So rookie quarterback Cody Kessler will get a second consecutive start when the Browns play the Washington Redskins on Sunday at FedEx Field.
It was hardly a surprise when head coach Hue Jackson made that announcement at his Monday press conference. After all, what was Jackson going to do, coax Bernie Kosar, Brian Sipe, Bill Nelsen or Frank Ryan out of retirement and start one of them?
OK, we’re being silly, but the Browns’ depleted quarterback situation left Jackson with no alternative but to go with Kessler again.
Kessler did a lot of good things in Sunday’s 30-24 loss in overtime to the Miami Dolphins. He earned another start.
But then again, unless he had been historically bad, Kessler was always going to start against Washington. It was a lock.
Kessler and the Browns are being praised for how well they did under such trying circumstances at Hard Rock Stadum. I’m on that bandwagon as well.
They failed to win the game, but they certainly deserved to win it. They did everything but win it.
The Browns have gotten better each thus far in this first part of the season. After a 29-10 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the opener in which they got ground down, to a 25-20 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in which they blew a 20-0 first-quarter lead and had a chance to win in the final seconds, to Sunday’s game in which they overcame a 24-13 fourth-quarter deficit to tie the game and then missed a 46-yard game-winning field goal on the final play of regulation, they’re on the right path.
We said this season wasn’t really about winning but instead about improvement, and the Browns have kept to that.
Great! Wonderful! Super! Woo-hoo!
Now they’ve got to continue to get better. We’ll give them a pass as long as they keep moving in the right direction – to keep moving forward.
The moment that stops, we’ll start being a lot less forgiving and a lot more critical.
We’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, Hue Jackson, Cody Kessler and everybody else at Browns Headquarters in Berea have to roll up their sleeves and get back to work because they’ve got a lot – a lot – of work to do just to get to be mediocre.
Really.
