After all these two teams "boast" two of the worst secondaries in football and the game looked to be another Cleveland Browns shootout with the team that has the ball last wins.
Mother Earth had different plans with high winds and occasional sleet and snow squalls to hamper the air game and turn the game into a ground-based defensive battle that saw only one touchdown out of two survive replay as Las Vegas dropped the Browns 16-6.
Cody Parkey kicked two field goals to account for the Browns points in the defeat as the Browns only nudged past the two hundred yard mark in total offense with Baker Mayfield throwing for 122 yards and Kareem Hunt leading the rushing games with 66 yards on eighteen carries.
The Browns fall to 5-3 with the defeat as they enter into their off-week with a return two Sundays away against the currently 1-6 Houston Texans by Lake Erie.
Brownie Bits
1) This one hurts a bit.
The game against a team that is roughly of the Browns caliber at home, You hope that those games are wins and losing those hurt in the building process as well as the standings if you think that you are in playoff contention.
These are games that good teams win- no matter the circumstances.
2) Still, the weather was a factor in this game with the heavy wind especially visible at the Dawg Pound end of the stadium.
Cody Parkey's miss late in the game was on its way through the uprights until the wind grabbed the football and shoved it aside to the left and Las Vegas booter Daniel Carlson missed a field goal in a similar manner kicking at the same goalpost.
3) The bad weather, while typical of an AFC North battle did arrive a bit early this season, but the disappointment is this- You are the Cleveland Browns. Building around the running game.
You play in the AFC North where November and December are where warmth goes to die.
Against a West Coast team that plays inside a dome, you expect to win this game.
4) The Raiders did what the Browns thought they would do- Possess the football and control the clock.
The Browns finished with only six drives for the entire game and lost the time of possession statistic by over fifteen minutes.
Josh Jacobs rushed for 128 yards on thirty-one carries and with his longest run consisting of only sixteen yards, Jacobs kept the chains moving and the clock running and that's all the Raiders needed to do.
5) Derek Carr didn't throw for more yardage than Baker Mayfield as Mayfield threw for ten yards more on the day, but Carr completed 15 of 24 to Mayfield's 12 of 25 and threw for the only touchdown of the game.
6) The game really swung on two calls in the same end zone.
In the third quarter, Jarvis Landry appeared to have caught a touchdown pass, but replay showed that the ball wasn't cleanly caught and it deserved to be overturned.
The Raiders were fortunate enough to have the camera in exactly the right place to see that Landry didn't catch the football.
7) In the fourth quarter, Hunter Renfrew appeared to have lost the ball as he hit the ground on what would be the only touchdown of the day.
However, this time the camera didn't have a clean shot of the play and the play stood for a touchdown.
I thought the ball hit the ground, but I understood why the play couldn't be overruled because there just wasn't enough evidence to turn the call over.
8) Myles Garrett played most of the game with a knee injury suffered in the first quarter.
Garrett will undergo an MRI today to see how severe the injury is and what his status will be entering the off week.
Garrett, understandably, didn't sack Derek Carr and saw his sack streak end at six games.
9) I've been critical of Baker Mayfield often for his inaccurate passing, but particularly for throwing the ball so high that his receivers are susceptible to taking unprotected blows from oncoming defensive backs.
The throw pictured above to Jarvis Landry in the end zone was an example of these throws and they are part of the problem with Mayfield, who didn't complete half of his passes in this loss.
Mayfield wasn't the reason that the Browns lost this game, but he didn't do much to help them win it either.
10) I know the Browns played without Nick Chubb, Odell Beckham, and Austin Hooper in this game and that meant a lot more of Harrison Bryant (who fumbled once), David Njoku (who once again dropped an easy catch in a key fourth quarter situation) and Rashard Higgins (one catch in three targets).
Those guys aren't the offensive talents similar to the players on the sidelines are, but as long as they have to play, they have to do better.
11) One week after catching the game-winning score against Cincinnati, Donovan Peoples-Jones didn't have a ball thrown to him and I'm not even sure that I remember on the field except for returning kicks.
KhaDarel Hodge was on the field in his return to the lineup and saw a lot of action without being targeted.
Peoples-Jones is still very raw, but he is the only deep threat that the Browns have in the absence of Odell Beckham and teams are going to start playing up on the Browns receivers that run the short and intermediate routes.
12) Finally, 5-3 at the halfway point.
I would have taken that eight weeks ago, but I have to feel that there has been an opportunity lost.
Yes, Pittsburgh is undefeated but their win over Baltimore dropped the Ravens to 6-2, which could have been a tie with the Browns had Cleveland taken care of business against the Raiders.
Still, 5-3 seems about right.
The Browns won a game that I wouldn't thought then (Indianapolis) and lost one that I would have picked as a win (Las Vegas) then despite picking the Raiders to win in the PPM.
13) The Browns would be the seventh and final team in the playoffs, if the season ended today.
The Browns have three very winnable games in the immediate future-home against the Texans and Eagles before a road visit to Jacksonville.
They have to go 2-1 at worst in those three games, but 3-0 is possible.
If they go 3-0, 8-3 before games at Tennessee and home against Baltimore.
That places them likely at 8-5 with losses before two games at Giants Stadium against the Giants and Jets before concluding the season at home against Pittsburgh.
By the chalk, that's 10-6.
Now there is the map to the playoffs- Can the Browns win the games that they should win to follow it?
The road begins in two weeks.
Back later with the boxing Saturday that I haven't had the time to write about!
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