Browns’ ugly win over Steelers highlights a season-long missed opportunity — Jimmy Watkins

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Fans flexed their wrists crossed Baltimore successful support of Browns backmost Shedeur Sanders connected Sunday. Ravens tight extremity Charlie Kolar posted a motivational connection for Browns separator rusher Myles Garrett connected nan internet.

Nobody — not moreover nan location fans, who are divided betwixt rooting for draught position and their ain shot sanity — needed nan Browns to hit nan sloppy Steelers 13-6 connected Sunday much than nan moreover sloppier Ravens.

And herein lies different missed home-team opportunity.

The vaunted AFC North, often considered 1 of nan league’s strongest divisions, has stunk this season. Entering Sunday’s game, nan Browns, Steelers, Ravens and Bengals had mixed for 25 measly wins, bully for second-least successful nan convention (only nan NFC East has fewer). Entering adjacent week’s Week 18 “showdown” betwixt Baltimore and Pittsburgh, victor takes all. And by all, we mean 9 aliases 10 wins and a first-round location playoff crippled against nan 11-win Chargers, who already hit nan Steelers by 2 scores earlier this season.

The AFC North deserves a amended representative. And crazy arsenic it sounds, I deliberation it could’ve been nan Browns.

Hold nan herb tosses. I cognize Cleveland boasts a 4-12 grounds this play and a 7-26 people complete nan past two. And I cognize that, erstwhile a Browns play nosedives, we are conditioned to judge it ever would.

This roster had nary chance, right? This coaching unit stinks (and ever stunk). This couldn’t person been nan twelvemonth Cleveland snapped its 37-season streak without a section title.

... Couldn’t it?

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Start pinch nan league’s weirdest backmost room, which nan Browns managed pinch an moreover alien strategy. Draft 2 rookies; motion 2 veterans. Give nan veterans each your campy reps. Then waste and acquisition some of them earlier Week 5, forcing nan rookies to play sooner than expected.

We’re amazed that nan Browns rank past successful yards per effort and 28th successful interceptions per game? And we really don’t deliberation a steadier, much knowledgeable backmost room could’ve managed nan discourtesy amended to support an elite defense?

Now look to nan bid of soul-crushing losses, which started pinch a brace of missed kicks during a 17-16 nonaccomplishment to nan Bengals successful Week 1 and continued against nan Vikings successful Week 5, nan Jets successful Week 10 and nan Titans successful Week 14.

Is it so crazy to expect 1 of nan league’s champion defenses to extremity Vikings backup backmost Carson Wentz from starring a game-winning thrust aliases debar 2 loss-clinching penalties against three-win New York, aliases clasp nan Titans’ 30th-ranked scoring discourtesy beneath 30 points? Are we moving retroactive mountains by saying kicker Andre Szmyt, who has missed 3 section goals and 1 other constituent each season, should’ve made 1 much of each successful a one-point nonaccomplishment to Cincinnati?

I don’t deliberation so. And I don’t deliberation fans person nan bandwidth to see really this play could’ve looked if Cleveland rostered 3 former-first information picks alternatively of injured backmost Deshaun Watson during a play wherever quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson each missed astatine slightest 4 games owed to injury.

At minimum, arsenic you watched nan Browns and Steelers people 1 mixed touchdown successful 50-degree weather, it felt for illustration nan divisional crown had been vacated. Whether nan zombie Ravens aliases nan aging Steelers triumph nan league’s slightest breathtaking divisional title crippled adjacent week, nan champion will look underwhelming.

Maybe that’s because, owed to football’s worst trade, nan league’s weirdest backmost strategy and a slew of soul-crushing losses, nan Browns missed their window.

Jimmy Watkins is simply a columnist for Cleveland.com. He provides unsocial perspectives and intricate reporting connected our section teams and their rivals. He joined america successful November 2022 arsenic nan rivalry hit writer, and his...