The Browns Are Stuck
The Browns don't usually win games like their last two. So why doesn't it feel great?
For two weeks in a row, the Browns have won a football game that they almost certainly should have lost. In Week 6, San Francisco 49ers kicker Jake Moody missed a game-winning field goal attempt as time expired in an homage to Cade York. In Week 7, the referees looked upon the Browns with favor, aiding what would turn out to be the game-winning drive with a couple questionable pieces of laundry.
These instances of good fortune do not happen to the Cleveland Football Browns. What usually happens goes something along the lines of this: the Browns line up to kick a game-winning field goal, it gets blocked, and the opposing team somehow scoops it up and returns it for a touchdown as the clock expires.
I do not have the data on how many times something apocalyptic has happened to the Browns since I began watching them in 1999, but I can name many of them off the top of my head. Playing prevent defense for a whole half in a playoff game. The refs giving a fumble that the Browns clearly recovered back to the fumbling team. Week 2 against the Jets last season. I could go on, but I will not, in fear of the depression that will take hold of me and not let ago until it is summer again.
I say all of that to say this: The football gods rarely smile upon the Browns, which is why what’s happened over the last fortnight or so feels so jarring. The Browns sit at 4-2, and the zoomed out view looks pretty delightful! A defensive coordinator switch has that unit putting up historic numbers (well, they were, until Gardner Minshew of all people briefly broke their well-oiled machine). Kevin Stefanski’s offense is surviving, albeit barely, while getting bottom five quarterback play on a weekly basis. The AFC is wide open, and the Browns upcoming schedule, outside of their remaining division games, is as soft as a Sleep Number. A playoff appearance is not only feasible, but expected.
But while all these I Can’t Believe They Won That Game! things are happening, while the Browns claim victory on Sundays they shouldn’t, another Thing is happening. And this Thing ties into that Thing, and it feels like the Browns currently co-exist in multiple universes.
Because while the Browns keep bucking a decades-long trend, the Deshaun Watson saga continues. Watson’s rotator cuff has proved fickle. An injury that (of course!) happened during far and away his best performance as a Brown has led to weeks of confusion, of miscommunication, of messaging disasters, and no playing time besides a depressing five pass attempts against the Colts. Watson will miss his fourth straight game (I’m counting the Colts game as a miss because he never really existed in that game at all) after being ruled out against the Seahawks this weekend, and there’s no way of knowing how long it will take his throwing shoulder to fully heal. And that is unnerving, because the unfortunate thing about all these good things currently happening to the Browns is that they still need Watson.
They need Watson because the only reason they’ve been in position to be gifted a couple football miracles is the quarterback play of PJ Walker has been so abysmal it’s rendered the offense inoperable. With average quarterback play, the Browns probably beat the 49ers by a touchdown or two. With average quarterback play, the Browns maybe score 50 points against the Colts. What feels so good in the moment shouldn’t even been necessary.
The Browns didn’t just tie themselves to Watson financially. Their fate is intertwined with his. And right now, that rope is rapidly fraying.