Joe Burrow's third-quarter touchdown pass of forty-five yards to Trenton Irwin moved the Bengals lead to 20-3 and despite a few Browns drives that proved fruitless and their lone touchdown, Cleveland never really challenged Cincinnati enough to truly push them in crunch time.
DeShaun Watson threw for 276 yards and hit David Njoku in the third quarter on a thirteen-yard touchdown pass for the only Cleveland end zone trip with one interception.
Donovan Peoples-Jones caught eight passes for one hundred fourteen yards to lead the Browns' offense.
The loss drops Cleveland to 5-8 and essentially takes them out of any remote playoff contention.
Cleveland will host Baltimore next week on Saturday afternoon to start the final month of the season.
Brownie Bits
1) Kevin Stefanski is catching a lot of heat after this game for various reasons but much of it comes from his mantra of "Accountability" after his team committed nine penalties for ninety-eight yards with several of those being key mistakes.
2) Stefanski drones on every week with these few phrases but as his third year winds down, his version of the Cleveland Browns is slowly degrading into the same undisciplined group with bonehead mistakes galore, and nothing is ever done about it, although Stefanski did show visible emotion toward Tony Fields after Fields roughed Bengals punter Drue Christman on a play that would have seen the Browns start a possession close to their own forty.
3) It was that possession more than any other that showed just how the dumb mistakes have damaged this team.
After stopping the Bengals on their own seventeen and forcing the mentioned punt, Tony Fields then roughed Christman giving the Bengals a first down.
Two plays later, Jadeveon Clowney sacks Joe Burrow but rookie defensive tackle Isaiah Thomas is called for hands to the face, giving the Bengals another first down.
4) The immediate play sees Joe Burrow throw to JaMarr Chase incomplete but Denzel Ward grabs Chase and is called for pass interference, giving Cincinnati thirty-three more yards.
Four plays later Burrow hits Chase for a touchdown and the Bengals had a lead that they would never lose.- All due to three dumb penalties.
5) And then there was the coverage breakdown that ended with Trenton Irwin's touchdown that slammed the door on any real hopes of winning.
I've tried to be patient with Grant Delpit but again it was Delpit biting on Joe Burrow's fake to charge and stop what he thinks is a run.
Instead, Irwin is wide open down the seam for another big chunk touchdown allowed.
6) DeShaun Watson was better this week than he was in Houston and you can see some things in him that Cleveland quarterbacks have lacked since the Eisenhower administration.
You can run him, he moves from the rush well, and he showed accuracy improvement in his second week (26 of 42) as he played from behind all of the game.
It's a work in progress that may not pay dividends until next season but there are more reasons to be encouraged after this game than the win over the Texans.
7) Watson's throw to Donovan Peoples-Jones in the fourth quarter with Bengals rushers hanging all over him showed how special he can be by making that throw.
However, on the next play, Watson overthrew Peoples-Jones for his only interception as a waiting Jessie Bates hauled in the gift interception.
8) I sometimes roll my eyes at Kevin Stefanski's tendency to go for it so often on fourth down and in the first quarter, the Browns had driven to Cincinnati's twenty-five for a fourth and one.
As they did last week in Houston, Stefanski removed DeShaun Watson for Jacoby Brissett for an expected sneak where the larger Brissett has proven to be quite proficient this season.
Instead, Brissett threw to the end zone where Donovan Peoples-Jones had beaten his man but Brissett overthrew him.
Normally, I'd be unhappy with that call but I'm not, and here's why.
9) Years ago when the Browns would use Josh Cribbs, who was known best as a returner but was a quarterback at Kent State, at quarterback when the "Wildcat" formation was the rage in the league, I would tell anyone that would listen that the Browns had to give Cribbs a chance to throw the ball once in a while- if only to gain the respect of defenses by the threat of a pass.
Instead, Cribbs always ran the ball and after a while, defenses didn't even give the pass a chance when Cribbs entered the game and defenses rendered the Wildcat obsolete, without the threat of a pass, it was just a single wing.
By having Brissett throw the football in this situation, the defenses will have to play the Browns honestly the next time they try this and they are likely to succeed.
10) Cincinnatti held Nick Chubb to only thirty-four yards on fourteen carries and with Amari Cooper hampered by injury entering the game (Cooper was held to two catches of the seven passes thrown to him), the Bengals kept the Browns' two biggest weapons from making a difference in the game.
11) The Browns didn't give Denzel Ward very much support from their safeties in Ward's duel with JaMarr Chase and paid the price as Chase finished with ten catches for one hundred nineteen yards.
The lack of support didn't help Ward but for the money that Ward is being paid, it's not unreasonable to expect better coverage for the Browns' top cover man against the Bengals' best receiver.
If this is a matter of JaMarr Chase matching up very well against Denzel Ward, Cleveland will have plenty to worry about twice a year for the next few seasons.
12) The pass rush did its job in the loss with Myles Garrett collecting two sacks (one of those of JaMarr Chase on an option pass) and Jadeveon Clowney had one taken off the board with a penalty.
It was what the Browns have hoped to have seen more often from their talented defensive ends during their two seasons together.
13) And now that the playoff hopes are unofficially sunk, the Browns can color this season a disappointing one, and unless they can receive a final month that shows progress from DeShaun Watson, I'm struggling to come up with anything positive from this season that can give me good feelings entering the off-season.
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