NITPICKING BROWNS’ VICTORIES

By STEVE KING

You know that things are getting better – a whole lot better, really – for the Browns when you feel the need sometimes to offer constructive criticism on their victories.

A year ago, during that nightmarish 0-16 finish, any type of win – no matter how it came – would have been welcomed like the return home of the prodigal son.

But this year, while we still prepare the fatted calf when they win, we know the Browns can do better – more importantly, must do better – if they ever want to go to where they want to go.

As such, then, let’s look at the two victories this season over the Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, that’s right, two victories. Even though the Browns hadn’t swept the AFC North rival Bengals since 2002 – and, heading into this season, hadn’t even beaten them at all in seven straight meetings dating back to 2014 – they still exhibited a fatal flaw in both of the wins.

That is, they didn’t display a killer instinct. When they got ahead by lopsided scores – 28-0 late in the second quarter back on Nov. 25 in Cincinnati, and 23-0 late in the third quarter last Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium – they didn’t finish the job. The Browns took their foot off the gas pedal.

In short – and I hate to mention this less than a week after the day when we were all hearing about peace on earth, good will toward men – they didn’t step on the Bengals’ throats. They didn’t take the life out of them.

When a team at any level in any sport, including football, and especially at the pro level, gets ahead by any margin, and particularly a big one, it needs to keep playing until not just the whistle, but the final whistle. If a team doesn’t do that, then it can – and a lot of times, does – pay for it, on occasion dearly so.

Emotion and adrenaline are funny things. It’s not like they come out of a spigot that can be turned off and on at our discretion. No, once it is turned off – is allowed to run dry – it can’t be turned back on in that game. It’s gone.

So when the Browns quit punching the Bengals in the mouth and as such stopped building on their already sizeable leads, they allowed Cincinnati a chance to gather itself. And once the Bengals sensed that, and then did that, they put on furious comebacks. The Browns ended up winning the first game just 35-20 and the second one only 26-18.

Too close for comfort, two times.

But the Browns can be excused for committing those sins. After all, they’re a young team for which winning is still a strange, new thing.

They’ll eventually get it.

And if they don’t, it will one day get them – possibly in one of those season-defining games.

That would be a terrible shame.