Browns manage to drop 45-42 contest to Raiders

By STEVE KING

The Browns came close.

Again.

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For the third time in their four games this season, the Browns came close, but in the end, they came up empty – again – and lost 45-42 in overtime to the host Oakland Raiders.

The Browns seemingly had the game under control several times in the second half and couldn’t hold on. They couldn’t finish the deal, and that was because of their offense. The Browns were too careless with the ball and turned it over, they had too many three-and-outs, putting their defense right back onto the field and causing it to get tired on a hot, humid early fall day on the West Coast, and when they needed to make a play – the right play at the right time – they couldn’t do it.

Try as they might, they just couldn’t do it.

This isn’t high school or even college football, where there are bad times ready to surrender themselves as sacrificial lambs to the good teams.

This is pro football – the NFL, the king of pro football – and all the teams are good to a great extent. Sure, record-wise, there was a lot of room last season between the Browns, who went 0-16, and the Philadelphia Eagles, who won the Super Bowl, and also the New England Patriots, whom the Eagles stunned to do it. But in just about every other aspect, the Browns were pretty close – or at least somewhat close, a lot closer than the records would seem to indicate — to both clubs.

It’s just that the good teams – especially the Eagles and Pats last year – make the plays – the big plays, the important plays – when they need to make.

The Browns manage to let one get away – oh, man, did they let one get away – on Sunday. Until this changes, their situation isn’t going to change a great deal.

Yes, they will have games likes the one two Thursday nights ago when they came through in the clutch to win, but they have to do it consistently if they ever want to have a chance to get where they want to go.