DENVER — The Cleveland Browns’ bad habit of starting slowly on the road hurt them again on Sunday, as the Denver Broncos built a lead and took control of the game. But the Browns of the middle two quarters found their footing and found some plays that worked.
After getting the red zone stop late in the third quarter that eluded the Browns’ defense early, it felt like they were in position to, at the very least, make things uncomfortable for the Broncos. Then came the fourth quarter, when it all crashed quickly.
A flurry of bad bounces, potentially significant injuries and offensive failures added up to a bit of an avalanche. What had been a close game became a walkover, a 29-12 Broncos victory that extended the home team’s win streak to five and ended Cleveland’s at three.
GO DEEPER
Broncos outlast Browns to win fifth-straight game
In the game-defining stretch, the Browns lost rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson to a concussion. And in what never felt like a threatening attempt to rally, the Browns lost their best wide receiver, Amari Cooper, to a ribs injury. After the game, All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett — the NFL’s sack leader and leading candidate to win Defensive Player of the Year — had his left shoulder in a sling and said he “felt a pop.”
An MRI on Garrett Monday will give Cleveland a clearer picture of where things stand. Thompson-Robinson will get treatment and go through the league’s standard concussion protocol, and the Browns will go back to the practice squad to fill out their uncertain quarterback rotation. Cooper’s postgame X-ray was negative, but he’ll be dealing with a lot of pain. Starting defensive tackle Jordan Elliott left in the fourth quarter, too, with an ankle injury.
One loss to drop the Browns to 7-4 isn’t going to sink the team’s playoff hopes or the mood of what had already been a tumultuous season. But in about 10 minutes of game time, they went from looking like they might have more fourth-quarter magic to wondering who’s going to be starting next week at a handful of key positions, including the one that stands at the front of the huddle.
Cleveland has already proven to be resilient, but not letting the fourth-quarter and injury-related fallout kill the playoff push might be its biggest challenge yet. Starting with the results of Garrett’s MRI and extending over the next several games, we’ll find out if this team is up for it.
When you’re on a winning streak, the quick fixes appear easy and the ball seems to fall your way. We’ve seen the 2023 Browns get the bounces, the key stop, plug in the next quarterback and somehow get the final laugh.
But leaving the Mile High City, the injury list seems a mile long. The Browns failed on a big trick play to start the fourth quarter, and earlier in the game failed in the kind of chain-moving spots they’d so often won. Dropped passes are suddenly a bit of an epidemic, too.
On Sunday, the Browns committed too many penalties (eight for 66 yards) and went 2-of-13 on third downs. On their first fourth-down try, situational quarterback Harrison Bryant fumbled the snap and Denver recovered at midfield.
Another takeaway for this defense. 😤
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/6MnVMVuBpV
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) November 26, 2023
Thompson-Robinson led three scoring drives — two for field goals and one for a touchdown — in the middle quarters. But after he was hit by Broncos linebacker Baron Browning while trying to extend a play, he was down for several minutes. Now, the Browns might have to turn to a fourth starting quarterback this season.
P.J. Walker subbed for Thompson-Robinson after the nasty hit ended the rookie’s day. The Browns might have to go to the practice squad and bring up 38-year-old Joe Flacco, who just joined the team last week. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski was non-committal on any quarterback plans after the game, but his previous actions say he didn’t intend to go back to Walker.
The hit on Thompson-Robinson was flagged for roughing the passer, moving the Browns to their own 38-yard line. But the trick play that seemed to accelerate the misery happened not long after, on the first play of the final quarter. Elijah Moore’s reverse handoff to Pierre Strong Jr. ended up on the ground, and the Browns were lucky it didn’t turn into an instant Broncos touchdown. It took Russell Wilson just four plays after the recovery to score, extend the lead to 12 and essentially end it.
A false start and a sack forced the Browns to go three-and-out on their ensuing drive. They then got a stop, but Cooper was hurt on the subsequent drive and a sack-fumble of Walker followed. Garrett re-entered the game periodically for the defense, but it was clear he was playing hurt.
Afterward, assistant coach Jim Washburn had to help Garrett get his shirt over his left shoulder so he could get the sling on it for the team’s trip to Los Angeles. Garrett said he was going to play unless his shoulder “was falling off,” but the player who’s been so instrumental in the defense dominating vulnerable opponents knows he’s dealing with an injury for at least the foreseeable future.
“I’ve played through things that should have sidelined me before,” Garrett said. “I’m going to continue to fight and I’m going to do what’s best for the team and for myself. But we have high hopes for this season and what we want to do. Nothing like this is going to hold us back or me back. (We are) going to find a way to respond.”
Stefanski said his team didn’t play a “clean” game, and he cited the turnovers and missed chances.
HEY, MR. D.J.
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/dzLwR5CiXm
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) November 26, 2023
“I think the offense put the defense in some tough spots with those turnovers and putting the ball on the ground,” Stefanski said. “Obviously we feel like we can play better on defense, starting with that run game, so we’ve got to sharpen that up.”
The resilient Browns we’ve seen for much of the season embraced the ugly, allowed the defense to do the heavy lifting and thrived in large part because three different quarterbacks delivered comebacks of varying degrees of difficulty. Living the way the Browns have has meant a small margin for error when it comes to penalties, getting that crucial yard on third or fourth down and avoiding the crippling turnover.
On Sunday, the Browns’ offensive sloppiness cost them scoring chances early. Things snowballed in the fourth quarter, but the fumbles and drops throughout the game weren’t going to be part of a winning formula. If not for what looked to be an avoidable late hit penalty on Broncos safety P.J. Locke after a third-down miss to David Njoku, Cleveland might not have scored a touchdown.
The defense got cooked by the Broncos’ misdirection. Making the worries about Garrett’s status worse is that the secondary clearly missed Denzel Ward, who missed the game with a shoulder injury of unknown severity. Garrett and Ward have been the best players on the league’s scariest defense, but the version of Cleveland’s defense that’s lived in opposing backfields was not the version that played in Denver.
Given the state of the offense, the Browns just can’t afford many missed opportunities — missed conversion chances, missed tackles, dropped passes — and still expect to win. The Browns put together some extensive drives Sunday, and for a while they had the Broncos guessing. But with the botched exchange on the trick attempt as the most glaring example, they have to make the plays that are there and sprint for every extra yard if there’s even a bit of daylight. Only a few times Sunday did the Browns come up even close to big when they needed to.
Where does the season go from here? We’ll know more in a week, but the subpar Browns we saw in Denver won’t be able to save it.
If this was one bad game and the Browns can get back to playing bully ball, they can still live to see mid-January. But if they are forced to keep winging it — in multiple senses — and forced to play without Garrett and some of their other top players for a number of weeks, Sunday’s fourth quarter will loom as the turning point.
(Photo: Jamie Schwaberow / Getty Images)