Believe It, Baby, We Won

I have one word for this game today:

Unbelievable.

I can't remember being so excited about a Browns win. And what a win it was.

Can you believe after stinking so much all day, Colt McCoy was able to drive the ball 80 yards in the 2-minute drill to get the Browns a 17-16 lead? And that after being shut down all day Mohammed Massaquoi and Greg Little were able to make beautiful, key catches in order to get the ball down the field? And that Massaquoi made that 14 yard catch in the endzone for the touchdown?

Seriously, that was one of the more impressive wins I think the Browns have had since we got back in '99. All this, plus we've started out a season 2-1 for the first time since 2002—when the Butch Davis Browns lost their first game against the Chiefs, then defeated Cincinnati and Tennessee in their next two games.

It might not even be worth it to take a look at the numbers today, cause who cares, we won?! But Colt McCoy finished the day 19/39 with 210 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. That's 48% completions, and a QB rating of 71.5. Not the McCoy we expect in terms of accuracy, but we won the game because he was accurate when we needed it the most. I'll take it.

Ben Watson was the leading receiver with 5 catches for 64 yards, but Mohammed Massaquoi and Greg Little came up huge in that 2-minute drill, with Little catching 3 passes for 24 yards, and Massaquoi catching 2 for 26, including the game-winning touchdown. If we can get execution like that earlier in the game from those receivers, we'll be in really good business.

The running game was actually pretty decent, despite the loss of Peyton Hillis today. Montario Hardesty did a very nice job filling in, even though he didn't get to 100 yards. He did have 67 yards on 14 carries, good for a 4.8 average. I'll always take that. And now that we've seen Hardesty can produce, I think we'll start to see more of Hillis & Hardesty in the same backfield. If not next week, then for sure after the bye week.

I don't know how he's done it, but Dick Jauron has done a fantastic job early with converting the Browns 3-4 defense into a 4-3. I just remember so many growing pains when we initially switched to the 3-4 under Romeo Crenel that it's really astonishing to me how well the defense has played—especially the defensive line. As a unit, the defense had 5 sacks, 6 tackles for loss, and 8 QB hits. Those are exceptional numbers, and I think we've really got to take our hats off to Jauron for that.

Since I love defense so much, I've just got to highlight the dominance of our defensive line. I'm telling you, Athyba Rubin and Phil Taylor are just a joy to watch stuff the middle. They combined today for 16 total tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss and 2 QB hits. In this 4-3 defense, you want those two guys along with the middle linebacker to have the most tackles, and D'Qwell Jackson led the team with 11 tackles. That's 27 total tackles between those three, the middle core of what could turn out to be fairly dominating defense for the next few years. I'm lovin' it.

Obviously, this is a great end to the weekend and a great start to the week. A comeback win is exactly what this team and city needed to really get behind the Browns again.

And as an aside, I think it's wonderful for football that the Bills and Lions are 3-0, and the Browns are 2-1. How about them apples?!


Enjoy this feeling, and I'll see you next week!
~MAS

Why Yes, That is a Sigh of Relief

It's no secret that I was super nervous for today's game. The prediction in the Start Me Up really says all you need to know. But oh is it nice to be pleasantly surprised with this 27-19 victory over the Colts.

Yes, the Colts are a shell of themselves without Peyton Manning, but in the NFL a win is a win, you can't turn up your nose at it. And besides, the Browns played pretty darn well today once we got out of the mess that was the first quarter.

Offensively, the Browns made the West Coast offense look exactly like it's supposed to. Colt McCoy was  20/32 for 211 yards and a touchdown. That's a 69% completion rate and a 97.3 rating. Hopefully Colt can keep that up, because we haven't seen consistent production like that for a very long time. Mohammed Massaquoi was today's leading receiver with 3 catches for 45 yards, while Josh Cribbs and Greg Little also had nice games with 3 catches for 41 yards, and 4 catches for 38 yards, respectively. Evan Moore made the touchdown catch—a 16 yarder. I'd still like to see a little bit better production out of the wide outs, but when we score 27 points and win it's a little hard to complain.

One thing I'm still not too happy about is the running game. I'm not sure what it's going to take to get these guys going up front, but 94 yards on 27 carries is just not good enough for Hillis. Don't get me wrong, he had some big runs, especially late in the game, but we've got to get him averaging more than 3.5 yards a carry. He's a better back than that, bur tight now the offensive line is not doing him justice.

The other thing I didn't like today was the fumbles. Four times the Browns put the ball on the ground today, four times. I don't care that we only lost one, we've got to do a much better job of securing the football. Those bounces won't go our way when we're playing better teams.

Defensively, I just think we did a really great job. There were a few times when the Colts got down in the red zone, and the Browns defense never seemed to waver until "garbage time" at the end of the game. We did allow 109 yards on the ground, but thats's really not so bad considering what we allowed against Cedric Benson last week. Kerry Collins was just 19/38 for 191 yards, 1 TD (in garbage time) and 1 INT.

Individually, the defensive line had a fantastic day. Rookie Jabaal Sheard showed a whole lot of progress from last week, with 5 tackles—one for loss—a sack, and a QB hit. As I said in the Halftime Blurb, Phil Taylor and Athyba Rubin also had great games with five and four tackles, respectively. There was a drive when the Browns just gave up run after run after run, but for the most part, I think this new look defensive front has made some major improvements from last year.

Also, we have got to find ways to keep the ball in Josh Cribbs' hands. I mean, this guy must have really been hurt last year, because he didn't look anything like he has so far this year. He is a game changer no matter where he is on the field, and it's a pleasure to watch him.

So what's the bottom line? The Browns got a win. We won't be 0-16. And we're tied for 1st place in our division! (Never mind that the rest of the division has a 1-1 record too.)

Enjoy this one Browns fans. It's going to be a Happy Monday!

See you next week,
~MAS