Browns-Bills: Cleveland Browns Win Ugly, but a Win Is a Win

It was a tense and exciting day in Buffalo, the site of the Braylon Edwards Memorial game.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have the energy to look up just how many passes were dropped in the Indians' 6-3 exhibition victory over the Bisons...wait, that was a regular season NFL football game?

It just wasn’t a pretty game. Derek Anderson was 2-for-the-century in pass attempts for a whopping 23 yards. I’m pretty sure his passer rating of 15.1 on Sunday does not register on most hospital EKG machines.

While Braylon Edwards now plays for another team, his penchant for dropping passes was emulated by just about every player wearing a Browns jersey who was the target of a pass. This kind of play is just not acceptable.

If a thrown pass hits an NFL receiver in the hands, they should catch the ball at this level. No excuses. A receiver has one job on the field, so failing to perform that one task is just one more reason why the Browns continue to reside at the bottom of the division. 

Yet the Browns won, and in the NFL, a win is a win is a win. So I’ll take it.

One positive to take out of this game was the new running back tandem of Jamal Lewis and Jerome Harrison. That duo was promised to the fans during training camp, but injuries had kept it from becoming a reality until Sunday.

Lewis had his first 100-yard game since 2007, and the strength of the two running backs took the sting out of the zombirific passing game.

Granted, the Bills' defensive line isn’t ranked high in the NFL, plus injuries to Kawika Mitchell and Marcus Buggs didn’t help matters any for the Bills, but Lewis pounded through that line and got the gains.

Despite the success of the running game, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll continues to prove he’s in over his head. The Browns still tend to run the same three running plays that go nowhere, and they try to run those plays at least once a series.

In a game where the Wildcat formation probably would’ve been successful, it remained absent. So far, the Wildcat was attempted twice on the two-yard line in the first game of the season.

That’s it.

Yet the Browns keep trying all these inside handoffs and fake reverses to try and fool defenses, and our running backs end up losing two or three yards every time these plays are tried because the defense can see what’s coming as soon as the Browns line up.

Another positive to take out of the game is our offensive line, especially the left side. Joe Thomas is having another Pro Bowl caliber year. Nobody is really getting past him. In addition, Alex Mack is coming along nicely.

If this line can stay healthy, another year of building could turn the Browns' offensive line into something to be feared.

On the defensive side, the guys made sure defensive coordinator Rob Ryan didn’t eat his words about Trent Edwards and gave Terrell Owens another push toward Meltdown Island.

Edwards was constantly under pressure and the Bills couldn’t get much going on their running game. Marshawn Lynch was held to 69 yards on 17 touches.

The Bills did outgain the Browns 288-193, but that mostly was by actually completing passes, something the Browns were not able to accomplish.

The Bills only were 6-for-17 on third downs and 0-for-2 on fourth down. So while they were able to gain yards on first and second down, the Browns' defense was able to keep the game under control.

Before the defense really starts patting themselves on the back, though, there were the gazillion false start penalties by the Bills. To call that bad football is an insult to bad football.

Back to the positive, special teams carried the day as the Browns won the battle of field position. Punter Dave Zastudil continually pinned the Bills deep in their own territory, meaning a drive of 30-40 yards still kept the Bills out of field goal range.

The repeated comment throughout the game seemed to be, “The Browns are finally playing a team just as bad as they are.”

This was further proved by Roscoe Parrish’s attempt at making something happen. Unfortunately for Parrish, that “something” was a fumble recovery for the Browns. The end result of that fumble was Billy Cundiff’s game-winning field goal.

At the end of the day, the reaction heard from a lot of Browns fans was “Yeah! We won a game! Can we talk about something else now?”

We could talk about the Steelers, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s time to bask in the glow of a victory. That’s what the scoreboard says, so that’s what it was.