Isn’t it amazing how the focus, dynamics and perspective of a football team can change in dramatic fashion?
Take the Browns, for instance. They went into this season with the offense in the limelight and the defense not being in any light anywhere on stage. The offense was so prolific that it was going to carry the entire team on its back. The defense just needed to stay the heck out of the way and not screw things up so badly that the offense would be unable to overcome it. And the book on the Browns remained that way well into the year.
Slowly but surely, though, and stunningly so, it’s the defense that has been carrying the Browns lately, including in Sunday’s ultra-important and ultra-dramatic 24–22 win over the Baltimore Ravens to keep themselves in the playoff hunt.
Now, is thus defense dominating? No, but no defense really is anymore in the NFL, where offense rules. Every rule change in the last 40-plus years has taken something away from the defense and given it to the offense, so why shouldn’t offense have the upper hand — by a long shot? You can’t really hope to stop offenses much now. You can hope only to slow them down a bit, as the Browns defense did with a thud on Baltimore’s last drive when end Jadeveon Clowney recorded a big first-down sack to put the Ravens into a deep hole and then cornerback Denzel Ward from Nordonia High School and Ohio State finished them off with a jarring hit on the receiver on a fourth-down pass to keep him well short of getting a first down.
Game. Set. Match.
Who would have thunk this months ago? But you had better think about it now because as the offense continues to sputter for good portions of games, it may well be the play of the defense that determines if the Browns make the postseason or not.
By Steve King
