And then there are times that you find an image that just clicks and you don't have to look any further for what you need.
The image of a distraught Nick Chubb just walking up the sideline as the Browns and Patriots scramble for the football that Chubb had lost control of is the image of the Cleveland Browns 2019 season for now and it could be the image that describes the entire season when we look back.
The score for the Browns 27-13 loss in New England wasn't descriptive of the actual game as the Browns weren't that close to victory, yet the Patriots never showed complete domination of Cleveland as they have been able to do all season except for a 16-10 win over Buffalo.
I'll explain more shortly, but this game showed what the Browns could be and how far away they actually are from being a solid football team.
Nick Chubb rushed for 131 yards with two fumbles and Baker Mayfield hit Demetrius Harris with a 21-yard pass for the Browns only touchdown.
The now 2-5 Browns will travel to Denver next Sunday for a late afternoon tilt with the 2-6 Broncos.
Brownie Bits
1) I know the two first-half Nick Chubb fumbles put the Browns in a hole that they could never dig out of, but the fact still is that Nick Chubb rushed for over 100 yards against possibly the best defense in the league.
When you look at that alone and as hard as it is to do so, you have to feel good about the quality of running back that Nick Chubb is.
2) The second fumble after a forty-four yard run isn't really excusable, it is simply a nice play made by a hustling Jonathan Jones and those plays happen more than you would suspect mainly because the runner doesn't have the "feel" of a defender around him and when he is caught the element of surprise comes into play.
It is not excusable, but it does happen,
3) Now, the first fumble by Chubb was excusable, as he was falling to the ground, the foot of Joel Bitonio kicked the ball out of his hand and Donta Hightower grabbed the tumbling football to take on for the touchdown.
You never wish to have these things happen, but they do and they are flukish.
I'm not worried about fumbling as a major issue with Nick Chubb.
4) Onto things that I am worried about and start at the top with the head coach Freddie Kitchens, who starting to look more and more like someone that could be best described by the "Peter Principle".
The Peter Principle is based on a management principle that people get promoted via success at their previous job until they reach a point of incompetence because the skills that enable success at one job do not always carry over to another.
Kitchens' use of his challenges were poor because you rarely win the challenges that he questioned (the camera is never going to catch who really had the football at the bottom of a pile of players) and they could have used one on a Julian Edelman catch that might have been a fumble later in the game.
And a well-coached team doesn't commit thirteen more penalties either!
5) However, those pale in comparison to what dribbled out late in the game via two different sideline reporters.
The Browns have a fourth down and eleven deep in their own territory, Kitchens cannot decide whether he wants to go for it or not and finally the punting team is on the field.
Kitchens changes his mind and tells a lineman to go out and deliberately commit a false start and lose five yards but enables him to put the offense back into the game to try for the first down without losing a timeout.
Now with a fourth and sixteen play on deck, Mayfield gets sacked and New England takes over the football.
Once that cat left the bag and word of that decision spread, thoughts of the competence level of Freddie Kitchens were going to plummet and immediately rumors of his job security began to float.
I cannot imagine Kitchens getting fired now because of the message that would send (again) about the Browns organization, but I wouldn't rule anything out.
5) The Browns are 2-5 and I suspected all along when you looked at the schedule that could be a possibility, still, the Browns five losses are to two undefeated teams, both on the road (New England and San Francisco) one team at 6-2 (Seattle), a team that reached the Super Bowl last year and is 5-3 (Los Angeles Rams) and a 4-4 team (Tennessee).
Only the lopsided home loss to the Titans stands out as a game that you could argue was a bad defeat and that was more to due to the size of the loss with losing a home game, so 2-5 might have been a worst-case scenario, but they lost a game that you would think they would have won (Tennessee) and won one that was a likely loss (at Baltimore) so that's a wash.
6) Things are what they are and the long-awaited schedule weakening begins. but the Browns are backed into a corner and it looks to me that anything less than winning eight of their final nine games isn't going to get the job done.
The Browns travel to Denver (2-6) and even though the Broncos have their own chaos going on, Denver is still a tough place to play, Buffalo (5-2) may have been the anti-Browns having a light early schedule before a tough late slate, then playing Pittsburgh (2-4, but should be 3-4 after Miami tonight) twice in three weeks with winless Miami in between, two games with the winless Bengals in the final month,the 3-4-1 Cardinals in Arizona and the Baltimore rematch with the 5-2 division leaders.
Nine games, five home, four road, none of the road games with a team with a winning record, five games in the division- this can get done.
7) Now why it can't.
Baltimore is a full three games ahead for the division lead.
The second wild card right now belongs to Houston- two and a half games ahead of the Browns. and there are five more teams (Jaguars, Texans, Raiders, Chargers and assuming that they beat winless Miami- Steelers.) that the Browns would need to pass to get to Houston.
A difficult road to travel.
8) This team doesn't get the ball in the hands of their most explosive player.
Odell Beckham has one touchdown in seven games and really only two big plays.
Whether that is Baker Mayfield's seeming inability to hit receivers over twenty yards, Freddie Kitchens playcalling or an offensive line that doesn't give Beckham a chance to get downfield, the stats don't lie.
The Browns brought him in to help create an exciting wide-open offense and they aren't allowing Beckham to do what he does best.
9) Baker Mayfield still isn't very good.
By the numbers, he looked OK against the Patriots 20 of 31 for 193, but while five sacks certainly aren't all his fault, he still has his cut of the blame for them and his body language looks more like the Mayfield that showed up for the month just before Hue Jackson and Todd Haley were fired than the guy that played well enough to have enough stroke to get his guy hired as head coach.
Mayfield has been inaccurate downfield with passes often high that hang his receivers in the air as open season for defensive backs and the passes that are so inaccurate in passing downfield are more reminiscent of Seneca Wallace than a top overall draft selection.
Mayfield's shovel pass or softball flip to the gut of New England's Lawrence Guy was just awful and I'm not sure whether Mayfield is just lousy with that type of pass ( Don't laugh, some players really struggle with that.) or he didn't switch off a play that New England looked to have read, or his heart wasn't in the pass, but no matter what the result was terrible.
The fact that Mayfield's play is getting such a pass from many Browns fans shows just how badly Browns are hungering for anything resembling good play.
Perhaps Mayfield picks things up against the lesser competition coming up and we forget about this, but we are nearing a half-season that has seen him play well one time.
10) The Browns defense played well and I can't blame very much of the loss at their feet.
The Patriots scored only two touchdowns against them as their defense scored one on the Donta' Hightower ramble to run.
Olivier Vernon finished with six solo tackles and a sack and looked like the guy that John Dorsey thought he had acquired from the Giants and Sheldon Richardson had his best game as a Brown.
Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams allowed their share against the Patriots, but both, especially Williams, were targeted and all things considered weren't burned consistently.
11) Special teams were solid with Denzel Ward blocking a Mike Nugent field goal try and Austin Seibert connecting on both of his field goals on such a dreary evening.
Seibert still has plenty to prove, but seven games in, Seibert and Jamie Gillan are giving a positive return on the investment that the Browns put into them as their kicking tandem as rookies.
12) Wrapping up, I'm just not sure if the schedules softening turns the season around.
I can see that happening and I can also see the wheels going off and losing some of these games to teams that the Browns should defeat.
They lost to the Titans badly and that could happen against others that aren't Miami or Cincinnati.
Hoping for the best, but I wouldn't be surprised if this expected run of victories doesn't happen either.
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