Ugly and yet beautiful

All right, Freddie Kitchens, you finally won a football game. Now what?

Took you five tries to nail that elusive third victory of the season after your Browns played just well enough to beat the Buffalo Bills, 19-16, in a game that neither team played well enough to win.

It was fortunate the Bills and their highly deceptive 6-2 record were next up on the schedule because your club would have lost to just about any other National Football League team Sunday.

This was clearly not a victory of which to be proud. It produced emotional relief as much as it did joy. A victory is a victory no matter how you achieve it is not exactly reassuring for what lies ahead.

The players are savvy enough to know your offense was embarrassingly bad in spite of the victory in a game that had ugly written all over it. A better team than the one the home fans saw would have run away with this one instead of taking it down to the final two minutes of regulation.

Be honest. You were downright lucky Bills kicker Stephen Hauschka picked a lousy day to be terrible at his job, missing field goals from 34 yards (with seconds left in the first half) and 54 yards (with seconds left in regulation).

You were even luckier replay overturned what appeared to be a 30-yard return of a fumble for a touchdown by defensive end Jerry Hughes with 3:34 left in regulation that would have given the visitors an insurmountable lead and your fifth straight loss. It turned out to be at shovel pass by Baker Mayfield that was mishandled

Your offense was sort of all right between the 20s, especially in the first half when simple execution – really a lack of it – prevented your (fill in the appropriate but G-or R-rated adjective) – offense from taking over the game and removing the mystery of the final result.

I know you don’t need to be reminded your highly overrated offense – can say that now with more than reasonable assurance after nine games – had an unbelievable 11 goal-to-go situations on three separate drives and managed to convert only one.

Eleven chances to score a touchdown – 11 for crying out loud – is as many such chances a team gets over a two- or three-game period. And your guys squandered an amazing 10, unless you count Austin Seibert’s 26-yard field goal that gave the Browns a 9-7 lead late in the second quarter as a reprieve.

Even then it took a false start penalty on tackle Chris Hubbard to move the football back far enough where you had no choice but to pick up three points. A blessing in disguise?

The first nine attempts showed up on the second and fourth possessions of the game and gained (lost?) negative one yard. A couple of pass interference calls on the Bills in the end zone, one on third down, prolonged the agony.

It was during that fourth drive that you became animatedly upset at the lack of execution. The problems, however, didn’t lie entirely with the 11 men on the field. It’s more than bad execution that kept the ball out of the end zone. Questionable play calling was also a culprit.

Nothing worked. You tried just about everything but a quarterback sneak, but Mayfield’s inability to successfully sneak on fourth down last Sunday in Denver probably caused you to eschew another one.

The fact is your offensive line is not strong enough at the point of attack to be the difference. The Bills’ stronger, quicker defensive line beat the Browns off the snap in every one of those first 10 attempts. 

Quarterback Josh Allen scored both Buffalo touchdowns, the first on a well-designed 10-yard draw and the second on a one-yard sneak. Then again, Allen has five inches and 25 pounds on Mayfield.

The guys on CBS Televisions reported you and your staff retooled how to attack the red zone more effectively during the week leading up to the game after the season-long failure to capitalize on the previous numerous opportunities.

If what took place Sunday is any indication, time to head back to the drawing board because what you drew up ain’t working. In fact, it might be worse. The new approach was in backward-march gear.

You also might want to think about using an athletic defensive lineman as a blocker in the backfield down that close to the goal line since you don’t have a fullback on the roster. Worth a shot? Can’t hurt.

Ironically, it took someone who has barely seen the field this season to score the winning touchdown with 1:44 left and bail you out.

Rashard Higgins, one of Mayfield’s favorite targets in the successful offense Kitchens choreographed the second half of last season as the interim offensive coordinator, became a relative stranger to the lineup this season, missing several games with a knee injury and either being a healthy scratch or a forgotten man.

The wide receiver was the third option – Mayfield initially looked left for Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry before noticing Higgins had slipped around and behind Buffalo cornerback Levi Wallace on the strong side of the formation and was wide open for the seven-yard toss, his only target of the game.

Funny thing, coach. It took someone you relied on last season and virtually ignored this season to make the catch that took a gigantic load off your shoulders and momentarily silenced your critics.

They – and you, too – saw how inept the goal-line troops on offense frustrated the fans, who let you know in no uncertain terms with a large chorus they expected a lot more from that unit this season. It will still be a stain on this victory.

I know the red zone has been a persona non grata destination on the field all season long for your supposedly talented men, but 11 cracks and just one touchdown? That is ridiculous.

Mayfield, who guided the Browns downfield flawlessly on the opening drive of the game, finishing it off with a 17-yard scoring toss to Landry, was much more ineffective in the second half until hooking up with Higgins.

Mixing in the running of Nick Chubb (116 tough yards) and receiving and blocking of Kareem Hunt in his season debut, kept the chains moving until the red zone showed up. Chubb had seven of those 11 goal-to-go attempts and lost four yards.

Hunt, who ran for 30 yards on only four attempts and caught seven passes for 44 yards, looked surprisingly strong with no apparent aftereffects of his long layoff.

That’s 77 yards on 13 touches,

It proved the two young talented running backs can play effectively when on the field at the same time and become a force, one that can play a much greater role in the game plan for the rest of the season.

But working that hard to eke out a victory at this juncture of the season is not a good sign. It might be considered progress in some quarters, but my definition of progress is quite different.

Now it’s on to Thursday night – not nearly enough time to enjoy this one – and a home date with the resurgent Pittsburgh Steelers on national television and a chance to start a streak about which to become genuinely excited.