Throwback football

It was the kind of a football game no one saw coming. Absolutely no one. Not the pundits. Not the beat writers in their respective cities. Not even the oddsmakers. 

After all, the Browns and Houston Texans Sunday battle by the really, really, really breezy afternoon next to an angry great lake featured teams with very good offenses and awful defenses. That usually winds up in 42-35 type games.

The experts who determine the odds thought so, too. The over/under, clearly laughable in retrospect, was 47.5 points. And why not? The Browns entered the game averaging nearly 26 points a game and allowing 30.5; the Texans averaged 24 on offense and 30 on defense.

Running back Nick Chubb, tight end Austin Hooper and right guard Wyatt Teller, key players in the Cleveland offense, escaped the injured list and were ready to roll to help an offense that had staggered in their absence.

After late-arriving thunderstorms, replete with several magnificent lightning bolts, showed up and delayed the start of the game for nearly 40 minutes, an offensive battle naturally loomed. The weather be damned. 

Bulletin: The weather won. So did the Browns.

But why did the final score only read Cleveland 10, Houston 7? That's not a National Football League score these days when offense generally rules the day. That's an anomaly.

And why was the score at the end of the first, second and third quarters Cleveland 3, Houston 0 on a 41-yard Cody Parkey field goal on the opening possession of the game? If you bet the over, you didn't have a chance. 

What happened to these solid offenses? And how in the world can any veteran NFL observer explain why only three points were scored through three quarters with these lousy defenses? 

Was this throwback Sunday on the lakefront? Was there a time warp and all of a sudden these teams were playing football more reminiscent of the middle of the 20th century?

Even Dick Stockton, who turns 78 in a week and has broadcast the NFL for more than four decades, was surprised the points weren't being scored more rapidly as he called the play-by-play for Fox Sports. He once referred to the venue as "Lakefront Stadium as they used to call it." 

Considering the dearth of scoring, he must have thought the old Browns, the ones of the 1950s and 1960s who now reside in Baltimore, were playing instead of the current Browns, who take a 6-3 record into next Sunday's home game against Philadelphia.

The blustery winds hampered Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was overthrowing open receivers throughout the afternoon. He never did adjust and flatten the trajectory of his throws. 

The teams latently discovered what the end zone looked like, finally exchanging touchdowns in the fourth quarter. 

Chubb climaxed a nine-play, 64-yard drive that began late in the third quarter and bolted untouched nine yards to score, cutting back at the five-yard line behind blocks by tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. and Hooper. It was the Browns' first touchdown on the ground since week four. Coincidentally, that's when Chubb suffered a sprained MCL.

The Texans answered with a 90-yard drive, ex-Browns tight end Pharaoh Brown hauling in a Watson scoring pass from 16 yards out with 4:59 left in regulation. At that point, it was as though the offense collectively saluted the work of the defense. "OK, guys, you've been great. We'll take it from here."And they did.

They did so with their worst starting position for a drive when rookie return man Donovan Peoples-Jones muffed the subsequent kickoff and then slipped at the Cleveland three-yard line. That's when Kareem Hunt came to the rescue. 

The running back carried the football 12 straight times for 67 yards during the club's final two possessions, many of those yards after contact. He wound up with 104 yards on 19 carries, converting a pair of third-down situations, teaming once again with Chubb to form the NFL's best running back tandem. 

Chubb relieved his spent teammate and finished the game in spectacular fashion, breaking free and racing down the left sideline, ostensibly to drive the final nail in the coffin. But with the Texans out of timeouts, he wisely stepped out of bounds at the Houston one after 59 yards, bringing his afternoon total to 126 yards on 19 carries.

Why give the Houston offense, which was just starting to click, another crack? Made no sense and Chubb knew it. Smart young man. A couple of Baker Mayfield kneeldowns ended it.

As for the wind, it can be argued, after the fact, of course, that it helped the Browns win this one after it steered Ka'imi Fairbairn's 46-yard field-goal attempt wide of the left upright shortly before the Browns launched their only touchdown drive of the afternoon.

And on this strange mid-November afternoon, the Browns learned they were one ingredient away from avoiding the loss to the Raiders a couple of Sundays ago. If Chubb had been healthy for that one, the loss  probably would not have occurred.  

So in the end, was it good defense and bad offense by both teams? The exact opposite of what the statistics said would happen. At this point, does it make any difference? Of course not.