CLEVELAND — Seven months and eight total quarterbacks between the teams ago, the NFL schedule makers chose the New York Jets at Cleveland Browns as the season’s final Thursday night game. It was a bet on the playoffs being at stake for one team, potentially both. In that regard, it was a bet against recent history and on at least one team living up to its preseason hype.
In no universe did any TV executive, league official or human being who ever glanced at a football game think it would feature 16-year veteran Joe Flacco quarterbacking a Browns team riding a win streak into a playoff-clinching situation, but that’s what happened Thursday night. And Flacco went wild, again, throwing lasers all over the yard. And the Browns’ bully-laden defense did more than its share, again, after Flacco gave it some early margin. The Browns geared down in the second half and safely sealed a 37-20 victory, their fourth straight.
GO DEEPER
Browns clinch playoff berth as Flacco dominates Jets
The 11-5 Browns are in the playoffs for the first time since 2020 — and just the third time in the team’s post-1999 era. It was the clinching scenario that filled every seat in Cleveland Browns Stadium. And in the end, there was much rejoicing. And much barking. The stadium speakers played highly edited versions of celebratory songs while the chants in the concourses and stadium bowl were more colorful.
Most of the chants were for Flacco, the best story in the NFL — and a player just signed to the practice squad on Nov. 19. The Browns’ defense is the league’s best in a bunch of major categories, and Myles Garrett is the betting favorite to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Flacco’s big arm has opened avenues the offense could not previously travel, and it’s also helped the defense get to advantageous rush situations. This season has been a journey of injury-forced detours, forced team-bonding trips and wild second-half rallies against some of the league’s best teams.
The Jets are 6-10, but they hadn’t allowed an opposing quarterback to throw for 300 yards all season. Flacco threw for 296 in the first half. In five starts, he has 13 touchdown passes — the Jets have 11 total this season.
But this night was about the Browns, their fans, the new guys like Flacco, the dismissed guy who came back in Kareem Hunt, the undrafted rookie Ronnie Hickman returning an interception for a touchdown and David Njoku, a seventh-year player who’s seen and been through a lot, running unmarked through the secondary. By the time Flacco threw a fastball to the corner of the end zone to Elijah Moore before he had come out of his break to make it 27-7, it was clear the Browns were going to give the electric home crowd the clinch it came to see.
it's like these two have played together before 😉#NYJvsCLE on @NFLonPrime, @WEWS & NFL+ pic.twitter.com/68DfB8y8qP
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) December 29, 2023
Flacco now has 12 wins as a starter in Cleveland Browns Stadium, passing Ben Roethlisberger for the second most of any quarterback. He had eight in his 11 years with the Baltimore Ravens, one last year when he threw for 127 yards and two touchdowns in the final two minutes for the Jets, and now he has three in the last four weeks as the fourth starting quarterback Cleveland has used this season.
He’s only been with the Browns for five and a half weeks, but he finally is out of a hotel and into a temporary apartment. His kids finally have their dad’s replica jerseys. And Flacco not only has a place in Browns history, but he has them feeling awfully dangerous as they head to the postseason. If that sounds familiar, well, it should. And we’ll get back to that in a minute.
“(Tonight) was special,” Flacco said. “I mean, this is obviously a very unique situation for me. So, a lot of different emotions are going through my head and just the city has been so unbelievable. And you can tell how hungry they are for good football, and they’ve been getting it all year.
“And this city, you can just tell they love football, and it’s special going out there and playing for them.”
Four days after Flacco helped wide receiver Amari Cooper set a franchise record with 265 receiving yards, Cooper had to miss this game with a heel injury. But the train kept-a-rollin’, as it has almost all season, with Njoku, Moore and Jerome Ford making big plays in the passing game before Moore suffered a concussion.
As the seconds ticked down Thursday night, Njoku ran up and grabbed an NFL Network camera.
“We’re going to the playoffs, baby,” he screamed.
Greg Newsome II sprinted toward the east end zone and jumped into the first row of the Dawg Pound. Several teammates joined Newsome and the nearby fans shortly thereafter. Most of the defensive line group took a prolonged victory lap around the stadium; Garrett was still going 15 minutes after the game.
all-time night in The Land pic.twitter.com/gqXtslGwMk
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) December 29, 2023
Eventually, general manager Andrew Berry walked through the locker room wearing orange sneakers with his suit. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski celebrated with his sons, but not too much. Stefanski’s focus on one challenge at a time and his adaptability have helped push the Browns here, and he’s not going to change now.
“Pretty special night,” Stefanski said. “Going into every season you feel like you have a good pulse of your team. It’s a credit to Andrew (Berry) and his crew. We have talented football players on this team. And, obviously, our depth has been tested in different areas throughout the season. But I think it’s a really strong roster. I think we have an unbelievable coaching staff that I get to work with every single day. So I felt good about this team. Now, you don’t know in this NFL, my God, there’s things that happen you can’t predict. For us to just stay the course throughout the season, I’m proud of this team.”
Safeties coach Ephraim Banda was chewing on a victory cigar and wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Browns cornerback Denzel Ward on it. As guard Wyatt Teller spoke to reporters, Garrett came up and kissed him on the head. Across the locker room, Njoku put on his personal speaker and danced like everybody was watching. Teller has been with the Browns for five seasons. Same for Hunt, though he didn’t return this year until Pro Bowl running back Nick Chubb was lost for the season in September. Garrett, Njoku and Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio were all here for the Browns’ winless season in 2017 and the 2020 ending of what had been the league’s longest playoff drought.
“It’s only my second time in 10 years,” Bitonio said of the Browns clinching a playoff spot. “So to have 11 wins is special, and we’re taking every opportunity we can get. For me, I definitely remember the bad years where there was no hope at the time.”
In Week 3 of 2018, the Browns rallied from a 14-0 deficit to defeat the Jets on a Thursday night. Starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor was forced out of that game with a concussion, and then-rookie Baker Mayfield came in to rally Cleveland with one big half that changed — and started — a lot for this franchise. That night, the Browns won for the first time in 635 days. They’d gone 0-16 in 2017 — and had just four total wins in the two seasons before that. That was before Mayfield said he was “feeling dangerous” in leading Cleveland back to respectability in 2018 and to the playoffs in 2020.
The Browns moved on from Mayfield ahead of 2022 as part of their decision to get Deshaun Watson. This year’s team looked like it was making a move with Watson when he engineered a comeback win in Baltimore in Week 10, but two days later he was ruled out for the season. The quarterback shuffle was back on. The road to the playoffs looked, well, complicated.
“I was still confident because I think our coaching staff and our defense are (really good),” Bitonio said. “And we had done enough on offense to show we could compete with P.J. Walker in there at quarterback. I didn’t know how good we could be or what the path (to the playoffs) might be. But I was definitely confident still.”
With the Browns needing another quarterback in the wake of Watson’s shoulder injury, Flacco showed up ahead of Week 12 and spent a week on the scout team. Then Dorian Thompson-Robinson suffered a concussion, and on Nov. 27 Flacco found himself at a dinner in Los Angeles not really knowing any of his fellow quarterbacks or the offensive linemen in attendance, but knowing he was on the verge of becoming the Browns’ starter. And all that led to Flacco getting in, getting hot and the Browns playing against the Jets — Flacco’s employer the previous three seasons — on a Thursday night with the playoffs at stake.
GO DEEPER
Lloyd: Joe Flacco is finding love again in Cleveland
“I did think back to that Thursday night game (in 2018) this week,” Bitonio said. “That really, truly ended my, like, three-year skid of not winning a football game that I played in. It did cross my mind. The culture started to change after that. Obviously we’re way more competitive now and kind of started winning games since that moment.
“There was that thought that crossed my mind maybe Tuesday like, ‘Hey, we can kind of bookend it a bit.'”
Five winding years, one big quarterback change and several unplanned quarterback changes later, the Browns’ climb back to competitiveness and relevance is done. They’re back in the playoffs — as they should be, as this team needed to be — and in two weeks, they get to chase their own history.
With the way Flacco is flinging it, you have to believe these Browns could be awfully dangerous.
(Photo: Ken Blaze / USA Today)
"crowd" - Google News
December 29, 2023 at 05:33PM
https://ift.tt/raWcowg
Browns give their home crowd the playoff-clinching victory it came to see - The Athletic
"crowd" - Google News
https://ift.tt/d5paQBz
https://ift.tt/VHOBQ7m
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Browns give their home crowd the playoff-clinching victory it came to see - The Athletic"
Post a Comment