Losing the hard way

Kevin Stefanski is a straight shooter. When something goes wrong, the Browns' head coach is the first to admit it. "That's on me," he says. And he has said it several times this young season.

I'll say it for him this time. The 23-20 loss in Atlanta to the Falcons Sunday lies squarely atop the shoulders of an Ivy League graduate who gulped numerous stupid pills en route to what should have been victory number three. Yep, this one's on him.

Victories in the National Football League are precious. You have only 17 opportunities to win games. So you better win them when you play well enough to win. But when the head coach and playcaller for the offense screws up, victories become losses.

Stefanski has been head coach of the Browns  for a little more than two seasons. One would think he would know by now you never leave points on the field when you're that close to putting points on the board. Don't waste good opportunities.

He seems to be a different playcaller the closer his offense gets to the goal line. That offense on three occasions was within five yards of the Atlanta end zone Sunday. Three touchdowns seemed imminent. Until Stefanski reached for the stupid pills.

The result was only 10 points when common-sense coaching would have resulted in at least 17 points and no concerns about another blown coverage in the secondary that gave the Falcons life when it appeared it  was on the verge of another clean game.

What happened on the game's opening drive sort of foretold what would happen about three hours later. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett moved his offense to the Atlanta three-yard line, highlighted by 45 yards of passes to tight end David Njoku, but the drive bogged down. 

That's when Stefanski swallowed his first stupid pill, going for it on fourth down and failing badly when Jacoby had no one to throw to in the end zone. Analytics undoubtedly dictated the call. Common sense would have preferred a chip-shot Cade York field goal. There's three points.

Two possessions later, jackpot when Brissett capped a 16-play, 75-yard drive with a scrambling, rumbling four-yard run on third down that seemed more like 20 yards. No decision making from Stefanski required here.

Here's where it begins to get a little maddening. On the next possession, this one a 13-play journey, the Browns wound up at the Atlanta one-yard line on a gorgeous pass from Brissett, who dropped a 42-yard dime into the outstretched hands of Donovan People-Jones as he fought bright sunlight to make a terrific catch.

Time for the Browns' outstanding, league-leading ground game to finish it off, right? Think stupid pills. Nick Chubb, who later on romped 28 yards to give the Browns a 20-17 lead with about 10 minutes left in regulation, ran behind a jumbo formation (seven offensive linemen), but was stacked for no gain on the first attempt.

Okay, why not try it again with the NFL's leading rusher? Makes sense. Think pills. Instead of handing off to Chubb again, Brissett dropped back, but failed to connect with Njoku. A completion wouldn't have counted, anyway. Right guard Wyatt Teller was detected holding. 

If it had been a running play, Chubb probably scores, Teller probably delivers the key block cleanly and no penalty flags fly. Two incomplete passes later, York kicked a 29-yard field goal to achieve the halftime 10-10 tie. That's four more points.

Why even throw in that situation when the Falcons' defense was beginning to wear down?  Run Chubb or Kareem Hunt. They're the best running tandem in the NFL for a reason. 

The defense, operating with a young, relatively inexperienced short-handed line due to injuries, benefited from the offense's domination and shut down the Atlanta offense in the first half with only 120 yards from scrimmage, just 31 on the ground.

The Falcons' only touchdown, a Cordarrelle Patterson 13-yard run, followed the first of the Browns' two turnovers late in the first quarter, a Njoku fumble. Marcus Mariota, who connected only seven of his 19 passes, was in the midst of a miserable afternoon.

The offense dominated the first 30 minutes, owning the football for 20 minutes and 34 seconds. And yet,  only 10 points. 

Then Stefanski made the mistake in the second half of putting the game in the hands of a journeyman quarterback even as his ground game was slicing and dicing the Atlanta defense. Brissett is not a game-changing quarterback. He is a game manager. Period.

The head coach must have fallen in love with the Brissett-DPJ connection in the first half and dialed up 16 more passes in the second half, but his quarterback connected on just half of them for only 65 yards. The Falcons, notably cornerback A. J. Terrell took away his favorite receiver. Amari Cooper, coming off two straight 100-yard games, was held to one catch for nine yards on four targets.

The game changed dramatically when the Falcons, after back-to-back three-and-outs to start the second half, decided to ram the football down  the throats of the young and inexperienced Cleveland defensive line since Mariota wasn't helping, It worked.

Mariota became a facilitator as running backs Caleb Huntley, fresh off the practice squad, and Tyler Allgeier, combined to rip off the 75 yards on the ground bridging the third and fourth quarters in a stunning display of bully football. Huntley carried eight times for 54 yards and the touch for a 17-13 lead. The Falcons offense tacked on 171 more infantry yards in the final 30 minutes to wind up with 202

The Chubb touchdown early in the fourth quarter and the first of Younghoe Koo's two field goals squared the score at 20-20 halfway through the final quarter. And that's when the dreaded blown coverage struck again for the fourth time this season.

A pretty good afternoon of pass coverage was wiped out when Mariota, on a desperate heave from his goal line, found wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus all alone at the Atlanta 32. And I mean all alone. No member of the Cleveland secondary was within 20 yards. 

To make matters worse, 15 more yards were tacked on to the 42-yard play when cornerback Denzel Ward corralled him by his face mask, making it a 57-yard swing. Can't blame that on Stefanski. That's Joe Woods territory. Koo's second field goal untied it with 2:25 remaining.

Working with no timeouts, the Browns managed to get to the Atlanta 41 with a minute and a half left and with York warming up on the bench, thoughts of the season opener wafting in the air. A Brissett sack, the only one of the afternoon, and an interception, ditto, closed it out as the Browns now enter a brutal seven-game stretch at 2-2.

Would all that have occurred had Stefanski just taken the points and not turned greedy at the goal line? We'll never know.