Buffalo Bills all but end the Cleveland Browns playoff hopes in this week’s 3 Good and 3 Bad
By Chad Porto
The Buffalo Bills all but ended the Cleveland Browns’ playoff hopes.
The Cleveland Browns fell to 3-7 on the season, and all but sealed the fate of their team. The Browns would need to, reasonably, win out to get 10 wins and a realistic shot at making the playoffs. That’s more than likely not going to happen, even with the return of Deshaun Watson from suspension.
The Browns’ defense isn’t good, we know that, but that’s mostly due to the talent the team has provided, or failed to do so. Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski have all but pooched this season with Berry’s inability to add talent that helps the team, and Stefanski mismanaging the team week after week.
He’s great at planning the first series but then he falls apart as a coach. That was the case again on Sunday, with the Browns scoring on their opening drive and looking fantastic, but then failing to score another touchdown until the fourth quarter.
The Browns did kick one field goal that they made, a second that got blocked, and a third that Stefanski basically optioned out of so that he could run his second consecutive quarterback sneak on fourth down.
Considering you know it’s on fourth down, I can officially say that the second try went as well as the first. Those six points from the non-existent field goal and the blocked one would have changed the entire dynamic of the last few minutes.
Maybe even more frustrating was the fact the Browns’ defense looked great in the first quarter. Heck, the Bills only had a three-point advantage heading into the second half, but for whatever reason, the Browns’ defense just completely fell apart.
It’s almost fitting that this is how the Browns season ends, falling to the same toxic tropes that Stefanski and company have embraced all year; an inability to adapt and lean on analytics, and not on time-tested football know-how.
The Browns end up losing 31-23 to the Bills.