WINNING IS ALL THAT MATTERS IN THE END
By STEVE KING
Yes, the Browns defeated the visiting Baltimore Ravens 12-9 in overtime on Sunday on Greg Joseph’s 37-yard field goal to improve to 2-2-1.
But there were a lot of negatives, too, which water down the victory, right?
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Whoa! Wait a minute! While those negatives certainly have to be addressed before next Sunday’s visit by the Los Angeles Chargers at FirstEnergy Stadium, or else they won’t continue to win, those problems and issues don’t really matter in the big picture because the Browns won.
Winning trumps everything – absolutely, positively everything. Nothing else counts. Just as Herm Edwards always likes to say, “You play to win the game.” You really do. You don’t play for any other reason.
The Browns still have a lot – a whole lot — of work to do on special teams after missing an extra point and committing all kinds of penalties against the Ravens. But all that doesn’t matter because they won.
The Browns didn’t move the ball that well, especially for just about all of the second half. This is an offensive league. When you can’t move the ball on offense and score points – when you can’t keep up with the opposition and all of their high-powered attacks – then you can’t win. You really have no chance to win. But it doesn’t matter because the Browns won.
The Browns had a lot of leakage on their offensive line in pass protection. Baker Mayfield was under duress for way too much of the time. He’s the franchise quarterback. He has to stay clean. He has to stay upright. If he gets hit enough, then he’ll eventually get hurt. He just will. It’s not rocket science. History tells us so. But it doesn’t matter because the Browns won.
And finally, the Browns made an egregious play call – they broke every rule of offense, every rule of football common sense — when they ran a reverse deep in their own territory late in the game. It ended up losing 11 yards and putting the Browns into a big hole. What were they thinking? What in the world were they thinking? Are you kidding me? But it doesn’t matter – none of it matters, really – because the Browns won. Indeed, when you win, all the bad stuff goes away.
Browns vs Ravens week 5 highlights:
