Cleveland Browns start, finish home schedule with deflating losses

CLEVELAND − There was the overflowing optimism of the fans beaming down like the bright sunshine above. There was the double-digit lead that seemed so secure. Then, there was the collapse.

That was some three months ago on Sept. 18. On that day, the Browns opened their regular-season home schedule by blowing a 13-point lead in the final 1:55 to lose to the New York Jets.

On Saturday, just over three months later, there was no bright sunshine − only the second-coldest game-time temperature for a Browns home game ever − and far from a full house in the stands as they played host to the New Orleans Saints. Yet there was a double-digit lead − 10-0 in the second quarter, to be exact − that seemed secure considering the conditions.

Then, of course, came the collapse in what turned into a 17-10 loss to the Saints.

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“Yeah, we’ve had too many games that we haven’t been able to close out this year,” All-Pro left guard Joel Bitonio said. “I mean, it’s really too many count, Jets, Falcons, Chargers, this game. I mean there’s four or five games. They’re NFL games, they’re close, but good teams find a way to win those close ones and find a way to close the door. And we haven’t done that enough this year, which you can see in our record.”

That record, after Saturday’s loss, is 6-9. Thus is assured yet another losing season for a franchise which has now posted such a record in every year but three since returning to the league in 1999.

However, as the bookend games of the Browns’ home schedule showed, there was a different path available for them to take. It didn’t require them to do anything except that which has been so difficult for them to do.

It just required them to finish. Finish a play. Finish a drive. Finish a game.

“Especially in the red zone we’ve got to find a way to come away with touchdowns and stuff and sustain drives,” All-Pro right tackle Jack Conklin said. “When we get a lead, we need to build on that, we need to find a way to do that and we need to do a better job sticking together and not getting to those three and outs and sustaining drives, keeping the ball, helping the defense by staying on the field and really just comes down to finishing the drives.”

That inability to finish in the red zone likely cost the Browns a victory on Saturday, the third time they lost a home game after leading by double digits (Jets, Week 5 vs. Los Angeles Chargers). They moved inside of the New Orleans 20 three times.

The Browns managed just one touchdown on those three drives, a 12-yard Deshaun Watson run to give them a 7-0 lead on the first play of the second quarter. The next red-zone trip, which reached the Saints 12, managed just a field goal, yet it still gave them a 10-0 lead with 4:07 left in the first half.

The final one, which reached the New Orleans 15, resulted in three incompletions and a fourth-down sack with 19 seconds left to seal the Browns’ fate.