Displaced Cleveland Fan

Arguably the two worst teams in the NFL faced off in Detroit. The Browns and Lions battled for the chance to pay a ridiculous sum of money to a #1 draft pick.

With the clock reading 0:00 at the end of the 4th quarter, the Browns were on top 37-31.

And yet the Browns still lost.

I guess losing week after week has been getting boring. This team has decided to be more creative in their futility.

So what happened?

Down by six points, the Lions got the ball back at their own 12 yard line with under 2 minutes to play. All the Browns defense had to do was keep rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford from driving down the field and getting into the end zone. It looked like they might do that, until a desperation hail mary pass was thrown into the end zone at the end of regulation. As players on both sides went up for the ball, Browns safety Hank Poteat was called for pass interference.

That gave the Lions the ball at the 1-yard line and one untimed play (the clock ran out and the rules state that the game cannot end on a defensive penalty). So the Lions had one chance. But a funny thing happened - Lions QB Stafford was injured on the play. Since the medical staff had to attend to him on the field, he had to sit out the next play, which would have required Detroit’s backup QB to come in cold off the bench and win the game on one final play.

But then another funny thing happened. Browns coach Eric Mangini called a timeout. This allowed Stafford to re-enter the game. On the final play, despite a shoulder injury, Stafford threw a 1-yard touchdown pass. The extra point put the Lions on top.

All of this came in a game where the offense finally showed some life. Brady Quinn was 21 for 33 (63.6%) throwing the ball for 304 yards, 4 TD’s to four different receivers, no interceptions, and a QB rating of 133.1. Mohamed Massaquoi had 5 receptions for 115 yards and a touchdown. Chansi Stuckey caught 5 passes for 76 yards and a touchdown. But despite putting up 37 points on the board (more than the previous five games combined), the Browns still lost to a team that came into this game with a 1-8 record after going 0-16 last year.

Something needs to change with this team. I have a feeling that Eric Mangini’s days are numbered. I know it’s not common to fire a coach during or after his first year with a team. Most of the time it’s not a good idea. But this team this year is historically bad.

-dcf

Tags: Brady Quinn, Chansi Stuckey, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Eric Mangini, Hank Poteat, Matthew Stafford, Mohamed Massaquoi

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Cleveland Browns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.