BROWNS BOTCH A GREAT CHANCE IN LOSS TO PITTSBURGH
By STEVE KING
I wrote in my last post that I didn’t want to hear any excuses – absolutely none at all — if the Browns lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at Heinz Field.
So they did, and I don’t. It’s that simple.
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That the Browns fell 20-13 to a team with a backup quarterback and missing both its best running back and its best wide receiver, is almost incomprehensible. No, check that, not almost, but rather, it is indeed incomprehensible.
The Browns had a great chance to fortify their own AFC playoff chances and put a deep hurt into those of Pittsburgh.
They had a great chance to sweep the season series from Pittsburgh for the first time in 31 years.
They had a great chance to win in Pittsburgh for the first time in 16 years.
And they had a great chance to get their fourth straight victory.
But they did none of that.
Instead, in falling to 5-7, putting them two games behind Pittsburgh (7-5), they dropped out of the postseason chase with four contesrs left.
This happened because, after looking so impressive and dominating on both sides of the ball in jumping out to a 10-0 second-quarter lead, they did not make any key plays at all the rest of the game. Every time there was a chance to make a big play and wield the game back into their favor, they let it slip through their hands – both literally and figuratively – with fumbles, a game-ending interception, missed tackles, missed blocks, particularly in pass protection as quarterback Baker Mayfield was under siege all day, and missed calculations in offensive play calling by, for whatever reason, giving up on the run way too early, which played a role in Mayfield being sacked and flushed out of the pocket so much. The Steelers knew the Browns weren’t going to run, so they disregarded it on their way toward pocket.
Give the Steelers credit. After falling behind and being in danger of getting blown out early in their own building, they got their act together, especially on offense, including digging the ball out of the shadow of their own zone late in the game to eat some much-needed clock, leaving the Browns with precious little time left – and no timeouts remaining – on that final drive.
But as well as the Steelers played for the last 2½ quarters, this loss was on the Browns more than anything else because, again, this game was oh, so winnable. As such, head coach Freddie Kitchens and his guys have no one to blame but themselves.
Dose 2:
OF TALENT AND A TEAM
The Browns have more talent than Pittsburgh, which is why they won the first meeting between the teams several weeks ago in Cleveland, 21-7.
But the Steelers are a better team, per se, than the Browns, which is why they won the rematch 20-13 last Sunday in Pittsburgh. It is also why the Steelers, at 7-5, are right in the thick of the AFC wild card playoff hunt while the Browns (5-7) are now out of it.
That’s the lesson the Browns have to take from all this going forward as they try to become a real postseason contender.
We all feared this going into the season, that the Browns, with a lot of pieces parts from a lot of different places, all playing together for the first time, would have a hard time gelling. And that is exactly what has happened.
Oh, sure, it has gotten better – the Browns are much more of a team now than they were at the start of the season, and that was clearly evident in their three-game winning streak before it ended at Heinz Field – but they still have quite a ways to go.
That the Steelers have gelled as a team, along with the fact they have been winning for a long time and have a great organizational structure, is why they have been able to recover from so much adversity, a 1-3 start and the loss of their starting quarterback, best running back and best wide receiver.
The Browns did the same thing – had the same outstanding organizational structure and the knowledge of how to win – in 1988 when they lost their starting quarterback five different times yet still finished 10-6 and made the playoffs as a wild card.
Though the playoffs are out of the picture, this year’s Browns need to do all they can to win these final four games so as to build as much of that team aspect as they can heading into next season.
Dose 3:
WHAT WILL FREDDIE’S FATE BE?
Is Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens going to get fired?
Now?
Sometime later, but before the end of the season?
Right after the season is completed, perhaps just as the final gun of that last game is going off?
A couple weeks into the offseason?
Or at all?
Who knows? Who really knows?
Perhaps even the guy who would make the call on that, Browns General Manager John Dorsey, isn’t quite sure yet.
But perhaps he has no plans to fire Kitchens at all, no matter what happens in these last four games.
Again, who knows? If anyone does, then it’s Dorsey, and he’s maintaining a low profile. He’s not saying anything, and probably won’t unless he does indeed pull the plug before the end of the season.
Anyone who says they know, or say they know someone – they have a reliable source – who knows are outright liars. Don’t believe them. It’s all conjecture right now.
Of course, the Browns have underachieved – tremendously so – under Kitchens. That’s the main thing working against him, but there are certainly other factors as well, most notably the mess in that Thursday Night Football game against Pittsburgh. The questionable offensive play-calling and an attack that has, too many times this season, not attacked at all, are dings in his bumper, too.
How that affect Kitchens’ viability is not clear.
What we do know, however, is that Kitchens was Dorsey’s hire. He went out on a limb and got him. He put his personal stamp on Kitchens. As such, in firing him, and doing it so soon, Dorsey would be admitting a huge mistake. Is he willing to do that? Does he have the patience to stick with Kitchens and prove that he was correct in the long run?
It’s all a mess, but what Dorsey has to figure out is if the mess can be cleaned up without letting Kitchens go. If he thinks it can, then he has to stick with his guy. And if not, then he has to cut Kitchens adrift and, by doing so, cut his and the team’s losses.
Ugh.
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