NO, IT WAS NOT A 2007 LOSS TO THE CARDINALS THAT DID IT
By STEVE KING
I don’t know if it was done because of ignorance or if was a case of revisionist history, but whatever it was, what was said at a Browns press availability the other day was wrong – just plain wrong.
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Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens was asked about a 2007 game between Cleveland and the Arizona Cardinals. The host Cardinals, with whom Kitchens was working as an assistant coach at the time, won 27-21 on Dec. 2. It was couched by the media person as the game that the cost the Browns a spot in the playoffs.
Huh?
What?
Whoa! Wait a minute, here.
That is incorrect, totally and completely incorrect. It’s a mistake to say that. It is not true.
While that upset loss was a real blow, it certainly did not cost the Browns a place in the postseason.
Let me be crystal clear about this: What kept the Browns out of the playoffs was a 19-14 loss to the host – and woeful — Cincinnati Bengals in the next-to-last game of the season.
The Browns, in having won two in a row and four of their previous five games, went into the day with a 9-5 record. All they had to do was defeat the struggling Bengals and they clinched a playoff spot. It was that simple. It was no more complicated than that.
But they somehow lost by five points, and even though they defeated the visiting San Francisco 49ers 20-7 the following week in the finale, they missed out on the postseason despite having finished a healthy 10-6. They lost the AFC North title on tie-breakers to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and they lost the final conference wild-card spot to the Tennessee Titans on tie-breakers.
It is the closest – by far – that the Browns have gotten to the postseason since 2002 when they qualified as a wild-card.
How anyone would think it happened because of a loss to the Cardinals, who host the Browns on Sunday, is as far from the truth as it can be. That it was uttered as fact is laughable.
