There are many ways to look at this season for the Cleveland Browns.
It’s hard not to be disappointed with the way the season ended on Saturday in Houston. The Cinderella story was always likely to come to an end. Expecting the Browns to go on a Super Bowl run was a fool’s errand, even if so many of us wanted to believe it.
On one hand, the Browns playing on Wild Card Weekend after as many things went wrong for them this season was an accomplishment. The way this team pulled together, injury after injury, to find its way to 11 regular season wins and alive for the top seed in the AFC until the penultimate week of the season.
Five different quarterbacks served as the starter for the team at some point during the year. Four of them — Deshaun Watson, P.J. Walker, Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Joe Flacco — authored a game-winning drive at some point. The defense was one of the league’s best, especially when they played at home. Defensive end Myles Garrett will likely be named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year and head coach Kevin Stefanski will likely earn his second NFL Coach of the Year honor for the work he did.
Those are all things to be proud of. This was a season for Browns fans to remember and be proud of. These Browns weren’t the same old Browns. The Browns teams of the past would have folded with half the adversity this one faced. This one didn’t, and that matters when telling the story of this team.
But Saturday evening in Houston was an embarrassment.
The defense that allowed the fewest yards per game in the regular season was roasted by a rookie quarterback in Houston’s C.J. Stroud. In the first half alone, Stroud threw for 236 yards against the Browns. For the year, the Browns allowed just 164 yards per game through the air. Stroud was able to find open receiver after open receiver. Houston routinely picked on defensive backs Greg Newsome II and Ronnie Hickman.
All year, it was easy to find bright spots on this Browns defense. Outside of the play of linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, there weren’t any. Garrett was largely ineffective, the secondary, aside from Denzel Ward, couldn’t do anything to slow down Houston’s passing attack. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz had one of the best seasons of any assistant coach in football. Saturday, Houston offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik coached circles around him.
On offense, the Flacco magic ran out. Even in his best moments with the Browns during this miracle stretch, he still turned the ball over at a frequency too high to be successful long term. That appeared on Saturday with two back-breaking interceptions returned for touchdowns in the second half. There was no coming back for the Browns after those on successive possessions. He led the Browns to wins down the stretch, but Saturday he helped lead them to a defeat.
It was a miserable day for the Browns and for Browns fans. The Browns had their worst day of the season at the worst possible time.
That doesn’t erase the good feelings that this year evoked in Browns fans, particularly down the stretch of the season. When thinking back to this year, the good times should be the ones that are remembered, even if looking past this embarrassment is a tough thing to do. These moments, particularly wins over the Steelers, Ravens, Texans, Jaguars and Jets were some of the best the Browns have had since 1999. It felt like there was magic around this team, until there wasn’t.
In the future, a feel good story that has this type of ending won’t be enough. If not for the accentuating circumstances, it wouldn’t be enough this year. But it was, even if the ending leaves a sour taste.
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