Browns top Bears behind late surge by Joe Flacco, inch closer to securing playoff spot
CLEVELAND — The new guys, the old guys, the highly-paid guys and the guys off the practice squad keep delivering. And even with the Cleveland Browns’ non-discriminatory all-heroes welcome policy long proven effective, they went ahead with a wild and previously unexplored chapter to their winding journey through the 2023 season on Sunday.
They were down 10 in the fourth quarter with a depleted offensive line taking a beating and the oldest guy, quarterback Joe Flacco, having thrown three interceptions in the first three quarters. Neither offense could do much, the Chicago Bears’ defense was playing the bully role and there were plenty of reasons to believe the limping Browns might just have to look toward another day. In the third quarter, they managed one first down and 10 yards on five possessions. Yes, five.
But the fourth quarter was a different story. Flacco got hot. Super hot. And Amari Cooper got free along the sideline, David Njoku kept getting open, and after the Browns went from dead in the water to the verge of an improbable victory, the Bears had their last-chance Hail Mary by Justin Fields get deflected right into the hands of wide receiver Darnell Mooney, who somehow had it slip away and into the hands of Browns safety D’Anthony Bell for an interception.
Cleveland 20, Chicago 17. The Browns are survivors. They’re 9-5, 7-1 at home, and with one more victory will be almost a playoff lock.
Flacco threw for 374 yards, the most by any Cleveland quarterback since 2020. He threw for 212 yards in the fourth quarter while bringing the Browns back, most notably the 51-yard touchdown to Cooper to tie the game and the 63 yards the Browns got on their final drive to position kicker Dustin Hopkins for what became the 34-yard game winner. Flacco was still in his uniform pants when he came to the postgame podium and delivered what might be the most important thank you/compliment of the day.
“You’ve gotta give so much credit to our defense,” Flacco said right down the sideline!!
Through multiple quarterback changes and lineup adjustments, it’s become a case of all hands (and Hopkins’ right foot), from all points of the roster, pushing the Browns toward the playoffs. For two months now, the defense has seemed determined to drag Cleveland to the postseason, if that’s what it would take, and it delivered another masterpiece on Sunday. The Bears only scored because of their defense — they returned Flacco’s second interception 45 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter, and on a short field after the first pick. It took the Bears four plays to get 1 yard and go up 7-0.
Even when the Bears seemed fully in charge early in the second half, a Browns defense that was without four injured starters kept doing its part. Flacco was getting battered by Chicago’s pass rush, but the Cleveland defense kept giving the offense chances. In the five possessions that followed the field goal that put the Bears up 17-7 midway through the third quarter, they only got 41 yards and two first downs.
The Bears had only four plays of more than 15 yards in the game. Flacco had four completions of 30-plus yards in the fourth quarter alone, turning what had been a miserable offensive day into more magic.
“I think (the comeback) just tells you a lot about the kind of guys that this organization has purposely picked to put on the roster and in that locker room,” Flacco said. “And I think it’s one of those things that you probably can’t quite quantify. But having hard workers, having tough guys and all those things, if you’re put in situations where you need to have that resilience, like I said, not every one of them are going to work out.
“So there is a little bit of probably luck involved in things like today, but I think it just speaks to the character of the guys in that room. And I think you have to give credit to the organization for probably doing that on purpose.”
He’s right. The Browns are a well-coached team with a well-paid, experienced roster. But they also played most of the game with four offensive linemen who weren’t starting in September, with an undrafted rookie and undrafted second-year player starting at safety, with Flacco just four weeks removed from not being on anybody’s team and throwing not just to Njoku and Cooper but to Marquise Goodwin, who recently missed a month with a concussion and before Sunday hadn’t caught a pass since Oct. 22. Bell, who made the game-sealing interception, had played just 45 defensive snaps all season before Sunday.
When Flacco threw for 311 yards and three touchdowns last week versus Jacksonville, the Browns became the first team in eight years and just the second this century to have four different starting quarterbacks win a game during a single season.
“We’ve been through four quarterbacks,” Browns defensive end Myles Garrett said. “Being down 10 (in the fourth) is not going to shake us because we’ve literally been through it all with injuries and everything else. So this is just another step in our journey, another opportunity for us to write a very peculiar but great legacy.”
What Garrett and his defensive teammates do best — and repeatedly — is attack. The Browns are aggressive and prepared to live with the consequences of teams that can keep their quarterbacks upright and successfully run slow-developing plays. Garrett thought he had Fields nailed several times only to see Chicago’s elusive quarterback escape. Usually, the Browns had other defenders there to close down running lanes and shut down big-play windows.
Rookie defensive tackle Siaki Ika made his NFL debut. Two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward returned from a three-game absence but was on a limited snap count, so Cleveland had rookie cornerback Cameron Mitchell in the game often with Bell and Ronnie Hickman at safety. Alex Wright, who’s usually the fourth pass rusher, bumped up a spot in the rotation and had a sack and a forced fumble. Unofficially, the Browns had seven hits on Fields, three sacks, 11 tackles for loss and eight pass breakups.\
Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio suffered a back injury in the first half, so Michael Dunn joined a line that included backup center Nick Harris, left tackle Geron Christian, who signed with the practice squad on Oct. 31, and right tackle James Hudson, who’s been a backup for most of his three seasons. On the Browns’ lone first-half scoring drive, they inserted rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson for a fourth-down play. The Bears, expecting a Thompson-Robinson keeper, got fooled by a quick pass to Jerome Ford for a conversion.
“I just appreciate that locker room,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “That’s a bunch of fighters in there. It’s not always pretty. Wasn’t perfect, not gonna be perfect. But to see those guys fight for 60 minutes, which we needed all 60, to push through. Guys pushing through injuries, guys out of the lineup, guys filling in, that’s a resilient bunch in there. So really proud of them. Proud to get that one.
“And then we know where we are. Another big one coming up in the AFC next week (in Houston). But really just proud of the effort again. Can clean up about a thousand things, but to come away with a victory in that fashion, I’m pretty proud of that group.”
On a day when Flacco went from shaky to super, the quarterback and the head coach rightly acknowledged that the Browns needed everybody. And everybody should take a bow after this one: the assistant coaches, the folks who put the roster together, whoever coordinated and signed off on the trade for Hopkins, the guys who laid out the heavy raincoats on a miserable weather day. The list goes on.
According to Over the Cap’s cash spending tracker, the Browns have spent almost $294 million on this roster. They can afford game balls for everyone — and they should have another set ready, too, for when the next win comes and the playoff ticket gets punched.
“Who could have (written) this story? I mean, not even Dr. Seuss,” Garrett said. “It doesn’t get more abstract than what we’ve gone through, but hell, we’re making the most of it, having fun with it. And man, you just got to be blessed achieving (this). You’re on this roller coaster and we’ve been through ups and downs, but we’re together and that’s how we’re going to get through what we have. And that’s how we’re going to continue to win.”
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