Lingering Items--Final Preseason Edition

When the Cleveland Browns entered training camp, it seemed like the stars were aligning more or less perfectly. An armful of expectations borne of a 10 win season in which they didn’t make the playoffs greeted them. No first, second or third round picks assured them that they’d have no holdouts. The starting quarterback already was firmly entrenched. In short, quiet six or so weeks beckoned, allowing sufficient time for preparation for what is clearly a rough first few weeks of the season.

It’s interesting how a winless preseason can change all that. Browns fans now approach this team with nearly as much caution and anxiety as they have each of the last nine seasons.

Perhaps that is why general manager Phil Savage took to the podium on Saturday to address the media about the 53-man roster. More than anything else, Savage wanted to inject a little perspective over the Labor Day holiday weekend. Whether it worked or not probably depends on how you feel about Savage. Whether he’s right or not will be easy to tell soon enough.

The thrust of his message was that this is a veteran team that was using the preseason far more for evaluation than for establishing a mythical winning culture. Though Savage said he could have done a better job of communicating that to the media at the outset of training camp, he did allow that the focus really become that until the first half implosion against the New York Giants in week two of the preseason. “From that point on, I think the focus of our preseason changed in terms of, ‘Ok, we’re really going to just try and get through this and try to get our young players a good experience here, but let’s shoot for Labor day and get as many players as we can up and running.’”

It’s a reasonable point of view. The question then is whether that’s where the Browns now find themselves.

Let’s start with the easy stuff first. Though the team got banged around pretty hard in the last four weeks, no one suffered a catastrophic injury. Key members of the offense in the persons of Derek Anderson, Jamal Lewis and Braylon Edwards, all are set to return on Sunday against Dallas. In fact, it appeared as though all three could have played Thursday night against the Chicago Bears had that been a regular season game. That removes some significant pressure right there. Of course, timing could be an issue but that’s a far easier problem to fix than not having those players available at all.

Then there are the combined absences of free safety Brodney Pool and kick returner Josh Cribbs. Officially each is listed as questionable for Sunday. What that means is always hard to say. Players listed as questionable tend to play. It seems like New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has listed quarterback Tom Brady as questionable every week for the last six years and he never misses a game.

If neither can play ironically, of the two, Cribbs will be the most missed even though he has the more capable backup in Syndric Steptoe. So much of the NFL game revolves around field position. Cribbs’ unique talent, indeed the reason he’s so highly paid, is his uncanny ability to put his team in good field position, whether on a punt or a kickoff. Cribbs also is a valuable gunner when the Browns kick off, often responsible for denying the other team good field position. These are talents that NFL coaches and general managers don’t take lightly and neither should the fans. If Cribbs is absent for any length of time, both the offense and defense will suffer accordingly.

As for Pool, he may be the Browns best defensive back, but that’s only be default. The preseason revealed just how thin this part of the team really is, even if Pool is healthy. If he’s not available, it will be hard to tell given the lack of quality elsewhere anyway. Whether or not Pool plays, the key to stopping other teams will be the play of the defensive line and the linebackers. They have to not only stop the run but get to the quarterback quickly. And defensive coordinator Mel Tucker has to thrown in plenty of blitzes to hopefully paper over the gaping holes.

While that’s been the plan all along unfortunately it didn’t seem to work all that well in the preseason. The defensive line did play well, Kamerion Wimbley seemed rejuvenated yet the defensive backfield still was exposed. A healthy Pool isn’t going to change that and an injured Pool doesn’t make it much worse. Simply put, the corners have to play better, much better. Second year players Brandon McDonald and Eric Wright have their moments but they still are way too far between.

Savage addressed this to a certain extent on Saturday but in the sort of confusing way only a general manager could muster. Addressing questions about whether or not there is other help available, such as free agent Ty Law, Savage said “everybody wants to take the magic pill and go get the big name. It’s not always the big name that’s the answer. This is what we have and this s what we’re going with. As Romeo said, maybe if we lose five guys, we’ll make some calls.”

Translated, Law isn’t a magic pill even if he’s an upgrade. The problem is that he’s a 13-year veteran who at this point is at most a stop gap upgrade, which he already has in the form of Terry Cousin. What Savage really is saying is that he believes both McDonald and Wright will continue to mature and are better for the team in the long run, even if Law can help today. Savage clearly doesn’t want to take any playing and hence development time away from his young corners.

Savage may be technically correct, but so much of what he’s done in this past offseason has been in an effort to win now that it seems odd that he’s now sacrificing that just a bit for the sake of the future. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that either McDonald or Wright will develop anyway. Look no further than receiver Travis Wilson, a third round pick in 2006 for proof.

It’s why, ultimately, despite the earnest effort to add perspective Savage just ended up underscoring all the reasons it’s easy to be uneasy.

***

In addition to the defensive backfield, the Browns enter the regular season a bit thin in two other key areas, offensive line and receiver. The injury to Rex Hadnot on Thursday followed by the placing of Lennie Friedman on injured reserve and the fact that Ryan Tucker is still a few weeks away means that at least in the short term one of the team’s great strengths has turned into another of the team’s great question marks. Right now, it’s the area the can least sustain another injury.

As for the receivers, Savage spent far more time in his press conference addressing the progress Syndric Steptoe made during camp than addressing the flameout of another early round draft pick in Wilson. Savage also spent a considerable amount of time talking down the value of third receivers in general, noting that last year’s third receiver had only eight catches.

That may be true, but don’t be fooled. The fact that Savage cajoled Joe Jurevicius into remaining with the team as the third receiver tells you everything you need to know about how Savage really values a third receiver. Jurevicius as a second receiver was extremely valuable commodity last season. Not only is he sure handed, but he also seemed to make every third down catch that was needed last season. As a third receiver, he becomes even that much more valuable.

That’s where the cutting of Wilson comes in. The bottom line is twofold. First, Savage didn’t think Wilson had the talent to ever be the team’s number one or number two receiver. Second, Wilson doesn’t hold on to the ball nearly enough to be a reliable outlet in the absence of Jurevicius. He may have had six catches against the Bears, but it was the drop of a Ken Dorsey pass down the sidelines for what looked to be a touchdown that was far more noticeable.

Steptoe, on the other hand, seemed to make the difficult catch far more often. Also, given his ability on returns, he’s a far more valuable addition. This probably means that Cribbs will be in the mix far more often as a receiver as well, and not just as a fourth receiver, which is something that fans have been clamoring for. If/when Jurevicius is able to return, the Browns may not have the best receiving corps in the league, but they have more than enough to compete.

***

As the Browns get ready for next week’s opener against Dallas, the only question on anyone’s mind, really, and thus this week’s to ponder: Will Jessica Simpson make the trip? And for a follow up: What will she wear? Let’s hope it’s warm.

Lingering Items--Baltimore Edition

A few lingering items from last Sunday’s Browns game…

Whatever shortcomings Romeo Crennel may have as a head coach, and they are plentiful, at least he’s realistic. Grateful to have won the game on Sunday, he nevertheless properly tempered the win by pointing out the Browns can’t continue to make a boatload of mistakes and expect to win many more games. Indeed. We know what happens when that occurs. Crennel’s previous two years attest to that.

But more to the point, in the last two weeks, the Browns in general and the defense in particular have let leads of 15 and 14 points slip away. Perhaps that’s understandable considering they do have the absolute worst defense in the league, ranked 32^nd overall. And it’s a ranking they well deserve. Pick a statistic and you can pretty much rest assured that the Browns defense ranks last: points per game, plays from scrimmage, yards per game, third downs converted (ok, in fairness they are 31^st in this category), and fourth downs converted.

Thus it’s with very little concern when one or more of the defensive players go down with injuries. How bad can the replacement be? You can’t rank any worse than 32^nd.

But on the other hand, it’s not like this is a recent development. The defense started bad against Pittsburgh and has stayed consistently bad through 10 games. It matters little whom they’re playing, either. While they’ve played New England and Pittsburgh, two of the top offensive teams, they’ve also had games against St. Louis, Oakland and Baltimore twice, teams that rank in the bottom third offensively in the league, while Miami, another opponent, is close.

In other words, if you’re waiting for the defense to arrive because of an apparently softer schedule remaining in the last six games, forget about it. This defense isn’t going to get better until it gets overhauled.

The more disturbing development of the last few weeks, and perhaps what Crennel was really referencing, is the offense. Against both Pittsburgh and Baltimore, they hit a wall in the second half and had trouble moving the ball. While halftime adjustments by the opposing teams are playing some role, a bigger issue, particularly in the Baltimore game, was a lack of discipline. Of the Browns 12 penalties on Sunday, half were for false starts. Two others were for holding. It’s pretty difficult to sustain a drive when it’s constantly one step up, five yards back.

Consider this lovely sequence from Sunday: With 8:47 left in the second quarter, the Browns took over at the 36 yard line following a 24-yard runback by Josh Cribbs. This runback became immediately and forever memorable because Cribbs seemed to have fumbled but it was overturned as a result of a Crennel challenge. He’s now 3-23.

On second down and six, tackle Joe Thomas had a false start. The Browns eventually converted the first down, only to have guard Kevin Shaffer false start. Running back Jamal Lewis bailed them out of this penalty with a 21-yard run. Two first downs later and heading deep into Baltimore territory, Lewis was then called for holding, making it first and 20 from the Baltimore 24 yard line. It then became first and 30 from the Baltimore 34 yard line when Shaffer held on the next play. A short pass made it second and 15, which then was nullified by two Thomas false starts. On third and 30 from the Baltimore 34, Anderson hit tight end Kellen Winslow II on a 12-yard pass, taking the ball to the Baltimore 22 yard line, from which kicker Phil Dawson hit a field goal with 1:41 left, making it a 13-7 game. In all, 13 plays, over seven minutes off the clock and only a field goal to show for it.

It may be too much to hold Crennel completely responsible for this kind of mess, but it does speak to a certain lack of discipline and preparation by the team. Ultimately, just like his inability to put together a mechanism that will increase the odds of successful replay challenges, these are the kind of fine details that Crennel has yet to infuse into this team. Not surprisingly, it’s also the kind of fine details that separate the good teams from the also rans. Well, that and a good defense, but that’s a project for the offseason.

***

As much as Crennel seems overmatched as a head coach, at least he’s neither smug nor a sore loser. In other words, he’s no Brian Billick. Rather than give the Browns even the slightest amount of credit for moving the ball into field goal position against his vastly overrated defense with 31 seconds remaining in regulation, Billick instead complained after the game and again on Monday about how his team was robbed of a victory by the officials, refusing to even acknowledge that the officials in fact got the ruling correct.

The Baltimore media, egged on by Billick, has treated this incident as if it was some sort of conspiracy to stick it to the Ravens. If only that were really true. Anyone and everyone who has seen the replay knows that Dawson’s kick went through the uprights. Whether it then hit the support for the cross bar and bounced back, which is on the other side of the uprights, or some other obstruction, like a camera, matters little. A ball that passes through the uprights is good. That’s the rule.

It would have been a bigger injustice for the referees to have blown the call. In fact, one official apparently did, which is what started the controversy in the first place. But when you watch the replay, it is clear that one official signaled that the ball went through and then bounced back, which is why he called it no good. The other official was unsure and gave no signal. The lack of consensus, required under NFL rules, dictated what followed next.

Of course, it’s not hard to figure why Billick wants to keep the heat on the officials. It deflects the heat he should rightly get for kicking to Cribbs twice at the end of the game, particularly when you factor in that Ravens kicker Matt Stover had successfully squibbed and early kick that resulted in a touch back. It also deflects the heat he should rightly get for again having another lousy offense caused in no small part to his inability to again develop a quarterback. It also deflects the heat he should rightly get for having a porous offensive line that gave up six sacks to the Browns. It also deflects the heat he should rightly get for a defense that is getting long in the tooth and is more effective these days talking a good game than in actually playing one. And finally it also deflects the heat he should rightly get for being 4-6 and winless in the division with only one game left—against Pittsburgh. Good luck with that.

New England head coach Bill Belichick seems to be the favorite coach to hate these days, but for my money that title rightly belongs to Billick and has for a long time. In fact, when he’s shown the door by owner Steve Bisciotti, probably at season’s end, they can retire that trophy permanently. Worse than being a sore loser, Billick is a poor sport.

***

One nice thing about the NFL is how quickly perspective can change. Two weeks ago, the Steelers overcame a 15-point lead to beat Cleveland and all the talk in Pittsburgh was how, basically, pedigree matters, the superior team finding a way to win. Fast forward a week and the Steelers lose to the woeful Jets. Now the talk is how the Steelers have struggled for the last two weeks, lucky were they to get past Cleveland and not as lucky against the Jets.

Likewise, the Browns. The talk last week was how the Browns blew a 15-point lead to lose a game they should have won. With the victory against Baltimore, the talk now is how the Browns blew a 15-point lead to lose a game they should have won. Otherwise they’d be 7-3. Okay, sometimes perspective doesn’t change.

***

In my game story this week, I originally stated that it was Leigh Bodden that returned the Kyle Boller floater 100 yards for a touchdown. A reader quickly corrected me that it was Brodney Pool and I apologize for and corrected the mistake. In my defense, though, it was easy mistake to made, so accustomed had I become on Sunday to seeing the back of Bodden’s jersey as he continued to chase Ravens receivers who were running past him.

Inches

When inches mattered most, they mattered most to the Browns. With their season literally hanging on whichever way Phil Dawson’s 51-yard kick with time expiring might bounce off the left upright, the Browns got the break that seems to have eluded them for the last nine years and parlayed it into the most improbable outcome you’re ever likely to see, a 33-30 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. With the win, the Browns now stand at 6-4 while the Ravens sink to 4-6.

It was a game the Cleveland Browns had to win. Not only to keep alive playoff hopes, but to keep in tact an edge that was dulled a bit last week in Pittsburgh. And when Matt Stover drilled a 47-yard field goal with 31 seconds left to give the Ravens a 30-27 lead, that edge looked even duller than the Baltimore Ravens uniforms. But the return prowesses of Josh Cribbs, first with 31 seconds remaining in regulation and then again on the opening kick in overtime, coupled with a suddenly soft and dispirited Ravens defense, allowed quarterback Derek Anderson to twice move the offense into a position for Dawson’s heroics.

But to say that the final play of regulation was shrouded in drama understates by a factor of a few hundred thousand the range of emotions that each team and their fans went through in a 15-minute span. Dawson had missed a field goal of similar length and under similar circumstances last week that would have sent the Pittsburgh game into overtime. But the best kickers are ultimately those with the shortest memories and Dawson certainly showed no lingering thoughts from that Pittsburgh miss.

As good as Dawson hit the kick, its sheer length allowed it enough time to turn from the center of the goal posts toward the left upright. Fortunately for Dawson and the Browns, the ball hit enough on the inside of the upright to allow it to continue to bounce enough forward to literally inch past the crossbar. Then things got interesting.

Instead of falling harmlessly through, the ball hit again, this time at the base of the goal post and bounce back through, confusing even the two officials stationed underneath. After some discussion, the officials apparently decided that because the ball had bounced back through, the kick was not good, sending the Ravens into the locker room with a win they didn’t deserve and their fans to their cars to celebrate in the inevitable parking lot gridlock.

Whoever then signaled to the officials that the ball needed to only make it through the uprights and not remain there deserves at least an assist for this victory. The officials discussed it for the next several minutes, reviewed it, discussed it some more and then let Ravens head coach Brian Billick know that he would have to pull his team back onto the field.

The great thing about Billick is that he wears his emotions on his sleeve and the exasperation and consternation that stretched across his face at that moment will be a memory delightfully etched in the minds of Browns fans for years to come. Meanwhile, the Browns had remained on the field hoping that for once they’d get the kind of call that always seems to go against them. They did and now the game was headed to overtime.

The Browns good luck continued by the mere inch between a coin landing on heads or tails as the Browns won the flip. Stover, eschewing any sort of squib kick when that was the most advisable play, sent the ball to Cribbs, who tormented the Ravens again just as he had done all day and just as he’s done to every other team the Browns have played. Cribbs brought it back 41 yards to the Ravens 41-yard line.

Though the Browns offense was mainly impotent throughout the second half, it was clear that the Ravens were emotionally if not physically spent by this point. Anderson moved the ball effectively enough, including a key 18-yard pass to Kellen Winslow II that seemed to take whatever will remained from the Ravens. The combined running of Jamal Lewis and Jason Wright took the ball down to the Baltimore 19. From there, Dawson drilled the game winner, sending the Ravens to the locker room to whine about a game they deserved to lose and their fans to their cars to ponder the fate of Billick in the inevitable parking lot gridlock.

The victory allowed the Browns to avoid back-to-back losses for the first time this season, a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever write, let alone have anyone read, this late in the season. With the loss, the Ravens are left to figure out how they could possibly have gone from a team that went 13-3 last year to a team that is 4-6, winless in the division and clearly headed home for the holidays.

But in the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, if Billick and GM Ozzie Newsome really need help understanding what’s gone wrong, here’s a hint: get an offense in general and a quarterback in particular. The problem with the Ravens starts and ends with their inability of Billick, the self-proclaimed offensive genius, to ever develop a quarterback. Boller may have looked pretty effective in the second half, but that has to be tempered by the fact that it was against one of the worst defenses in the league. Couple the repeated failures at a key position with an aging defense whose best attribute is its ability to jaw with the best of them, and it’s no small wonder that the Ravens are falling apart. Good for them.

The Browns, on the other hand, seemed headed in a much better long-term direction. But if they are to ever arrive at their destination, GM Phil Savage needs to build a defense, fast. Last week, they blew a 15-point lead to the Steelers, which isn’t nearly the crime that blowing a 14-point lead against the Ravens is. But more than anything else, what these last two games proved is that achieving success by trying to out slug the other team is fraught with great peril, particularly late in the season. Anderson is still too young and too inexperienced to be counted on time and again to rescue this team while the defense founders.

In many ways, this is a game that shouldn’t even have been close. Consider, for example, the first half, as ragged as a first half as you’re ever likely to see. Statistically, the Browns lapped the Ravens several times over. Anderson had thrown for 157 yards, Jamal Lewis had run for 59, Jason Wright another 13, and the offense held the ball an astounding 21:31. They even were the recipient of three Ravens turnovers. Yet they had only 13 points. They should have had much more.

But by not finishing drives and taking advantage of the breaks they had, the Browns allowed the Ravens to remain in the game, even though they were only able to muster two first downs and 38 net yards. But the Ravens were the recipient of two Browns turnovers, one which was a gift interception to Ray Lewis that he turned into a touchdown when Anderson threw well behind a slanting Joe Jurevicius and the Browns only held a 13-7 lead.

The precursor to the second half though was that final Ravens drive of the first half, even though it didn’t result in points. Boller suddenly looked less like Charlie Frye, but without the mobility, and more like Anderson, the quarterback Billick wishes he still had. Boller was hitting his receivers and moving the team, showing the flashes of promise that has basically kept him in the league and on the Ravens despite an otherwise overall unimpressive body of work.

Indeed, on the first drive of the second half the Ravens looked like they knew what they were doing when they covered 78 yards in eight plays. And when Willis McGahee danced after his two-yard run that ultimately helped Baltimore grab its first lead of the day, 14-13, they seemed to have made the kind of halftime adjustments that always seemed to elude Browns head coach, Romeo Crennel.

After the Browns were forced to punt on their next drive, the Ravens were unable to move the ball out of the shadow of their own end zone. A poor punt by Sam Koch turned into a Cribbs run back to the Baltimore 11-yard line. A hard run by Lewis, his most impressive of the day, took the ball to the Ravens one-yard line and from their Anderson snuck it in to put the Browns back up, 20-14.

The Browns looked like they had indeed seized the game for good when, on the Ravens next series, Brodney Pool intercepted a Boller pass in the end zone and returned it 100 yards for the touchdown. It was the longest interception return in Browns history and was aided, in great part, by a vicious hit from Robaire Smith during the runback.

But whatever was working for the Browns defense in the first half just as suddenly stopped working for the rest of the second half. The Ravens in relatively short order began exploiting the Browns porous defense both on the ground and in the air, putting together three straight drives that helped them seize the lead with just 31 seconds remaining. It looked to be the kind of ending, frankly, that Browns fans have seen to many times, making the comeback and the win as satisfying as it was surprising.

Statistically, this game stacks up much like many of the other wins the Browns have had all season. Anderson threw for 274 yards. The Browns ran for 177 yards, with Lewis accounting for 92, and they controlled the time of possession. In fact, the return of an inspired Jamal Lewis was one of the more pleasant surprises of the game. And Cribbs, of course, was his usual self.

As bad as the defense played, they still held the Ravens to 368 yards, which is plenty, but well under the 419 yards the rest of the league is averaging against them. Yet as relatively dominating as the Browns were statistically, the game ended up being won by the one statistic that isn’t kept; inches, as in the number of inches a ball needs to carry past the uprights.

With just one Sunday remaining in November and a relatively soft schedule staring them in the face in the weeks to come, the Browns now have the opportunity to do something special. The only thing that really stands in their way is the same thing that’s been standing in their way all season, a third-rate defense. And if that defense does prevent them from going where they offensive could otherwise take them, then the disappointment that Cleveland fans felt when the Indians failed to get past the Boston Red Sox in the playoffs this past season will pale in comparison. After all, this has always been a Browns town anyway.

Lingering Items

A few thoughts still kicking around following Sunday’s game…

So now we know. It wasn’t mere confusion that caused the Browns to blow two critical timeouts against the Steelers on Sunday, it was institutionalized mayhem. Feel better?

Anyone who listened to Romeo Crennel’s post-mortem on Monday about the Steelers loss got an earful about what happened on the sidelines late in the fourth quarter on Sunday following Heath Miller’s touchdown grab that put the Steelers up for good. Crennel was alternately earnest and testy, tolerating the questions initially and becoming increasingly agitated by them as they wore on. But when it was all said and done, anyone looking for a cogent explanation or at least an explanation that didn’t reveal the shortcomings of the head coach was left to look elsewhere.

For those keeping track of these sorts of things, after the game Crennel said of the ill-fated replay challenge: “I'm not exactly sure what happened, but a timeout was called on the field and then I followed it up with a challenge, and so it ended up costing us two timeouts. What else can I tell you? So put it on me.” Well, exactly, which is why the questions on Monday.

Piecing it together from the various answers on Monday, which is no small task, the first time out was called because a play may have misunderstood a hand signal from a coach on the sidelines and called for the first time out. This may make sense until you remember that timeouts can be called from the sideline so there would have been no need for a coach to signal one in. The better explanation here is that a player or a coach simply screwed up and Crennel doesn’t want to throw him under the bus. Fair enough.

Focusing more on the replay itself, apparently Replay Consultant (interesting title) T. J. McCreight thought he saw something that looked like Miller dropping the ball and reported it to Crennel, who said he was otherwise distracted because he was talking with his kick return unit. Based on what McCreight was telling him, Crennel said he spoke with the officials, who apparently were trying to remind Crennel that he had already called a time out and thus was putting another one at risk. He told them “I’m going to challenge it anyway.” According to Crennel, though he didn’t have definitive information from McCreight on the issue, it was a crucial point in the game and it was worth taking a chance.

Undoubtedly it was a crucial point in the game and, generally speaking, taking that kind of chance makes sense, which was the reason to throw the red challenge flag immediately. But in context, after already having burned a time out for no good reason, risking another one upped the stakes to potentially unacceptable levels. That’s the piece, unfortunately, that Crennel didn’t seem to properly factor into his overall thinking.

Too often Crennel seems like he doesn’t know quite what’s taking place in front of him and that came back to hurt the Browns on Sunday. It didn’t necessarily cost them the game, but it didn’t help either. Crennel is 2-20 in replay challenges, including this season. Last season, when he was 0-7, he ranked at the bottom of the league. Admittedly, the overall success rate isn’t all that great for any team and sometimes it depends on the officiating crew where it is common knowledge that certain referees get it wrong more often than others.

But Crennel’s abject futility in having calls overturned isn’t just an interesting little statistic, either. It speaks to a lack of institutional discipline and a continuing reliance on a coaching staff that time and again fails him in this regard. Crennel apparently cognizant of the team’s shortcomings did replace last year’s Replay Consultant (interesting title) but that hasn’t worked so well either.

Crennel’s right. This one’s on him—to actually fix whatever process or lack thereof that’s in place so that he isn’t left guessing once again and getting it wrong. And while he’s at it, he might want to get a better handle on his own lack of situational awareness and stop making decisions like this on the fly.

In the end, time and again it seems like the Browns are held back by the lack of fine detail work that distinguishes the good teams from the also-rans. It’s not glamorous work, to be sure, and it doesn’t always make a difference, except when it does. It certainly was a difference maker Sunday.
***

One of the more amusing sidelights to any lousy loss is the number of people who are quick to overlook the obvious while in search of the devious. I’ve received a number of emails essentially claiming, for various reasons, that the Browns didn’t lose the game; it was stolen from them by the referees. As one emailer implored me: write the truth.

Think whatever you want about Sunday’s game, but one thing is for certain, the Browns lost that game through a combination of offensive, defensive and coaching ineptness. When I think about a game being stolen, I think of the U.S. vs. Russia in Olympic basketball in 1972, not some middle of the season, generic NFL game, the outcome of which had only marginal meaning attached to it.

But if you’re in the camp that the officiating cost the game, there’s a few things you’re going to need to ignore while you’re ruminating over whether who was actually more guilty of holding, Darnell Dinkins on the Josh Cribbs punt return or a half of the Steelers line on the Ben Roethlisberger 30-yard touchdown run.

For starters, you’re going to need to ignore Derek Anderson, so good for the first half of the season and even the first half of the Steelers game, suddenly looking like a career back-up and appearing rattled not by the blitz but by the coverages he was seeing from the Steelers secondary. You’ll also probably need to ignore more broadly a Browns offense that couldn’t muster a first down the entire second half until the last minute of the game. If you want to ignore more specifically, then take your pick: the aging Willie McGinest looking like he had been taking tackling lessons from Deion Sanders or an equally aging Jamal Lewis averaging two yards a carry for the second straight week.

Maybe it’s easy to get past these pesky little items as you’re connecting the threads of your latest conspiracy theory, but if you’re going to focus on the mediocre performance of the officials, then you’re obviously in the camp that sees Super Bowl in a squad that will be lucky to get to 8-8. You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth.

***
Speaking of the truth, but in a more positive sense, the surest sign that the Browns are starting to get noticed was the amount of national press the game garnered. There were stories Monday in the New York Times and the USA Today, among others, reporting on what they viewed as a compelling match-up. And even CBS found a way to allocate what appears to be the only high definition cameras it owns to the Browns/Steelers game.

It sure would have been nice, then, had the Browns complied. Instead, the Browns didn’t actually disappoint so much as prove that they are not quite ready yet for prime time. This is a team that’s getting better, but it’s not yet a good team. An overhaul of the defense and the displacement of a few coaches are the only things that stand in the way of that happening.

But despite the cold bucket of water that was Sunday’s game, there was still progress, it just didn’t show up in the statistics. The Browns managed 28 points in a game that in previous years would likely have resulted in a shutout. The skeptics may argue that at least 14 of those points are directly attributable to kick/punt returner Josh Cribbs, which is a strange way actually of diminishing his contributions.

Special teams is a third of any football team. They quite often are the difference in a game, particularly in the NFL where so many games are decided by a field goal. When you put Sunday’s game in context, the Steelers almost lost despite playing superior offense and defense because of their repeated failures to execute on special teams.

The one player who has showed up every week thus far has been Josh Cribbs. Anderson has played well in large chunks and receiver Braylon Edwards is having a good overall season, though he hasn’t been much of a threat the last two games. But Cribbs isn’t just having a good season or even a break out season. He’s having a Pro Bowl season. If he’s not the most feared returner in the league, then it’s only a matter of time.

Move over Jamir Miller, your days as the answer to the trivia question over who is the only Browns player to make the Pro Bowl since their return in 1999 is in jeopardy.

***
The following question occurred to me while watching the New York Giants play the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night while wearing their “throwback” jerseys: If the Browns were to wear throwback jerseys, what would they look like and how could we tell?

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.

A Signature Win

If it wasn’t the signature win that Browns GM Phil Savage dreamed of, it was awfully close. Turning the tables on what to this point had been abject futility against their fellow competitors in the AFC North, the Browns soundly defeated a flat Baltimore Ravens team on Sunday 27-13 and winning their second divisional game in just three weeks.

Now the question is, when will the Browns lay waste to the other albatross hanging around their necks—the inability to win two consecutive games. We’ll all have to wait another week for that, but for once Browns fans get to enjoy a resounding win against a legitimate upper tier team. Savor the moment.

With a dearth of wins on which to draw from experience, it’s hard to actually know what a signature win feels like. But if this is one, and it sure feels like it, to most the signature play came with just under six minutes left in the first quarter in the form of quarterback Derek Anderson’s 78-yard touchdown pass to Braylon Edwards.

Seizing a moment in uncharacteristic fashion, the Browns went deep immediately after Leigh Bodden’s interception of Ravens quarterback Steve McNair. Edwards, doing nothing fancy except running straight ahead and hard, somehow convinced Ravens cornerback Chris McAlister that he was heading inside instead. McAlister bit and Anderson found the streaking Edwards all alone, laying the pass in perfectly and allowing Edwards to more or less waltz into the end zone to give the Browns what became a 14-0 lead.

And while the Edwards touchdown will be shown repeatedly, as it should be, the real signature play came with 3:34 left in the fourth quarter, the Browns clinging to their 14-point lead and McNair trying to drive the Ravens to within a touchdown.

As McNair dropped back to pass, linebacker Kamerion Wimbley blew past the Ravens right tackle for what should have been the first sack of the game. McNair threw the ball away as he was heading for the turf and was flagged for intentional grounding, essentially giving Wimbley the benefit of the sack with an extra 10 yards tacked on to boot. It gave the Ravens a second and 20 which they immediately made a second and 25 by false starting, essentially ending any hope of getting back into the game.

What made this victory particularly satisfying were two things. First, it was nice, for once, to see someone other than the Browns be ill-prepared for a game. Ravens head coach and self-anointed offensive genius Brian Billick’s Ravens were out of sync all day. They were the team committing boneheaded penalties, blowing assignments, missing field goals, calling time outs because they were confused by defensive schemes and otherwise misfiring when they could least afford it. If the Ravens were looking to take a play out of Cleveland’s playbook, they picked the wrong one.

Second, it was nice to see Billick and Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis get a little comeuppance. After Jamal Lewis’ one-yard touchdown run with 4:57 left in the second quarter, watching Billick try to convince the officials that he threw the red challenge flag timely when he knew he clearly hadn’t and then giving up without much of a fuss was a small but revealing moment of his character. If Billick were on the golf course, he’d be that guy claiming he made a bogey on a hole and then reluctantly agreeing it was a double the minute you asked him to recount the strokes with you starting with the drive. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick may be a snake, but if Billick doesn’t share the same cage with him at the zoo, he’s in the same section nonetheless.

As for Ray Lewis, maybe it’s time for some to start questioning just how much he has left in the tank. He was a non-factor. Statistically, he was credited with four tackles and two assists but frankly it’s hard to recall any of them. It may not be time to close the book on Lewis completely, but his act as the screaming loudmouth cheerleader wannabe that makes him one of the more disliked players in the league anyway is starting to look more like parody than inspirational.

For the Browns, the game featured the usual cadre of contributors—Anderson, Edwards, tight end Kellen Winslow II and kick returner Josh Cribbs. Though the Browns have been plagued by rabid inconsistency through four games, especially defensively, all of the aforementioned generally have acquitted themselves well each week.

Statistically Anderson wasn’t brilliant, merely effective. He was 10-18 for 204 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. It’s all Anderson really needed to do. In fact, it’s the kind of line that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger turns in each week and he’s now considered one of the elite quarterbacks in the league. The same ultimately may not hold true for Anderson, but the point is that it’s more myth than reality that NFL quarterbacks need to throw for 300 yards each week to be considered great. More times than not, and today being a prime example of the more times, a quarterback who piles up gaudy statistics does so because his team is behind. Steve McNair’s line: 34-53, 307 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception.

The difference today between Anderson and McNair was not in the throwing, but in the leading. Anderson was able to make the big plays and McNair was not. Indeed, while there were some nice runs by Willis McGahee, by and large Baltimore simply couldn’t find the one big play against a defense that’s done nothing but give up big plays all season.

As for Edwards and Winslow, if they keep playing like this someone’s going to notice. Edwards had three receptions for 97 yards and one touchdown while Winslow had four receptions for 96 yards. More importantly, Winslow was able to answer the bell despite a partially separated shoulder, proving again that he possesses one of the highest pain thresholds in the league. Cribbs did nothing to hurt his run toward a Pro Bowl berth on special teams, consistently putting the Browns in good field position with his kickoff returns.

One statistic that should not go unnoticed, indeed someone ought to skywrite it across the lakefront, is that the Ravens didn’t get to Anderson. Not once. In fact, Anderson has only been sacked twice in 3+ games. An improved offensive line helps, of course, but the lack of pressure he’s getting is as much attributable to Anderson’s quick release as anything else. Still a work in progress, you can nonetheless see his progress each week. With Charlie Frye it was always hard to tell. Anderson still throws into coverage way too often, his interception to Baltimore safety Ed Reed being the perfect example. He still has a tendency, too, to wildly overthrow receivers. But his decision-making is getting measurably better each week, his nifty shuffle pass to Edwards that ultimately led to the Browns’ first touchdown being the perfect example.

Many are likely to start playing the “what if” game, as in “what if the Browns had beaten Oakland last week?” Well, with the win Sunday that would have given the Browns a 3-1 record and more than a few mentions as the season’s surprise team thus far. It probably would have caused CBS to broadcast more games in high definition. But a win last week would have masked the problems with the defense and may have let the players and coaches falsely believe that changes didn’t need to be made.

Indeed, in many ways last week’s loss set up this weekend’s win. For example, it forced the hand of head coach Romeo Crennel to come to the belated conclusion that simply being as bloated as a luxury liner does not mean that Ted Washington Monument can stop the run. His replacement at nose tackle, Ethan Kelley, wasn’t great but on the other hand he didn’t need to do much to look significantly better than Washington. And the adjustments defensive coordinator Todd Grantham made to overcome the significant shortcomings of defensive back Eric Wright may not have been made until after quarterback Steve McNair singed him for a few more touchdowns.

Where the win against the Bengals was a thrill ride barely survived, this win can rightly give the entire team a healthy dose of confidence, something they’ll need in abundance next week in New England. And whether the Browns win next week or merely lay another egg probably won’t matter much. This was a win, a signature win, which no one can take away.