The Cleveland Browns 2009 Retrospective--Installment #2

Note: The Cleveland Browns 2009 season was one for the ages. It could be summed up in as little as one word “oy” or 100 million. I’ve opted for somewhere between the two. It may be that all of you, or most anyway, are so tired of this past season that you’d rather have your toe nails pulled than read another word about it. Believe me, I understand. But for those brave few willing to go along on one final journey with me, just know that I appreciate your courage and have tried to make it worth your while.


Part III. This is the Part Where Mangini and Kokinis Lower the Bar and Blame the Past

The interesting thing about Mangini is that whenever he really wanted to get some kind of information out there, he was usually able to find a way. In a story he or someone inside the organization essentially tipped to the Plain Dealer, Mangini let it be known that he felt the franchise was being handicapped by the former regime because of roster bonuses due several players, including Joe Jurevicius, Kevn Shaffer, Derek Anderson, Stallworth, Joe Thomas, Corey Williams, Shaun Rogers and Jamal Lewis.

In truth, these roster bonuses were simply the by-product of trying to fit high-priced players into a salary cap by signing them to long-term contracts. The Browns were well under the salary cap anyway and the structuring of these contracts was one of the reasons why. Moreover, these bonuses served as convenient mile posts for making future decisions about certain players. They kept the Browns from being locked up in salary cap hell in the future.

Using them as an excuse was a nice narrative for Mangini to try to get out there, but it just wasn’t accurate. Paying players like Thomas and Rogers was a no-brainer. Anderson was a little more iffy as was Lewis. Jurevicius was only owed $250,000. But the biggest question mark of all was Stallworth, who was owed $4.75 million. He was signed by Savage in the same way that Andre Rison was signed by Bill Belichick years earlier. It worked out about the same way.

Ultimately, Mangini paid him the money. It was a decision he and the rest of the Browns’ organization would come to regret.

After getting word that the Browns were going to pay him the roster bonus, Stallworth spent the evening in Miami Beach celebrating. Among those celebrating with him was Braylon Edwards, the franchise’s proverbial bad penny. After a night of drinking, Stallworth got into his car, drove for a bit and then plowed into Mario Reyes, who was looking to catch a bus to return home to his family after working the third shift. Reyes was dead at the scene.

After paying the Reyes family a healthy, but undisclosed amount of that bonus money, Stallworth worked out a very sweet deal with the local prosecutors. He served a brief prison sentence and is in the midst of a lengthy probation. He’s also on indefinite suspension from the NFL.

For a coach that likes to draw lines as bright at Mangini does, particularly about player conduct, he dithered on what to do with Stallworth, because of the money. It was a sad testament. Mangini could have made a bold statement and cut Stallworth immediately. It would have accelerated his salary and bonus for cap purposes but that was a highly manageable and transient concern. Instead, Mangini let the league handle it. Penny wise, as always, and pound foolish, as always.

As March was coming to a close, it was the first time that Mangini and his hand puppet Kokinis made it first known that they were leaning toward keeping both Anderson and Quinn and conducting an open competition for the job once training camp opened.

The fact that they wouldn’t pick a starter from among those two was hardly surprising. Anderson was coming off an awful 2008 after a brilliant 2007 and Quinn had looked good in limited time before getting hurt. Still, at the time, many thought that Mangini was just being coy, not wanting to tip his hand in case anyone else in the league was paying attention. They weren’t.

Meanwhile, the Plan Dealer’s Bud Shaw was pleading with the Browns to move heaven and earth to sign Jay Cutler, an Anderson clone with a slightly better record, at the expense of Quinn. Cutler ultimately was traded by Denver to Chicago where he went on to huge stretches of ineptitude followed by fleeting moments of mediocrity.

With Mangini holed up in the background somewhere plotting his revenge on the NFL via the upcoming draft, the NFL and the ESPN found a completely worthless way of burning two hours of programming via their 2009 Schedule show. Yes, it took them two hours to reveal each team’s upcoming schedule and provide the kind of meaningless analysis you’ve come to expect from the World Wide Leader.

The NFL, with more primetime games to fill than deserving primetime teams, gave the Browns two national appearances, down from the 5 the previous season. One was a late season Monday nighter against the Ravens. The other, an even later season Thursday nighter against the Steelers.

Now in another one of those foreshadowing moments that I have from time to time, after looking at the Browns’ 2009 schedules I said about the final game against Jacksonville in Cleveland “I hope you’re enjoying that perk at a half-filled stadium freezing under a blanket while a steady 20 MPH wind, gusting to 45 MPH, whips across your cheeks like a worn razor blade.” I think the only thing I got wrong was the wind speed. On Sunday it looked to be about a steady 25 MPH.

Part IV. This is the Part Where Mangini Turns Into Monty Hall

As the draft was approaching, the rumors the Browns were floating around the league had them trading Braylon Edwards to the Giants for Domenick Hixon and some draft choices. Indeed, Mangini did try to make that trade but the Giants balked. As it ultimately turned out, Mangini wasn’t kidding about trying to move Edwards. In a season full of so many missteps, this wasn’t one of them. The only one who didn’t think so was ESPN’s Colin Cowherd, who spent a few shows spinning it all good in Edwards’ direction. I’d say he’d probably wish he had those shows back, but with Cowherd it’s always hard to tell.

When draft day finally approached in late April, the Browns spent the day moving up, down and sideways in the first round before trading down late into the first round and finally settling on California center Alex Mack. To make that happen, Mangini had to trade with his former club, the Jets, who used the Browns’ pick to draft quarterback Mark Sanchez out of USC.

The choice of Mack was at once a stretch and an insight into Mangini’s thinking. It was similar to his move in New York when he drafted Ohio State’s Nick Mangold.

Building a team from the lines on out is always a good choice. But the rest of Mangini’s draft was, well, just plain weird. All the wheeling and dealing got him a boatload of extra draft picks which Mangini used in the most random of fashion. The second round tells the story. In it he drafted two receivers—Ohio State’s Brian Robiskie and Georgia’s Mohamed Massaquoi—and then really reached in taking defensive lineman David Veikune from Hawaii. Sure, these were areas of need, but no one thought these were the players we needed.

Maybe the draft is best explained by reference to the veteran free agents Mangini brought with him from the Jets, players like Kenyon Coleman and Abram Elam. Mangini took some grief for bringing in those players but it did make some sense. As converts to the Mangini way they would be counted on to spread the gospel to a locker room full of skeptics. But those players looked to also be gap fillers that would allow Mangini to focus elsewhere in the draft, or something like that.

The lack of cohesion to the draft choices made it difficult to grade it. Even now, Mangini’s first draft is at best a mixed bag. None of his drafted players were major contributors although Mack started and played all season at center and got much better in the process. As for Robiski, Massaquoi and Veikune, the jury looks to be out for awhile.

With the draft completed and mini-camps beckoning, one story emerged that continued throughout the season: the plight of Josh Cribbs’ contract. In May, Cribbs hired a new agent who took a look at the contract that Cribbs signed two seasons ago and essentially said it was “outrageous, salacious and preposterous.” He then went about pleading his case.

The problem that Cribbs’ agent, J.R. Rickert, found was that the new regime wasn’t too excited about honoring the commitments that the previous regime had made. Crennel had named Quinn the 2009 starter, for example, only to see Mangini declare it open season on picking the new quarterback. Now Rickert was finding a similar stonewall when trying to enforce a commitment that Savage, with Lerner’s blessing, made to re-do Cribbs’ contract.

Mangini, again with an eye on the budget, felt that giving big money to a special team’s player, even one as valuable as Cribbs, might not be the best investment. He wanted to see more out of Cribbs, including whether he could be a regular on offense. He laid a carrot in front of Cribbs in May and left it dangling throughout the entire season, often telling the media that he thought a new contract would get done soon. Soon still hasn’t arrived.

While Cribbs and his agent were making the most noise about renegotiating a contract, with Cribbs at times seemingly threatening to sit out, one that flew under the radar screen was Phil Dawson. Dawson refused to report to any of Mangini’s pre-camps in a bit of a silent protest about his contract situation. Dawson eventually reported to preseason training camp without a new contract in hand. He didn’t help his case by getting hurt.

As for the rest of off-season Camp Mangini, it was going along swimmingly, at least from Mangini’s mad scientist perspective. He was irritating the bejeezus out of the players by having having them run laps for making mistakes, like false starts. He also was irritating the bejeezus out of the local media for playing hide the sausage on even the smallest bits of information. Finally, he was irritating the bejeezus out of both Anderson and Quinn as the so-called open competition commenced.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Mangini committed still another public relations blunder of his own by “volunteering” his rookies for a 10-hour bus ride to Connecticut to work at his football camp. Meanwhile, Mangini, trying to build team camaraderie, flew to Connecticut instead.

After word broke out about the camp, thanks to a whole bunch of agents who had gotten an earful from their disgruntled clients, Mangini rode the bus home. But the specter of the bus trip caused an inquiry by the league and the Players Association, one of three they were forced to make of Mangini this past season.

If only the Browns hadn’t fired their entire public relations staff all of this might have gone down much more smoothly. As it was, though, the Browns had bigger problems. They were having trouble selling loges and went into business with the Indians who likewise were having the same problem, offering a so-called “Touchdown Package” that would allow fans, for the price of $15,000, to watch the Tribe play St. Louis and Detroit and the Browns play Pittsburgh, all from a luxury box, refreshments extra.

As the dawn of Mangini’s first real training camp beckoned, word came down that the Browns were being sued by one of their own, Joe Jurevicius, who had missed the entire 2008 season because of a staph infection contracted after relatively routine arthroscopic surgery following the 2007 season.

Jurevicius claimed in his lawsuit that the Browns did not properly maintain, disinfect or clean their therapy devices making it likely that he would suffer a staph infection.

Staph infections have been a particularly thorny issue with the Browns as a number of players have suffered from them over the years. While I understood the concerns and frustration of players like Jurevicius, I always doubted his claims. Yet, isn’t it interesting that following the filing of the complaint and with all the Browns’ injuries this season there hasn’t been a staph infection?

One of the more refreshing aspects of the Browns’ training camp was simply the fact that every player was under contract before it started in earnest. Cribbs wasn’t happy not having his contract renegotiated and neither was Dawson. But both were in camp as was every draft choice. For a team in desperate need of anything positive, this would be it for awhile.

In the early days of camp, Mangini made his presence felt in the form of summarily dismissing defensive lineman Shaun Smith. Smith, as most remember, got into a locker room fight with Quinn the previous season with Quinn ending up with a fat lip. Smith always had his own agenda anyway and served as the perfect foil for the point Mangini was trying to drive home. It helped that Smith also wasn’t very good. Smith spent the next several months on the sidelines before landing, briefly, with the Detroit Lions. The Cincinnati Bengals picked him up, cut him a few days later, and then signed him once more when more injuries hit. As a point of reference, the week after Smith was signed again the Bengals lost their last game of the season to the Jets, 37-0. As another point of reference, the Bengals lost in the playoff re-match the following week.

Lingering Items--Cover Up Edition

For all of the shortcomings that former Cleveland Browns’ general manager Phil Savage had, one thing he seemed to understand was the special bond between the fans and the players, particularly Browns fans. To that end, he went about trying to bring in players with a local connection; players who understood exactly what the Browns-Steelers rivalry meant.

One of those was certainly Joe Jurevicius, an unabashed Browns fan well before he ever became a pro football player himself. A local product through and through, except for that unfortunate stint at Penn State, Jurevicius represented everything Cleveland fans like in their players. He was loyal, hardworking, and not afraid to get his jersey dirty. He took on the unglamorous assignments that are so critical to moving the ball down field and has the body scars to prove it. When he made one clutch third-down catch after another, every fan celebrated with him as he thrust his arm forward as if he was the referee signaling for a first down. More than anything else, he was a winner.

Jurevicius, as fans well know by now, went under the knife for relatively routine arthroscopic surgery on his right knee after the 2007 season. But complications, mostly stemming from a staph infection he contracted, put him out of service for the entire 2008 season. He was released after the season and whether he’ll ever play again is questionable.

Though no longer on the team, Jurevicius still has the chance to help the Browns through the lawsuit he filed last week against his old team, the Cleveland Clinic and team physicians. It’s unlikely that the Browns and their lawyers see it that way, but by bringing the lawsuit Jurevicius hopes to, in part, expose what he no doubt believes is a cover-up by the Browns’ organization over the last few years with regard to staph infections suffered by the players. If he’s successful, it can only help the Browns in the long run. Sometimes the only way to help is with a sledgehammer.

In the suit, Jurevicius alleges that the Browns, despite representations to the contrary, did not properly maintain, disinfect or clean their therapy devices making it likely that he and, by proxy other players,would get a staph infection.

The particulars of Jurevicius’ lawsuit aren’t nearly as interesting as what is likely to come next. Since much of the lawsuit is premised on Browns officials, including Savage and former head coach Romeo Creennel allegedly misleading Jurevicius about the precautions the team had taken to rid its facility of staph, those same officials are going to find themselves on the hot seat having to answer difficult questions about what they knew and when they knew it.

Savage, in particular, undoubtedly will be the focus of some particularly grueling questioning by Jurevicius’ lawyers as topic one for them is going to be Savage’s bungling last year of Kellen Winslow’s medical situation, an incident that as much as anything led to Savage’s firing. Savage supposedly did everything he could to keep Winslow from revealing that he, too, was suffering another staph infection and then punished him for essentially going public with his concerns. Though not stated directly in the pleadings, this is the heart of the lawsuit. Savage claimed he was just trying to protect Winslow from, I guess, the media vipers. In actuality, Savage was just trying to protect Savage.

The Winslow incident, which Savage clearly tried to bury, was the first real shot across the bow of the team for their allegedly perfunctory efforts in keeping their players healthy. The Jurevicius lawsuit is the second. With a new regime in place, it will be easy for them to dismiss this lawsuit as old business. That would be a mistake.

While the old business is the Winslow incident, in a vacuum, the larger issue for Jurevicius and other players is how it plays into why, exactly, Jurevicius got staph. Did the Browns really take all the precautions they could to combat staph? Whether or not the relatively large number of staph infections by Browns’ players over the last year or two is a pattern or a coincidence will be a key to whether or not Jurevicius prevails in his lawsuit and whether or not there are other similar lawsuits in the team’s future.

But even if the lawsuit doesn’t result in any recovery for Jurevicius, it more than succeeds anyway if it brings a new-found focus on this problem Everyone involved, from the players, to the coaches to team officials are tired of dealing with this issue. But for all that weariness, it’s time for an actual solution to this problem to be found so that no more relatively minor injuries suddenly and unexpectedly transform into career-threatening injuries.

**

And the fall from grace continues.

Roger Clemens proving as inept at covering up his steroid use as he was proficient at throwing drug-induced fastballs, has taken still another whack to his flagging reputation. After being outed as a steroids user by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, during George Mitchell’s investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, Clemens loudly took the legal route to clear his name. It didn’t work.

In February, the judge hearing the lawsuit summarily dismissed it. The gist of the ruling was that McNamee, himself a target of the investigation, enjoyed immunity from such a lawsuit by virtue of his talking with governmental investigators from the Department of Justice and Mitchell. That McNamee would enjoy such immunity is Law School 101 and Clemens’ lawyers knew it. If cooperating witnesses in a governmental investigation can be sued for defamation for telling what they know, pretty soon there will be no such thing as a cooperating witness.

Not knowing when to say when, Clemens’ lawyers, no doubt at Clemens’ urging, asked the judge to reconsider the ruling. He did and slammed Clemens even harder than before, telling him sarcastically to sue the government if he really feels they overstepped theri boundaries in undertaking the investigation. He won’t.

The judge, helpfully.did tell Clemens that he could recast his defamation lawsuit by pointing not to what McNamee told the government but what he told Andy Pettitte directly. Of course, the judge said that knowing that this would require Clemens to bring Pettitte into the lawsuit, something Clemens can ill-afford. Pettitte, by truthfully coming forward, albeit after getting caught, retains his credibility and will have to again say under oath that Clemens was a drug user.

At some point Clemens may very well learn to leave well enough alone but for now it’s too late. His lawsuit may have been nothing more than an expensive exercise is public and private denial but it also served as a sharp stick in the eye to McNamee, who now plans on filing his own lawsuit. This one will be harder to dismiss.

Clemens doesn’t enjoy the immunity that McNamee had because Clemens’ statements about McNamee weren’t in the course of a governmental investigation. The only issue for the jury will be whether Clemens’ statements were defamatory. It’s a close call, given the extent of McNamee’s own wrongdoing.

But the real fireworks, just like the Jurevicius lawsuit, will be in the run up to the potential trial. Clemens will again be under oath and forced to either stick with his story thereby subjecting himself to perjury or moderate his stance into more of a Barry Bonds “I didn’t knowingly take any performance-enhancing drugs” non-denial denial.

Just don’t look for those fireworks anytime soon. Up until being replaced by South Carolina Mark Stanford, Clemens served as the textbook example of how not to handle a crisis. Eventually, though, he’ll learn his lesson and you’ll know it via the two or three line press release indicating that the parties have resolved their differences amicably.

Hopefully, then, we will have heard the last of Clemens.

**

Lost in all the mind-numbing sameness of this year’s version of the Cleveland Indians’ was general manager Mark Shapiro’s off-handed statement the other day that he hopes to right this ship in the next three years. Three years? Is there anyone alive out there?

It’s a testament to the job security that Shapiro must feel to be that blunt about his team’s prospects in the near term. The question is why isn’t anyone holding him more accountable? If Eric Mangini or George Kokinis had said that about the Browns there would have been a near riot on Mall C.

Maybe it was because Shapiro said it to a national writer that his three-year projection didn’t get much play locally. But it’s a stunning revelation nonetheless for a team that, more than many others, needs butts in the seats. Left unsaid, though, is exactly why Shapiro needs another three years or how, exactly, it will all come together in that amount of time.

My guess is that Shapiro is essentially admitting that serious organizational deficiencies in the acquisition of talent, both through free agency and in the draft, coupled with players on the current roster under long-term contracts that they can’t possibly live up to, are the culprits for his rather dismal prediction.

If the Indians were a publicly-traded company, the shareholders would revolt en masse. From a team that was relatively close to the World Series just a few years ago to have suddenly turned into baseball’s version of Delta Airlines smacks of management incompetence on a level not experienced since, well, the Browns returned to the NFL, but that’s another story.

But after learning some hard lessons after covering up Victor Martinez’s injury last season, Shapiro has embraced some level of transparency in his operations. Of course, that kind of transparency is always easier when nobody’s paying attention anyway. And if the fans’ indifference to the Indians’ latest free fall is teaching us anything, it’s that nobody really much cares anymore.

**

With Jhonny Peralta sleepwalking through another season, this week’s question to ponder: Is Peralta the least motivated player to wear a Cleveland uniform since Keith Hernandez?

Perfectly Imperfect

There’s a reason a football game is two halves. After playing an almost perfect first half and essentially dominating the bully who’s been stealing their lunch money for years, the Cleveland Browns found out precisely what it means to be a playoff caliber team. And they also found that they’re not quite there yet after losing to Pittsburgh 31-28 on Sunday when Phil Dawson’s 52-yard field goal attempt fell just short.

The story of the game though for the Browns was that of a nearly perfect first half and a mostly imperfect second half that put them on the wrong end of a game that was there for the winning. Call it part growth process, call it part voodoo. Just don’t forget that mostly it was the will of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger that sent the Browns back to Cleveland, scratching their heads and wondering what to do next.

The loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, while hardly crippling to their playoff aspirations, may nevertheless linger in other ways, particularly given how the game started. It has in the past. But when the first half gun sounded and the Browns found themselves up 21-9, things couldn’t have looked better. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect first half played by any Browns team in recent memory.

How perfect was that first half? Take your pick:

• After holding the Steelers to a three and out on their initial drive, the Browns put together a 17 play drive that seemed to last longer than the television show Viva Laughlin. But unlike the fate of that short-lived show, the Browns didn’t get cancelled, instead finishing off their third opening drive touchdown of the season. They had one such drive in each of the last two seasons.
  

• Head coach Romeo Crennel successfully challenged a call for the first time in what seems like the modern era. It didn’t just lead to better field position. It lead to a Braylon Edwards touchdown, giving him 10 on the season and putting himself within three of Gary Collins’ single season record.
  

• The Browns S&M defense, and that would be for smoke and mirrors, found a way to keep a prolific Steelers offense out of the end zone, forcing the Steelers to trade touchdowns for field goals, which helped the Browns build their 12-point halftime lead.
  

• That same S&M defense had the only sack of the first half, a crucial third down sack of Ben Roethlisberger by linebacker Antwan Peek late in the first half while the Steelers were unable to bring down Browns quarterback Derek Anderson, though it wasn’t for lack of effort.
  

• That same S&M defense caused the only turnover of the first half, a nifty pick of a Roethlisberger pass intended for Santonio Holmes by Brodney Pool deep in the Pittsburgh end of the field, leading to the Edwards touchdown.
  

• The Steelers, repeatedly unable to punch, could only watch while Anderson and offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski time and again were making the Steelers defense look like, well, the Browns defense.
  

• And finally, Cleveland fans got the double bonus of finally getting to see CBS broadcast a game in high definition and not having to endure the likes of Ian Eagle and Steve Beurlein miscalling another game.
  

And even as the Browns came back onto the field for the second half, things seemed to be setting up well, what with a steady rain falling and a field and ball looking decidedly more difficult to control.

But that only proved to be true for the Browns in general and Jamal Lewis in particular. After trading two non-descript possessions each, the Steelers got the break they were looking for when Kent State’s James Harrison stripped Lewis of the ball at the Browns’ 34-yard line. Four plays later, Roethlisberger found Hines Ward dancing by himself in the left flat for a 12-yard touchdown pass, allowing the Steelers to close within five at 21-16.

Meanwhile, the Browns could muster nothing in their next drive, as Anderson missed a wide-open Kellen Winslow II on third down and three, forcing the Browns to punt again. If ever there is a point where games can be won or lost, this may have been it. The Steelers took over from their own 15 with the kind of momentum and swagger that made prior Browns teams crumble.

But this is the S&M defense capable of, well, freaky things. A crucial second down sack of Roethlisberger, the Browns third of the game, put the Steelers in third and long, which they ultimately couldn’t convert. Suddenly, things were looking brighter. Unfortunately, when the Browns got the ball back they were facing the reality of having already had four second half possessions, three of which were three and out and the fourth the Lewis fumble, and a quarterback almost completely out of rhythm.

It would be nice to say that at that moment the Browns recovered their lost mojo, but not quite. In fact, if anything, the Browns looked as sloppy by this point as they had all season, finding themselves in a third and 22 (later a third and 17 after a silly Steelers offside penalty) through a combination of penalties and poor execution. Fortunately, as the Browns were fiddling around, the third quarter mercifully ended. It was thus left for the S&M defense and a stumbling offense to find a way to hang on for one more quarter.

But the Steelers are not just the Browns’ white whale; they’re also a pretty fair football team. Hitting with a bit more chippiness than they showed in the first half and making the kind of plays that good teams make late, the Steelers took the Browns to Sunday school on the next drive. Needing to make a play, any play, on third and 10 from the Cleveland 30, all Roethlisberger did was take off for the longest run of his career, a 30-yard gallop for a touchdown. For good measure, the Steelers completed a perfunctory two-point conversion against an obviously dejected defense, putting the Steelers ahead 24-21 with just under 12 minutes to play.

It would be nice to say that at that moment the Browns recovered their lost mojo, and this time it was as true as it was temporary. In one of the most stunning plays of the season, kick returner Josh Cribbs first fumbled the ensuing kick off and was then forced to field a slipper bally at the goal line with the Steelers closing in. But Cribbs, as calm as Browns fans were nervous, picked up the ball and started down the sideline, tiptoeing gingerly while avoiding all variety of Steelers defenders in the process. When he approached the 30-yard line, Cribbs suddenly found an impressive convoy of blockers in front and to his left and patiently followed it as it escorted him into the Steelers end zone.

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, looking every bit as befuddled as, well, you know who, tossed the challenge flag only to find himself on the wrong side of that review, a place where, well, you know who usually finds himself and later did.

And just like that, a three-point deficit was now a four-point lead and it was the Steelers instead who seem dumbfounded. Well, most of them anyway. Unfortunately, that didn’t include Roethlisberger. All he did was calmly and professionally lead the Steelers right down the field, converting three crucial third down plays, including a 10-yard run to the Browns two that led to Roethlisberger’s second touchdown pass of the game, this time to tight end Heath Miller. After a poor first half, Roethlisberger ended with a line that read 24-34 for 278 yards, two touchdown passes and one touchdown run.

The momentum now stripped from the Browns for the second time in just minutes, they had nothing left on their next drive, going three and out with just 2:54 left and a short 2:54 at that because the Browns only had one timeout after inexplicably blowing two surrounding Crennel’s ill-fated execution of a challenge to the Miller touchdown.

It wasn’t so much that Crennel challenged the touchdown that was the problem; it was the way he did it. Crennel called one timeout after the touchdown so that his coaches could review the play. Then he went ahead and challenged, lost it, and with it went another timeout. Given the situation, had Crennel merely challenged the touchdown at the outset he at least would have saved a time out.

It proved to be critical. Forced to use their final timeout on the next Steelers drive, a conservative three and out, the Browns got the ball back with a little over a minute left. A short Steelers punt to Cribbs, who was devestating the Steelers all day with his returns, got the ball to the Steelers 38-yard line. But a holding penalty cost the Browns that good field position and they were forced to use what remaining time they had left to try and essentially get back to the same spot to allow Dawson a chance to send the game into overtime.

And that’s basically what they did. Joe Jurevicius grabbed a poorly thrown ball at the 35-yard line and one yard short of the first down; a ball that would have been better had it been dropped. Instead, Anderson was forced to spike the ball on third down to set up the Dawson kick with 11 seconds remaining. For a brief moment it looked good, just like the Browns did in the first half. In the end, it fell short, just like the Browns did in the second half.

Though Anderson had three touchdown passes for the fourth time this year, he was only 16-35 for 123 yards, after a strong start. Overall, the Browns only had 163 net yards on offense even though Anderson wasn’t sacked once. In fact, Cribbs 205 yards in kick returns far outpaced the offensive output. Still, the Browns found a way to score 28 points, which is actually quite stunning. In previous years, with the kind of statistical disparity that was this game, the Browns would have been lapped, twice.

There are never any good losses, of course, but if you can plot them on a scale put this one on the bad loss side, not quite Ohio State/Illinois, but in that range. A win in a hostile environment against one of your main rivals who just happens to be one of the best teams in the league would have meant something much more than respectability for this team. It would have meant legitimacy and there’s a huge difference between the two.

Crennel has been named coach of the week by the NFL twice this year and a win in Pittsburgh might have gotten him his third. But whatever coaching ability he possesses that got him those two awards in the first place is nothing compared to what it will take for him to push his team past this loss and into the realm of true playoff contenders. Whether he can pull that off is wildly uncertain. But if he can accomplish that task, and he must, he will have earned the inevitable coach of the year award that will follow.

Something to Celebrate

Maybe it’s not quite time yet for car flipping and couch burning, but for the beleaguered fans who have followed this Cleveland Browns franchise for these last several years they finally have something tangible to celebrate other than Halloween: the Browns first two-game win streak in four years.

All it took to seal the 27-20 victory against the winless Rams was a Leigh Bodden interception with 35 seconds left. Oh, if it were only that easy.

In truth, this game was as much about the Browns overcoming their numerous mistakes on both sides of the ball as anything else. On offense, particularly in the second half, the Browns seemed to be walking backward because of penalties as much as they were moving forward because of quarterback Derek Anderson. Throw in the fact that the Rams were just injured enough and just lousy enough and the Browns were able to get both their first road win, their first winning streak and their first winning record of the season, all at the same time. But again, it wasn’t easy.

At the outset, the Browns look like they had decided they liked their bye week well enough to extend it a few more days, coming out flat and looking unprepared. But after the St. Louis Rams had just finished scoring their second touchdown, a 10-play 71-yard drive that looked every bit as effortless as it was, head coach Romeo Crennel did something as out of character as Britney Spears calling it an early evening. He let his struggling defense know he had a pulse.

There he was, on the sidelines, headphones off, actually reading the riot act to a defensive line that was being abused by a make-shift Rams offensive line. Maybe it was Crennel’s word choice. Maybe it was the sight of seeing their laconic head coach coming unglued. Or maybe it was the fortunate timing of the Rams’ Steven Jackson apparently re-injuring himself followed quickly by Rams head coach Scott Linehan making a questionable call on 4^th and 1 from the Cleveland 33 with Jackson out of the game. But whatever it was, the players seemed to respond.

Suddenly, a Browns team that was down by 11 to a Rams team that had only scored nine points in their last two games combined, found new energy on both sides of the ball getting the score back to even, 17-17, as the first half ended.

***

Personal Aside #1: Is it too much to ask the NFL to require CBS to broadcast every game in high definition? CBS treats HD like it is brand new technology and their cameras are on back order. Of course this wouldn’t make a difference if the network had more respect for the Browns and to be fair, it’s not as if the Browns prior to this season gave anyone any reason to give them respect. But actually seeing an agitated Crennel in HD while tearing into his defense would have been YouTube-worthy. Instead, the picture was every bit as muddled as one of Crennel’s press conferences.

***

The emergence of the Browns offense this season has been one of the most pleasant surprises in Cleveland sports in years. Derek Anderson, after a slow start, threw a perfectly placed jump ball to receiver Braylon Edwards for the team’s first touchdown and threaded the ball to tight end Kellen Winslow II for the second touchdown. For the game, he was 18-25 for 248 yards and three touchdowns. But as good as Anderson’s passes were, both touchdowns were set up by the decision of offensive coordinator Rod Chudzinski not to eschew the running game despite the early deficit.

In that first drive, running back Jamal Lewis ran the ball five times for 34 yards while Jason Wright added a sixth run for eight yards. The second drive featured another six running plays, including an end around to Josh Cribbs who eluded and otherwise ran through a number of tacklers on his way to 18 yards. Overall, the Browns had 132 yards rushing. By this point, with a run firmly established, Anderson was able to take advantage of what was becoming a soft Rams secondary.

Still, as well as the Browns were playing on offense as the half ended, they were only tied with the Rams, thanks in part to the defense allowing Rams quarterback Mark Bulger to move the ball 52 yards in just over a minute to put the Rams in a position to kick the game-typing field goal.

Thus, an opening drive in the second half to re-establish the momentum was absolutely critical. It happened. But again it wasn’t easy. The drive, which resulted in Anderson’s third touchdown pass of the day, was as comical as it was poetic. It featured four penalties, including three false starts. In the old days, which means any day prior to the end of the Pittsburgh game the first week, any one of those penalties would have taken the air out of the offense if not the whole team. But where this team has really gotten better is in its ability to stay on track, at least offensively.

Despite the self-dug holes, Anderson was able to lead the way mostly by completing key passes to Joe Jurevicius. And when they finally stopped making penalties, the Browns were able to move rather easily through a Rams defense that was looking more and more defeated with each completed pass and third down converted. An under thrown pass by Anderson and a brilliant catch by Edwards got the ball to the Rams three-yard line and, two plays later, Anderson found Edwards in the back of the end zone for his third touchdown pass of the game, pushing the lead to 24-17.

But because this is the Browns and because they have to play defense, the game was far from over. Indeed, even as Bulger was temporarily exiting to get a damaged thumb taped, the Rams were able to move the ball well enough, aided by still another Browns penalty, to get into field goal range and get the game to well within striking distance.

And then it got real interesting. With the Browns taking the next possession and moving to finish the game, Edwards decided it was time to unleash his inner child for the first time this season by channeling the ghost of Dwayne Rudd. Following a 19-yard catch that took the Browns to the St. Louis 26 yard-line, Edwards ran down the field, tore off his helmet and jawed at the crowd, as if he had just invented oxygen. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty took the ball back to the Rams 45. Eventually, the drive stalled at the St. Louis 27 (a sack and a Winslow false start didn’t help, either) and Phil Dawson drilled a 45-yard field goal to push the lead to seven. It could have and should have been more.

***

Personal Aside #2: As immature of an act as it was to throw off the helmet, Edwards showed some uncharacteristic maturity by actually apologizing to his teammates afterward, attributing the “mistake” to thinking that the quarter had ended. That’s a far cry to how dismissive he was last year about his conduct after chewing out Charlie Frye on the sidelines. Edwards seems serious about turning a corner, which is at least as good of news as Anderson’s play this season.

***
In fact, despite the Edwards misstep, things looked pretty good after the Browns defense put up an uncharacteristically strong stand, forcing the Rams to punt with 7:47 left in the game. But a three and out put the ball right back in the Rams hand and the Rams were much more efficient this time. Eventually, though, the Rams stalled when they again couldn’t convert on 4^th and 1.

With the Rams forced to use all of their timeouts on the Browns next possession, the game should have been over. Unfortunately, a dropped pass by Edwards on third down gave the Rams a final chance, which the Browns were aiding with two straight penalties, including a pass interference call against Eric Wright. But with time running out, Bulger was forced to take bigger chances and Bodden stepped in front of a pass intended for Torry Holt finally close out the game.

If it seems like it’s a broken record at this point to again single out Edwards and Anderson, that’s because it is. Anderson, behind a rebuilt offensive line, now has 17 touchdown passes for the year and is on pace to easily break the franchise record. Edwards is having a Pro Bowl year. He had eight more receptions, giving him 37 on the season. He had 117 yards, giving him 669 for the season. He also had two more touchdowns, giving him nine for the season. Outside of Randy Moss with New England, no receiver is having a better year.

The emergence of the Browns really mirrors a shift in the NFL. In fact, it defines it. This year more than any other year in recent memory, offense is winning games in the NFL, not defense. That’s good news for teams like Cleveland, bad news for teams like Baltimore.

It’s hard to believe, however, that a team with the worst defense in the league could actually make the playoffs, but as this point anything is possible. And if the Browns can find a way to solve the enigmatic Seattle Seahawks next week, even the most cynical among us won’t think the playoffs are so farfetched. But again, it won’t be easy.

Team Extreme

It wasn’t so much that the Browns scored 51 points in their win Sunday over the Cincinnati Bengals that made the game unbelievable. In fact, it wasn’t even so much the final score of 51-45 either. It was the last play. When quarterback Derek Anderson took a victory knee on the last play of the game it was official: Browns fans have seen it all.

There isn’t a casino in the country, check that, the world, that would have given odds on an Anderson victory kneel happening. Not just Sunday. But at any point this season. And with all due respect to one of the greatest athletes in Cleveland history, LeBron James, serious thought ought to be given to painting over his James’ likeness on his “Witness” billboard downtown with a picture of that last play. Who knows when we’ll see it again.

Conjuring up the ghosts of 2004 when Kelly Holcomb and Carson Palmer engaged in an eerily similar shootout, Palmer and Anderson again riddled the respective opposing defenses like they were playing Notre Dame. Only this time the Browns didn’t come up on the short end. But it was close.

Leigh Bodden, who did nothing to keep his nemesis, Bengals receiver Chad Johnson, in check the entire afternoon nonetheless came up with the one play that counted most—an interception on the Browns 27 with 26 seconds remaining that sealed the improbable win. Until that point, the only Cleveland fan watching that game who didn’t think the Bengals would score and send the Browns to defeat is a liar. After all this is a team and a franchise that has conditioned its fans to demand the least and expect the worst.

With the victory there were at least two clear points that emerged. First, GM Phil Savage will get his wish: more time to develop backup quarterback Brady Quinn. Anderson’s performance on Sunday gets him a few more starts, at least, even if he throws up on himself next week against Oakland. Second, it’s time to call Dr. Finklestein and tell him he can forget about mom for awhile, we’ve got a whole new set of issues to deal with. This time on the defensive side of the ball.

Actually a third clear point emerged as well. The Cincinnati Bengals are a fraud. As bad as the Browns defense played, the Bengals were far worse than the six point difference on the scoreboard or the 23-yard difference in total yards would otherwise suggest. For example, the 51 points scored in Sunday’s game is more than the Browns have scored in their previous five regular season games, combined. Similar games can be played with most of the gaudy statistics the Browns offensive compiled on Sunday. But even more striking is the fact that the Bengals didn’t record a single sack. Not one. And this against an offensive line that gave up six last week.

Nobody expects the Browns to do anything this year, so the fact that they gave up 45 points to an offense as explosive as the Bengals isn’t much of a surprise. But the Bengals have Super Bowl aspirations; at least they claimed to have after their opening day victory against the Baltimore Ravens. Giving up 51 points to anyone, let alone the Browns, is a legitimate cause for panic.

The Bengals can claim fatigue from expending all their energy on the Ravens game last week. But just as Baltimore’s self-proclaimed offensive genius Brian Billick can’t seem to create a consistent and coherent offense for his team, neither can self-proclaimed defensive genius Marvin Lewis create a credible and consistent defense for his team. The Bengals have been mostly awful on defense for the bulk of Lewis’ tenure and his team’s ridiculous showing against a Browns team in near-total disarray this entire week isn’t going to do wonders for his reputation.

Though whether the Bengals were suffering a hangover, took the Browns too lightly, or are really that bad hardly matters right now. What does matter is that the Bengals defense, in one game, essentially did something Romeo Crennel hasn’t been able to do in his two-plus years as head coach, build some confidence for a team and a city starving for it.

Unlike last week’s game against Pittsburgh where virtually nothing went right and the few positives were so far outweighed by the negatives as to render them meaningless, Sunday’s game had a season full of highlights. Running back Jamal Lewis, demonstrating that classic style of a bruiser, wore down the defensive line with small but hard runs early to set up huge hard runs later. In all, he totaled 217 yards rushing, including a 66-yard touchdown run with six minutes left in the third quarter.

But Lewis was hardly the only star. Josh Cribbs is a legitimately feared return man with legitimate Pro Bowl aspirations. Receiver Braylon Edwards had the break-out game we’ve all been waiting for with eight catches for 146 yards and two touchdowns. And while he didn’t catch it, you couldn’t help but respect the attempt he had in the first quarter after the Browns took over following a Sean Jones intercepted. Edwards leaped high over the middle on an Anderson pass and was punished greatly for it. He got up a bit shaken but otherwise in tact. Edwards is a lot of things, but soft isn’t one of them.

Tight end Kellen Winslow turned in another solid game with six catches for 100 yards and one touchdown while receiver Joe Jurevicius had four catches for 44 yards and two touchdowns. And Anderson, anointed the starter when GM Phil Savage finally got his way by dumping Charlie Frye on Seattle, was 20-33 for 328 yards and five touchdowns. Though Anderson can best be described as a work in progress, give him credit. He started shaky and ended strong which hasn’t exactly been a formula for any Browns player of late.

But back to Dr. Finklestein, who, if can get Marvin Lewis off his couch, will likely find Browns defensive coordinator Todd Grantham cooling his heels in the waiting room. Grantham’s defense needs help. Let’s not forget that the Bengals had 531 yards of total offense themselves, 401 of which came off the arm of Palmer. Rudi Johnson chipped in with another 100-yard game against the Browns. In short, but for the Bodden interception late and the Jones interception early, it wasn’t as if the Browns defense provided much of a speed bump to the Bengals. Throw in the 365 yards the Browns gave up to the Steelers last week and in just two games the Browns already have given up 900 yards.

The problem, of course, is not too difficult to pinpoint. It all starts up front, whether it’s offense or defense and right now the Browns defensive line is awful. Ted Washington, who is about the size of two C.C. Sabathias, takes up space and that’s about it. He’s showing every one of his 16 years in the league. Orpheus Roye, the only credible player on the line right now, still is playing like he’s hurt. Robaire Smith, another Savage free agent signee this off-season, is essentially a non-factor.

With a defensive line that can’t seem to stop the rush or put much pressure on a quarterback, it leaves a relatively thin defensive backfield exposed. It’s not that the Browns defensive backs are without talent, it’s just that there isn’t an abundance to spare. The fact that rookie Eric Wright is a starter tells you all you need to know. Wright may develop into a quality back eventually, but right now he’s awfully green. He played only 22 college games or slightly less than two full seasons split between USC and UNLV. To put it charitably, he still has much to learn.

While it’s doubtful that the Browns are as good as they looked against the Bengals, the victory at least gave some credence to the theory that the Browns aren’t as bad as they looked against the Steelers, either. And in a town suffering so mightily for their football team, this qualifies as a legitimate piece of good news.

As for the Bengals, put it this way. For the same reasons that the Michigan Wolverines should be barred from entering the Top 25 at any point this season as a result of their loss to Appalachian State, the Bengals should be barred from any list of this year’s Super Bowl contenders. If you can’t stop Cleveland, you can’t stop anyone.