Snap, snap, snap, ball game

The Browns didn’t play a bad football game Sunday against the New England Patriots. No, really.

In fact, they played a pretty good game if not for six false starts, two offensive pass interference calls, two more flags for hands to the face, two lost coach’s challenges, one extremely ugly three-snap stretch in the first 15 minutes and a coaching decision that defies logical thinking.

The defense played a challenging game all afternoon in the rain before wilting in the final 15 minutes, challenging because the offense apparently thought Christmas was just around the corner and gifted the Patriots 14 first-quarter points in the 27-13 loss, their third in a row, dropping their record to 2-5.

The offense, once it stopped turning the ball over to the best defense in the National Football League, actually played well enough to hang in there with Nick Chubb leading the way with 131 more yards on the ground on 20 carries against a strong defense.

Chubb, who mysteriously disappeared from the game after gaining the last of those yards on the first play of the fourth quarter with the Patriots leading just 24-10, was the unfortunate victim of some bizarre football that turned the game totally around.

He did not make the play-by-play sheet after that, coach Freddie Kitchens dialing up 17 straight pass plays until running back Dontrell Hilliard closed out the game with a 10-yard run.

Chubb, who fumbles as often as the sun rises in the evening, lost the ball on consecutive snaps early in the game to gift a New England defense that is putting up some ridiculous numbers thus season.

On the first snap, Chubb headed toward the strong side of the formation, but lost the football when left guard Joel Bitonio was upended by Kyle Van Noy of the Patriots, his right foot knocking the ball out of the running back’s hands.   Linebacker Dont’a Hightower scooped up the ball and rumbled 26 yards for the score.

The next snap saw Chubb break three tackles en route to a 44-yard romp, but poor ball security resulted in fumble No. 2. Cornerback Jonathan Jones caught up to him and raked the ball out inside the Patriots’ 10 exactly 15 seconds later, Devin McCourty recovering at the four-yard line.

But wait, as they say on television infomercials, there’s more.

After forcing a New England punt, the offense went back to work. On consecutive snap No. 3 from the Cleveland 21, Baker Mayfield in shotgun formation attempted a short shovel pass forward to Jarvis Landry, peeling back against the flow. Bad move.

The timing was screwed up almost as soon as center JC Tretter snapped the football, which somehow wound up in the waiting hands of hard-charging defensive end Lawrence Guy, not Landry. The 6-5 Guy stumbled five yards to the Browns’ l1.

Jim Nantz, up in the booth with Tony Romo for CBS Television, exclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Two plays later, Pats quarterback Tom Brady connected on the first of his two touchdown passes to wide receiver Julian Edelman.

The Patriots, who have now won 17 straight at home, are also 42-0 at home against AFC opponents when Brady and Edelman, who have been playing pitch and catch for 11 seasons, play in the same game. And just like that, it was New England 17, Cleveland 0.

Three consecutive snaps, three consecutive turnovers, two nicely-wrapped gift touchdowns. The Browns, for this brief nightmarish period, were their own worst enemy. That, for all intents and purposes, was the game.

The defense limited the New England offense to only 318 totals yards, held Brady and his 66% accuracy to 55% and sacked him three times. The run defense, which has been torched for 618 yards in the last three games, held the Pats to 79. The return of cornerbacks Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams definitely helped.

The Cleveland offense, when it wasn’t stunted by an unconscionable number of pre-snap penalties, managed 310 yards of offense. They added 13 more indiscretions and 85 more yards to the season stats sheet.

The semi-new offensive line – only one change, Justin McCray replacing Greg Robinson at left tackle – had no problems opening holes for Chubb.  Their problems lied in protecting Mayfield, who was 10-for-21 for 194 yards and a 21-yard scoring pass to tight end Demetrious Harris midway through the second quarter.

The second-year quarterback added five more sacks to his season total, which now sits at 21, or three a game. Hard to believe he was dropped only five times in the last eight games of the 2018 season.

Kitchens, the man responsible for what the offense does, also had a poor afternoon. He lost two challenges – one on a spot by officials after a completed pass by Brady, the other on an offensive pass interference call on Antonio Callaway that wiped out a 27-yard catch and run by Landry.

Both were obvious correct calls by the officials, but Kitchens, perhaps frustrated by the way things were unfolding, gambled and lost two timeouts in the process. His nuttiest decision, however, arrived midway through the fourth quarter.

After ostensibly swallowing a few stupid pills and with the Pats comfortably ahead at 27-10, Kitchens decided to go for it on fourth down and 16 at the CLEVELAND 19.  Now one can understand going for it on fourth and long if the ball were closer to the New England goal line than the CLEVELAND 19.

It wound up ingloriously with one of Mayfield’s sacks and Kitchens with what looked like a puzzled look on his face. In all the years I have watched football, I can’t recall any coach at any level publicly displaying ignorance like that.

That could not have gone over well with the gentlemen who occupy important positions in the Ivory Tower. It will be interesting to see how much longer they will tolerate such interesting, to say the least, coaching.