A new kind of ugly

It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be as the Browns maintained their resuscitation stage with regard to the National Football League playoffs.

They are sill breathing with nothing more than a smattering of hope – and technically not quite out of contention – after knocking off the Cincinnati Bengals, 27-19, Sunday for their fourth straight home victory after an 0-3 start.

Too many circumstances have to eventuate in the next three weeks for the Browns to qualify for the postseason, just about all of them way too complicated to delineate right now.

The simplest road there is paved with perfection. In other words, they need to win out in the next three weeks at Arizona, home to Baltimore and at Cincinnati and then kick it into prayer mode. One stumble and the 2020 season comes into focus.

Sunday’s victory was splashed with a little bit of luck, some strange play calling by both coaches, a couple of unusual decisions on challenged calls and three lengthy, time-consuming possessions in the second half, two by Cincinnati.

The Browns did not play like a team with visions of the postseason dancing in their heads. They were hit and miss on offense and the porous defense allowed the meek Bengals 451 total yards.

Even though they were just 3 for 12 on third down, the visitors owned the football for 34½ minutes, ran 72 plays to the Browns’ 52 and rang up 27 first downs while the defense picked off Cleveland quarterback Baker Mayfield twice.

Bengals running back Joe Mixon shredded the Cleveland defense with 146 yards (40 more through the air) and quarterback Andy Dalton torched the secondary for 262 yards.

The Cincinnati offense did everything right except score touchdowns. Just one, by Mixon early in the second quarter after Jessie Bates picked off Mayfield. Bates probably would have had a second interception on the Bengals’ first possession of the second half.

The Browns had taken a 21-13 lead on a Denzel Ward 61-yard pick 6 in the first quarter, a seven-yard Mayfield scramble for a score in the second quarter and a three-yard Kareem Hunt scoring run to open the second half when the Bengals methodically reached the Cleveland two after 12 plays.

Cincinnati coach Zac Taylor then went full Freddie Kitchens and called three straight pass plays with Mixon on the bench. Dalton was sacked by Bryan Cox Jr. on the first and followed with a couple of incompletions,

A Randy Bullock field made certain it was not totally fruitless. Otherwise, the placekicker was the entire Cincinnati offense, booting field goals from 34, 44, 28 and 46 yards.

The Bengals, who won their first game of the season a week ago against the New York Jets, followed that up on the next possession with an eight-minute drive that reached the Cleveland four after 15 plays and died when Dalton, who had earlier converted a third down on a draw play, tried it again and was stopped at the two.

The Cincinnati offense had spun its wheels in consecutive possessions in the second half to the tune of 32 plays, 150 yards and 15 minutes and 33 seconds off the clock for just the three points.

The Browns caught a huge break after Bates’ second pick off a deflection deep in Cleveland territory late in the fourth quarter. Because it was a change of possession, the play went to an automatic replay review. And this is where it got real interesting.

Referee Carl Cheffers and those who watched the play in New York determined that Cincinnati cornerback William Jackson III had interfered with Odell Beckham Jr. on the third-and-5 play at the Cleveland 18 and overturned the original call, one of the few times this season defensive pass interference was determined by replay.

It enabled the Browns to maintain possession and resume what turned out to be a 14-play, 85-yard, six-minute drive that culminated with Austin Seibert’s second field goal of the game to make it a two-possession game at 27-16. Those are the kind of breaks the Browns rarely receive.

The Browns played the first half as though the running game was an afterthought. Nick Chubb, the NFL’s leading rusher, carried the football only three times for seven yards. THREE TIMES!!

That, it appears, is the way the mind of Freddie Kitchens seems to work. He appears so fixated with throwing the football, he often forgets there are other aspects to the offense. There is no rhyme or reason to the flow of that offense under his direction.

His brain cramps, on the verge of becoming legendary in a short period of time, lasted until the third quarter when he remembered he coached the league’s leading rusher.

He called Chubb’s number, finally, a dozen more times for 99 yards, including a dazzling, four-tackle-breaking, 57-yard romp that set up Hunt’s touchdowns in the third quarter.

Kitchens did it again just before Hunt’s scoring run at the beginning of the second half. On the first play after Chubb’s serpentine journey through the Cincinnati defense, he called a pass play. Yep, a pass play.

After Mayfield’s short pass to tight end David Njoku fell incomplete, Hunt found the end zone. Six plays . . . 75 yards, . . . all on the ground.

Yes, it was a victory. But it had flaws on both sides of the football. The defense played soft. The rhythm of the offense was AWOL. It seemed like an effort, especially on defense, that would have resulted in a loss to just about any team other than the 1-12 Bengals.