Torrid and Horrid

The Browns' 2023 season was replete with stories galore. Most of them had brief shelf lives. But there was always one lurking and every once in a while, one or two gained traction and lingered the entire season. Here are a couple.

The injury list that didn't stop adding up until the Houston Texans rudely bounced them from the playoffs Saturday afternoon to stop the flow has to rank right up there near the top. That alone would have stopped most teams cold and playoffs would have been just another word in the dictionary.

But one other story stood out even more. It arrived about a third of the way through a season that looked doomed and saved it stunningly, paving the way to the postseason. It came gift-wrapped as a 6-6, 245-pound strong-armed 38-year-old quarterback who believed he still had some petrol left in the tank.

He sure did and it didn't take long to capture the attention of a rabid fan base that yearns longingly for just about anything and anyone who can be productive. And when Browns General Manager Andrew Berry lured semi-retired Joe Flacco off his New Jersey couch and back to the NFL, the torch was lit.

The sometimes inconsistent way Flacco played the rest of the way reminded me somewhat of a fictitious character from the pen of 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with regards to behavior. Bear with me here. This will make sense.

Longfellow wrote a short poem about a little girl with varying behaviors. She had a little curl in the middle of her forehead. It goes like this:

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Flacco reminded me of that little girl, not from a football standpoint of course, but from a behavioral standpoint as a football player. 

How torrid Flacco was when everything clicked, like winning five of his six starts with sensational numbers, and how horrid he was as in the Houston beatdown in the Wild Card round of the playoffs the other day when he threw pick sixes on consecutive possessions that turned a relatively close game -- the Browns trailed by just 24-14 early in the second half -- into a 45-14 deficit in just a half hour.

It's feast or famine with Flacco. There is no gray area here. 

Sure loved the way he played pitch and catch with receivers. The great timing, the tight spirals. Sensational with his play-fake and bootleg games. Enjoyed all those 300+ yard games. Not bad for an old codger. Glad he signed with the Browns even though he played mostly for the dreaded Ravens in his career. 

It was a ten strike. Got the Browns to the doorstep of the postseason. Didn't see that coming once Deshaun Watson hit injured reserve. 

But you hated it -- how often did you shake your head head in frustration? -- when the picks started to pile up. It took a while to find out that's the way he comes packaged. Learn to live with it if there's going to be a next season for him in Cleveland.

And will there be? Head coach Kevin Stefanski pawned that one off on Berry. "I leave all those things obviously to Andrew in this offseason," he said. "I will say this about Joe. He was awesome for this team. He did a great job. Battled like crazy. I know he enjoyed it."

But when he spoke to the media Sunday, he reportedly named Watson as his starting quarterback next season."He's doing great in rehab," he said. "I'm confident he'll be ready to roll. 

How that impacts on Flacco is uncertain. He will be a free agent in a few months and in a position at that time to decide whether to remain with the Browns as a backup to Watson or accept an offer from a team willing to give him another shot at starting. After what he did his season, the guess here is he's gone.

Watson still has three guaranteed years left on his pricy five-year contract. He spent most of this past season idled by a variety of shoulder issues. He started six games, winning five, completed 61.4% of his passes for 1,115 yards with seven touchdown passes and four interceptions.

Right now, the Browns need to focus their attention of figuring out how and why the defense did not show up against the Texans. The secondary played as though they had no clue. Texans receivers were open -- sometimes wide open -- most of the afternoon.

The defensive line, where the pass rush ostensibly begins, didn't help by playing patty-cake with the Houston offensive line. They booked just one hit on Houston quarterback C. J. Stroud by Za'Darius Smith. 

Based on how this season concluded, a lot of work remains. Welcoming back the likes of Nick Chubb, Jack Conklin, Dawand Jones, Anthony Walker Jr., Grant Delpit, Maurice Hurst II, Jedrick Wills Jr. and Rodney McLeod Jr. off injured reserve would be a good start.