In the end, the joke is all on the Ravens
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Early in the Browns’ game on Sunday at Huntington Bank Field, Baltimore head coach Jesse Minter and injured starting quarterback Lamar Jackson could be seen on the telecast standing on the sideline and joyfully yukking it up with one another.
And why not? After all, the running holes for running back Derrick Henry on the first possesion of the day were as wide as Minter’s and Jackson’s smiles. The Ravens had chunk play after chunk play as they rolled through the Cleveland defense like a hot knife through butter on their way to an easy touchdown culminating from a nearly seven-minute drive.
About 3-1/2 minutes later, the Ravens kicked a field goal to make it 10-0. And there were still over four minutes left in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, the Browns were doing absolutely nothing offensively. It looked like the varsity against the freshmen.
So, then, at this rate, what would the final score be, 40-0?
Just before 4 o’clock, after Andre Szmyt drilled a second-chance 37-yard field goal into the Dawg Pound with no time left to give the Browns a 13-10 win that ties them with on on the Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers for first place in the AFC North with a 4-2 record, Jackson’s reaction was shown on the telecast. His smile and yukking long gone, being replaced by the frown of a youngster who had just been sent to bed without dinner, he began his long trudge of a walk toward the Baltimore locker room.
But you would think that playing on a team whose annual overachieving over the last decade has been as much of a guarantee as the buzzards returning to Hinckley each March, Jackson would be used to this comedic, slapstick, Three Stooges-like ending by now. Apparently not.
Kind of like the pro football version of the movie, “Groundhog Day.”
Anyway, more and more and more, especially on this day, the Browns are showing that they’ve completely changed their persona. They are no joke.
You can’t say the same for the Ravens, though, and with that, the rest of the division — and of the NFL as well — is getting a big belly laugh out of it.
Steve King
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