just three minutes gone in the fourth quarter, Miami held a 13-10 lead.  They then went on a 5 minute plus drive that extended the lead to 20-10 on a one yard touchdown run.  At that point and only at that point could the case be fairly made that passing was the first, best and only real option.

To that point, though, Weeden had already thrown 35 passes!  Richardson had run a mere 13 times!  I’m using exclamation points because anyone reading this, just as I was writing this, should be both amazed and confused!  Thirty-five freakin’ passes for a team with a wildly inconsistent quarterback and an embarrassing selection of receivers.  It’s pure bullshit, frankly, that the game dictated that kind of massive imbalance between the pass and the run and for Chud to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.  The truth is that Chud and Turd wanted to show how smart they were for believing in Weeden and all they actually accomplished was confirming how ill suited Weeden is to be a starting NFL quarterback.

The NFL can be a difficult game to navigate but it’s not nearly as difficult as its practitioners often imagine.  Richardson looked to be running well early on so naturally Chud and Turd abandoned it like their predecessors.  Look, everyone wants an explosive offense, one that can score on every possession.  That isn't the Browns and doesn't look to be anytime soon.  What’s wrong with shortening the game a bit by running Richardson until it’s nearly beyond question that it isn't working?  If you want to take pressure off a struggling quarterback and a defense that doesn't seen to have the conditioning to withstand even its first game, running the ball would seem the best option.

It’s true that the Browns aren't going to get appreciably better overall until they make better decisions about the talent they choose to employ.  It’s also true that this team won’t get appreciably better until the coaching staff stops thinking they’re the smartest guys in the room.  When you're number one pick is a supposedly elite running back, then just run the damn ball.

Meanwhile fans set giddy by irrational preseason exuberance unaccompanied by any objective reason for it are left with the deadening feeling of collapsed expectations and an anxiety-ridden future.

What do the Browns do with their quarterback situation?  They've been a laughingstock for years with the revolving door that is that position.  But until it’s definitively or at least more positively solved it’s questionable whether the Browns can ever be even a mere playoff team.

The Baltimore Ravens, the Browns’ next opponents, won a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer so it’s possible that a strong enough running game and a strong enough defense can paper over the team’s glaring quarterback issues and get to a point where at least it’s not so damn hilarious and depressing to ponder the playoffs.

But even if Chud and Turd go against their collective wont and become more run-oriented in their approach, eventually this team will have to find its own version of Joe Flacco.

Look, there’s reason for hope.  There always is.  It’s just hard to find obscured as it is by the numbing sameness of a team that knows not of success but only of unrelenting disappointment.  It’s going to be another long season.