Watch: Gary Barnidge’s amazing leg catch for a touchdown
October 11, 2015
Rooting in the MLB Playoffs and changes at Grantland: While We’re Waiting…
October 12, 2015It took overtime, but who cares! The Browns outlasted the Baltimore Ravens, 33-30, to win their second game of the season. Browns quarterback Josh McCown was excellent on the day, throwing for 457 yards and two touchdowns in the victory. It was an exciting game and huge win for a team that has struggled versus its AFC North foes.
In the first half, the Browns had a field goal party on offense, while the defense was up and down. The first quarter was a disaster for the Browns defense. The unit allowed two touchdown drives of 61 and 73 yards. They could not get a stop early in the game. But the D stepped its game up in the second quarter, shutting out the Ravens for the rest of the half. The Browns trailed 14-9 at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Browns and Ravens traded touchdowns. The Browns defense gave up a 44-yard run to Ravens running back Javorius Allen that helped get Baltimore into position to score another touchdown. But the Browns answered with a long, drawn out touchdown drive of 75 yards. In over six minutes, the Browns drove 75 yards, capped off by a 10-yard scramble by Josh McCown for the team’s first touchdown of the game. At the end of the third quarter, the Browns trailed, 21-16.
The fourth quarter saw some crazy action. The Browns made the first big play of the quarter when tight end Gary Barnidge made a touchdown catch with his legs, giving the lead to the Browns for the moment. After each team punted on their next series, the Ravens put together a dominant drive on the ground. Ravens running back Justin Forsett had runs of 22, 9, and 7 yards, finishing the drive with a one-yard touchdown run. The Ravens led 27-22 with six minutes to go.
But the Browns answered the Ravens touchdown with a great drive conducted by Josh McCown. McCown drove the offense 80 yards in just under three minutes. On the drive, running back Isaiah Crowell had two big plays. He had an 18-yard run up the middle and a drive-capping 22-yard touchdown reception; he broke multiple tackles on his way to the end zone. It was a clutch drive for Josh McCown and the Browns offense.
All the Browns needed was a defensive stop. Did they get it from their struggling defense? Well, no. The Browns defense had a chance at getting off the field after just three downs, but a questionable personal foul call on a late hit by corner K’Waun Williams kept Baltimore’s offense on the field. The Ravens drove down the field quickly, with a 32-yard reception by Forsett doing much of the damage. The Browns defense held strong in the red zone, forcing the Ravens to kick the tying field goal. The Browns tried to drive down to win the game, but ran out of time, forcing overtime.1
The Browns were not discouraged going into the overtime. The Browns defense forced the Ravens to go three-and-out, giving the Browns offense great field position. On the drive, Josh McCown and the Browns offense had some clutch third down conversions that moved them all the way to a position for a game-winning 32-yard field goal attempt by kicker Travis Coons. Coons drilled the kick, giving the Browns their second win of the season and first over an AFC North opponent!
The game ball definitely goes to Josh McCown. He was incredible versus the Ravens, leading the Browns offense to come-from-behind win. His 457 yards are the second most passing yards in a game by a Browns quarterback, just behind Bernie Kosar’s 489 yards in 1987. He also extended his streak of throwing for more than 300 passing yards in a game to three straight, which is a Browns quarterback record. McCown showed composure through the constant pass rush of the Ravens. Even with all the pressure on the day, he did not make a mistake. What a day for Josh McCown and the Cleveland Browns.
The Browns are 2-3 on the season as they go back home next week to face the Denver Broncos.
- The Browns used only one timeout on the Ravens’ game-tying possession, and finished regulation with two timeouts unused. [↩]
63 Comments
Bowe still being rostered in the classic failure to ignore a sunk cost, which has been super helpful in teaching my class, but not at all helpful for the Browns.
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So the same thing I do after every Browns game, but with happiness? Gonna take some getting used to.
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Well certainly all’s well that ends well, but it’s still the wrong move. The likelihood that he hits a home run is much lower than the actual outcome, which is to waste 10 seconds and still throw it out of bounds. I’m not trying to beat up on the guy, I’m just saying this is an area where his performance wasn’t good. Fortunately he was very good in other areas.
Pettine had to save one timeout for a potential field goal, so once he uses the other one they can no longer threaten the middle of the field. Given how much time was left, I think it was a reasonable decision to save it for a couple more plays. The clock stopped after the incompletions, so almost all of that time was used up between the whistles. I’m sure you can look back in hindsight and find a few seconds that could have been saved by using a timeout, but at the moment I think you have to assume you stand a better chance of moving the ball when you have the whole field available, and that you can use up four downs in 30 seconds if you don’t run the ball.
Just impressive? If that had been Manziel yesterday all ya’ll would be giving him the key to the city!
The time management problem was when we were still on defense. On the Ravens final drive, it was malpractice for Pettine not to use a TO on first down. They ran the entire playclock and time gameclock went from something like 1:20 to :40.
I’m glad it didn’t have an effect, but that was a much bigger deal than the 7 or so seconds that McCown wasted and the announcers lost their minds about on the next to last play of regulation.
If you had told me that McCown would have a 102 QB rating and 73 QBR after 5 games, I would have laughed in your face. Now if only the Browns can get the D corrected, we may have something here. I am pleasantly shocked by how well the owwfense (as Rich Gannon calls it) has played.
Honestly I’d have to go back and look at that, as I don’t remember the whole sequence. I still think that saving the 2nd TO for that last drive so they could threaten the middle of the field is reasonable, especially since that’s where they had been making hay. If they can’t move the ball, none of it matters anyway. I don’t know if it happened or not, but I certainly think he should have been yelling at Flip something to the effect of, “No Timeout. Go, Go, Go!” who should have been saying the same to McCown. It seemed like the offense didn’t know they needed to be in full hurry-up.
Browns offensive adjustments… who’da thunk.
To some extent yes. But you still need the personal for certain situations. Not having a jump ball receiver leaves one less thing for the defense to worry about. We can’t run it on so that’s 2. It limits what you can use to fool the defense. But honestly as good as our offense played yesterday there was no reason for the Ravens to even be in this game. Our defense needs to have someone take a serious look at what the issues are. I personally think it starts with our linebackers. The fact that long passes seem to be completed way to often and edge runs are killing us leads me to them. Maybe I’m wrong
wait – are we really calling him “McBrown”? when did this start? has this been going on all year and i just missed it?
-1 for “high-point”.