The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Future looks bright despite playoff loss
For a while after the Browns were eliminated from the playoffs by the Chiefs, 22-17, on Jan. 17 in a divisional playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium, everything they accomplished this season didn’t matter.
It was right there for them at the end to finish the mission after fighting back from being down, 19-3, at halftime. But Chiefs backup quarterback Chad Henne, playing because Patrick Mahomes was knocked out with a concussion, scrambled for 13 yards to the Chiefs’ 48 on third-and-14. Then, instead of trying to draw the Browns offsides on fourth-and-1 with 1:14 remaining, Henne took the snap with four seconds left on the play-clock and completed a 5-yard pass to Tyreek Hill for a first down to ice the game.
The Browns were out of timeouts, out of comebacks and out of miracles.
“... We’re setting a new standard here. Everybody is saying in the locker room and we’ll continue to tell guys that we’re going to be back.” — Baker Mayfield
This is a team that improved from 6-10 last season to finish 11-5 and win a playoff game for the first time in 26 years. They fought through injuries and COVID-19 and when the weekend began were one of eight teams playing. But it’s over. They won’t play another meaningful game until Sept. 12.
“I think I’ll reflect later,” Coach Kevin Stefanski said somberly on Zoom after the game. “Right now it stings when you don’t get the job done that you came to get done.”
Momentum was swinging toward the Browns with the score 16-3 late in the second quarter. Then
Rashard Higgins fumbled the ball through the end zone with 1:25 before halftime after a 25-yard catch and run to the Kansas City 1, resulting in a touchback.
The Chiefs turned the takeaway into a field goal.
“Our rule there is not to reach the ball out when it’s first-and-goal, and he knows that,”Stefanski said “Appreciate his effort. He battled like he always does, but we have to fight that urge because it’s such a big loss if it does end up being a touchback.”
The Browns got the ball first to start the second half. Three plays into the third quarter, Baker Mayfield threw just his second interception in the last 11 games.
The sting might have been felt less by the players and coaches had the Browns been blown out. But failing at the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third, plus failing to make the critical stops on defense in the final two minutes, are the mistakes playoff neophytes make.
The Browns accomplished much this season and have something to build on. They already are far ahead of where they normally are in mid-January. They have their general manager, their head coach and they have their quarterback.
A team never is the same from one season to the next. Seventeen players on the current roster will be unrestricted free agents in March without new contracts before then. The quiet plane flight back to Cleveland was the last time some of those players who fought so hard for each other will be together.
As Mayfield said so aptly after the game:
“It sucks because so many people have sacrificed so much during this process in this very strange season and overcame adversity. So many people have stepped up — families of players and families of staff — and everybody sacrificed so much for us to be able to do this. It’s just unfortunate for us to come up short. It sucks because we believed in it.
“But trying to find the positive out of it, we’re setting a new standard here. Everybody is saying in the locker room and we’ll continue to tell guys that we’re going to be back. It sucks when you come up short. But you get that taste of it and realize you learned lessons. For now, it’s definitely going to sting.”
It stings, but the future looks bright for the Browns, and that is something we haven’t been able to say with realistic optimism in a long, long time.