They — the wins and losses in the NFL, that is — all count as one in the standings.

There are no favorites. Each are treated with the same affection — the wins — and the same disdain — the losses. For the rivals of these teams, of course, the reception is just the opposite.

Just as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so is one man’s pain another man’s pleasure when it comes to the outcome of these games.

But big, important, emotionally-infusing wins — and, for that matter, the big, important, emotionally-draining losses — carry much more cachet, they wield much more power — in what they can, and usually do, for, and to, a team. They can count for two or three or even more, both good and bad.

The Browns had one of those — the good ones, the real good ones, to be sure — on Sunday with the 33-31 final-play victory over the Ravens, in Baltimore, no less. It is a team against which the Browns have really struggled for a long time, and particularly there. It has been a house of horrors.

But Browns fans don’t need to hear that, for they already know it all too well. They were watching this start to play out when Kevin Stefanski was still playing Ivy League football and long before Kareem Hunt was performing for Willoughby South High School Rebels and the Toledo Rockets.

What happened Sunday, when the Browns took a game that began as if the NFL would consider enforcing a mercy rule and a running clock like that which is used in Ohio high school football and basketball for mismatches, and, through a Chesapeake Bay-sized heaping dose of grit, will and determination, and turned it into a win that no one expected them to get against a club that is considered possibly the best in the AFC. And in the process, it validated Cleveland as a true contender in the conference and gave the club a lift as if seated in a rocket ship. It was truly transformational. It was not just a game-changer or a season-changer but also a franchise-changer.

Truly. Fully so.

Now they must take this shot of adrenaline and build.

Steve King