Most impressive

Did you see that coming? Neither did I. And neither did the Cincinnati Bengals, who were thoroughly manhandled, dismantled and dominated by the Browns Sunday in the season opener by the lakefront, a 24-3 walloping that was a whole lot worse than the final score indicates.

This was overwhelmingly a 60-minute clinic conducted on domination by a superbly-prepared team in all three phases of the game, most notably by a smothering defense that played hair-on-fire football all afternoon. The Cincinnati offense looked like a punch-drunk fighter who had no idea where he was.

There was no way the Browns were going to come even close to losing this one. Those "wait, they'll find a way to screw things up and lose" moments never arrived. Never came close. It was a classic example of  imposing their will on the Bengals.

It was as near a perfect afternoon of football by the Browns as you can imagine. Just about everything worked. There were no threatening moments that in the past have brought misery to this fan base. Everyone did his job.

So how dominating was the Cleveland defense? Limiting one of the National Football League's best offenses to just three points is a feat in and of itself. And the numbers get even more startlingly impressive.

The Bengals owned the football on 13 occasions, 10 of which ended in a Brad Robbins punt. Dwell in that for a moment. Seven possessions were of the three-and-out variety. Dwell on. Drives were over seemingly before they got started. Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow looked dazed and clueless.

Jim Schwartz's defense was ubiquitous. They arrived in the close proximity of the football with stunning quickness. The tackling was solid. The pass rush was fierce and in the face of Burrow, who was often forced to deliver the ball before he wanted.

He booked a career-low 82 yards on a 14-for-32 misty-rain afternoon as his record against Cleveland fell to 1-5. Ja'Marr Chase, Tyler Boyd and Tee Higgins, the outstanding trio of Bengals wide receivers, were shut down all day by a relentless Cleveland secondary. They were targeted 20 times with only seven connections totaling 49 yards. Higgins amazingly was blanked on his eight targets.

The Bengals had only six first downs (still dwelling?), gained 142 yards from scrimmage  -- this an offense capable of gaining that kind of yardage in a quarter -- and had the football for just 24 minutes. Thorough might be understating it. How about 2-for-15 on third down?

The Browns also won the field-position battle, punter Corey Bojorquez's booming first-half punts pinning the Bengals offense dangerously close to their goal line. The closest they got to the Browns' goal line was the 24-yard line on their first possession of the second half. It set up the only Bengals points of the afternoon, a 42-yard Evan McPherson field goal.

The Cleveland offense, meanwhile, threatened on a couple of occasions in the first half before finally putting points on the board early in the second quarter on the first of three Dustin Hopkins field goals, this one a 42-yarder right down the middle. Subsequent attempts from 34 and 43 were equally true.

Deshaun Watson showed very little of the fireworks he predicted, completing just half of his 20 throws for 85 yards in the first half, winding up 16-of-29 for 154 yards. But he made up for it with a brilliantly-conceived -- and executed -- 13-yard scoring run in the final seconds of the first half.

With trips right on second and 10, running back Jerome Ford joined them to form a diamond-shaped formation. Watson took the shotgun snap and immediately headed in the opposite direction, picked up blocks from Wyatt Teller and Amari Cooper and dove into the end zone.

They also had the luxury of spending a lot of time in Bengals territory, running 36 of their 72 snaps on that side of the 50. The 10-0 halftime margin was never in jeopardy, as it turned out, because Schwartz's army turned it on even more in the final 30 minutes. 

The frustration Bengals head coach Zac Taylor must have been experiencing evidently pushed him to commit a serious blunder by going for it on fourth and four at his 31-yard line with about 11 minutes left in the final quarter and trailing by just 16-3. The Browns apparently took it personally.

Myles Garrett, who played every position on the defensive line at one time or another, dropped Burrow for a 13-yard loss, gift-wrapping the final touchdown of the afternoon. After Nick Chubb, who pounded out 106 yards on 18 carries, gouged out 15 of those yards, Watson's short connection with tight end Harrison Bryant from the three put the game out of reach. Watson successfully sneaked the two-point try.

After a performance like this, it's time to play it's-only-one-game time. Does this type of performance engender thoughts of being comfortable enough to expect this kind of football for the next 16 games? Really?

Naysayers will argue this was an aberration. Won't happen again. Enjoy it while you can. Considering the history of this team over the last 25 years, that's a good argument.

Yes, it was only one game. But what a game it was as the Browns thumbed their collective noses at what had become an opening-game disaster since 1999. They genuinely and refreshingly looked like a very good football team for 60 minutes.

But an aberration? I'm not quite ready to go that far yet. It's going to take similar performances a week from Monday night in Pittsburgh and the next two home games against Tennessee and Baltimore to convince me to believe what I saw against the Bengals was anything but.