Browns fail to deliver with season on the line

The Browns lost to the Raiders 16-14 with the season on the line.

The NFL found a way to wound the Browns, but the team lost this game to the Raiders all on their own. Despite mounting a comeback late in the game behind Nick Chubb’s rushing touchdown and a passing touchdown to Harrison Bryant, the Browns could not muster anything in the final few minutes that could seal the game.

A perfect storm of events allowed the Raiders to secure enough time, and go enough yards to be able to kick a go-ahead field goal as time expired, sending the Browns to the bottom of the AFC North.

Part of the issue was the team struggling in the first half to move the ball behind a revamped offensive line was anything but effective in the rushing game. Dropped passes by Donovan Peoples-Jones and the same conservative offense that Kevin Stefanski has been bemoaned for using cost the team in the long run.

There are no moral victories at this point for the Browns

There can be no moral victories at this point during the season. Maybe when the year is over we can look back and go “yeah, all things considered, that was a hell of a game for the Browns”. Right now, at this moment, however, we can’t. This team had everything they needed to win and that was evident with the late-game lead.

They pooched the game away. The Brownies played conservatively on both sides of the ball in the last few series and it did them in. Sure an early game field goal would’ve given the Browns a four-point lead at the end of the game, but if the play-calling had been better, the team wouldn’t have had to settle for a field goal at all.

While Cleveland is far from done this year with three games to play, they can’t afford to lose another game and will need help in other games to get to where they need to be at the season’s end.