It was a great story that ended in a horrible way, and I blame the Browns defense for that.

All year long, the offense has been banged up, and those injuries, especially along the line, and specifically at tackle, caught up to them in Saturday’s 45–14 loss to the host Houston Texans in the wild-card round of the AFC playoffs.

Eventually, those injuries were going to throttle the offense. Everybody knew it, and it was just a matter of time. I am fine with that, because the offense squeezed everything out of itself that it could.

But for the Browns to have a chance to win the game on Saturday, the defense, which didn’t have many injuries at all, needed to show up, and show up big. That defense didn’t show up at all. Those guys looked stunned at some of the plays the Texans ran, and they were constantly out of position and acting not as the aggressor, but as someone reacting to everything the Texans did.

Shame on that defense for not being a complement to the offense. There is absolutely no excuse for it, none at alk.

And this defense has been bad on the road all season, and in the biggest game of the season, coordinator Jim Schwartz couldn’t fix it.

Is Houston a good team? Yes, it is. But it is not as good as the Browns defense made it look on Saturday.

That was absolutely inexcusable. I don’t know what they need to do on defense so that they can play as well on the road as they do at home next year, but they had better darn well figure it out in the offseason.

Steve King