Monday leftovers

When the Browns hired Norv Turner and Ray Horton as their coordinators shortly after Rob Chudzinski was anointed head coach, their appointments elicited excitement around the Browns Global Network. (Of course it’s fictitious, but it works here.)

Finally, many fans believed, a pair of guys who know what winning was all about. Finally, two guys who would bring not only respectability to the Browns on both sides of the ball, they would inject a competitive spirit.

So why, then, are the Browns 4-11 at this point of the season? Why are they, for the umpteenth time, one of the laughingstocks of the National Football League? What in the hell happened?

Here we are on the precipice of the final week of the season and the Browns are no better now than they were when we all got excited at the beginning of the 2013 season. Of course, that excitement was generated by a natural feeling we all get when every NFL team is 0-0.

Turner was finally going to bring an offensive approach to the team we haven’t seen since, well, never since the big resurrection in 1999. Except, arguably, the 2007 team that racked up a lot of points but fell just short of the playoffs.

Since then, it has been an offensive desert for Cleveland offenses. The Browns have wandered around trying to become a force when they own the ball. So when Turner, whose reputation as an offensive guru preceded his appointment, arrived on the scene, big things were expected.

Same with Horton, whose defensive philosophy mirrored that of his mentor, famed Pittsburgh Steelers defensive guru Dick LeBeau. Gone was the frustrating bend-but-don’t-break approach, replaced by a creative bent that highlighted an aggressive, belligerent, nasty tone.

And what did we receive? Bad football. Embarrassing football. Frustrating football. More of the same kind of football we have witnessed for way too long. Six straight seasons of 10-plus losses. Totally and unequivocally unacceptable.

What in the world happened? Why has Turner’s offense turned into a pass-happy circus with nothing more than a shrug given the running game? Why has Horton’s defense surrendered more points than the last two teams under former coordinator Dick Jauron?

Is it the personnel? Is it the coaching? Or is it a combination of the two?

Yes, yes and yes.

A microcosm of the Cleveland offense this season was extremely evident on the team’s third possession in the 24-13 road loss to the New York Jets Sunday. After settling for a field goal on the previous series after stalling at the Jets’ 7-yard line, coach Rob Chudzinski brazenly (and correctly) disdained the three points when the offense stalled again, this time at the New York 2.

First and goal at the 2. Three plays (a run and two passes) netted nary an inch. Quarterback Jason Campbell never saw a wide open Gary Barnidge waving frantically in the back of the end zone on second down and Josh Gordon couldn’t hang on to a quick hitch pass on third down.

The frustration mounting, Chudzinski made up his mind to gamble on fourth down. It was as though said, “I don’t care how we do it. This team is going to score a touchdown here damn it.” And who could blame him?

You’re 4-10. What have you got to lose? Another game? At this juncture, what difference does it make? Does 5-10 look that much better than 4-11? So what does Turner call? The most obvious play in the playbook, the fade to Gordon in the corner. Just about everyone knew that was coming.

The fade is a play that requires touch and perfection. Campbell does not throw that pass well and yet here was Turner calling for it. The veteran quarterback heaved it just far enough where Gordon struggled to haul it in and stay in bounds and juggled it.

All season long, the Browns have struggled in the red zone on both sides of the ball. They kick field goals when touchdowns are required. The defense gives up touchdowns when holding the opposition to field goals is paramount. The red-zone O and D are killing the Browns.

It became readily apparent in the Jets loss that Horton’s defense is tired. It is worn down. It is dragging. The spunk and spark that were there in the first 12 games are gone. The third-down defense is a joke.

It’s almost as though some of the players on defense are beginning to mail in their games with so little to gain now that the season has been flushed down the toilet. If they are not, then this defense is worse than I thought.

The 2013 season has become a total team failure. Fingers of guilt should be pointed directly at the coaching staff. It is now apparent that 4-11, soon to be 4-12, is an accurate barometer of where this team stands. It is an abject failure very few observers saw coming.

~ There is no other way to put it. Greg Little is a running back trapped in a wide receiver’s body. He is not an NFL caliber wide receiver. He has hands constructed of concrete. Throwing him a football is always an adventure.

No one knows whether he will catch it or watch it clank off his hands of stone as it did on the Browns’ second series of the Jets game when he dropped a touchdown pass. When he does catch it and take off on one of his dazzling runs, it makes skeptics wonder what he’d be like if his talent ever caught up to his will to succeed.

Little is a natural running back. You can see that on the runs he makes after catching the ball. He came out of Hillside High School in Durham, N. C., as a tailback. In his junior season, he ran the ball 160 times for 1,166 yards and 26 touchdowns.

At the University of North Carolina, he switched to receiver in his junior (and last) season. As a running back for the Tar Heels, he carried the ball 137 times in two seasons, running for 639 yards and five touchdowns. At 6-2, 220 pounds, he’s got the size and speed to become a force at a position of need.

Based on what we’ve seen from Little at wide receiver thus far in three seasons, there is no question his professional career will be brief if the Browns or any future team continue to play him there.

~ When Edwin Baker barreled into the end zone in the second quarter against the Jets, he became the first Cleveland running back to score a rushing touchdown on the road this season. It should have not been allowed. Left tackle Joe Thomas was holding on the play, but was not flagged. OK, I’m a killjoy.

I like Baker’s running style. He’s shifty, quick to the hole, keeps his feet moving and has good vision. He twice bounced an inside run outside and gained extra yardage because the original hole had disappeared. Chudzinski obviously wanted to see more of the newcomer – he had 17 carries for 64 yards – and had to like what he saw.

~ Notebook: For the second straight week, Campbell was way off with his throws. Maybe he can blame it on the emotional loss to Chicago last Sunday (sarcasm deliberate). He blamed the Bears’ loss to the emotional letdown after losing to New England two Sundays ago. Wonder what he’ll blame this Sunday’s loss to Pittsburgh on. . . . The Browns generated just 134 yards of offense in the second half against the Jets . . .  Yep, the Ed Reed who picked off the second of Campbell two interceptions is the same guy who bedeviled the Browns for all those seasons in Baltimore. Well on the downside of what most likely is a Hall of Fame career, Reed has 11 of his 62 career interceptions in 22 games against Cleveland. . . . It was interesting to watch Jets coach Rex Ryan enjoy his victory. The way he reacted, one might think he had won an important game. All he did was beat a 4-10 team. 

The kindred spirit syndrome

Rob Chudzinski now knows how Pat Shurmur felt. And Eric Mangini. And Romeo Crennel. And Butch Davis. And Chris Palmer.

He is a kindred spirit with all of the above. And that’s not something of which to be proud.

The current Browns head coach now knows how positively awful it feels to coach a professional football team that makes a date with disaster at the beginning of each National Football League season and keeps it.

Chudzinski, who grew up a Browns fan in Toledo, wanted to be the head man for his boyhood team. He knew the dismal history of this team since the resurrection in 1999 and still wanted to coach it.

As the saying goes, be very careful what you wish for. In this case, Chudzinski had no idea it would be this bad after watching his team drop a 24-13 decision to the New York Jets Sunday in New Jersey. It was the club’s sixth straight loss, ninth in the last 10 games and lowered the season record to 4-11.

Being such a diehard Browns fan, Chudzinski must be feeling the agony and frustration and hopelessness Browns Nation feels after yet another loss. It must be even more frustrating and upsetting for the coach since he is in a position to do something about it.

Just a few days ago, he talked about a plan the club has for the future, a plan that evoked optimism. “I believe in our plan and that’s a long-term plan for sustained success,” he told the media.

Only one problem, coach. In order to sustain success, you first must achieve success. And the Browns right now are light years away from being even close to that station in life, especially when you take into account the way your team played the final 41 minutes of the game Sunday.

Just when fans thought the season couldn’t get any worse, it did against the Jets. And once again, a gigantic second-half collapse by the defense paved the way against a team that has struggled on offense most of the season.

The rapidly fading Cleveland defense actually made Jets quarterback Geno Smith look like a veteran, not the mistake-prone rookie he has become this season. Made him look like a Pro Bowler. That’s not easy considering how poorly his season has gone entering this game.

Smith had thrown only 10 touchdown passes and a frightful 21 interceptions in his first 14 games. But let us not forget these are the Cleveland Browns, who work hard and diligently at perfecting the art of blowing leads and eventually losing games.

Smith threw two scoring passes to wide receiver David Nelson – yes, the same David Nelson who went to training champ with the Browns and then was cut before the season began – and scrambled for a third score.

As for padding his number of interceptions, he didn’t even come close as the vaunted (sarcasm dripping out of control) Cleveland pass rush produced another zero-sack afternoon and afforded him all the time he needed to complete his passes. 

The Browns actually had a 10-0 lead in this one. Yes they did, courtesy, in part, of a special teams brain fart by the Jets, whose fake punt on their first possession of the game wound up as an incomplete pass. The Browns began their second drive of the afternoon at the Jets’ 43.

Thirteen plays and just 34 yards later, Billy Cundiff kicked the first of his two field goals. Right then and there, Browns fans should have known it would be a long afternoon for the offense.

On the very next drive, the Browns needed 11 plays to march 74 yards down to Jets’ 2 with the help of roughing-the-passer and unsportsmanlike penalties on the Jets. An Edwin Baker run and two pass plays gained zip and Chudzinski was in no mood for another Cundiff field goal on fourth down.

Norv Turner called for a fade to Josh Gordon in the left corner. The normally reliable Gordon, who had trouble holding on to passes all afternoon, juggled the football as he went out of bounds. 

All that work and no points to show for it. If the Browns don’t lead the NFL in squandering opportunities in the red zone, they must be awfully close to the top.

The game turned out to be a battle of red-zone proficiency and that’s why the Jets prevailed. The Browns made four trips to -- and ran 20 plays in -- the red area and came away with a touchdown (a Davis 5-yard run in the second quarter) and the two field goals. That’s 13 points out of a possible 28.

The Jets entered the red zone three times all afternoon, ran 10 plays there and scored three touchdowns. That’s 21 points out of, hmmmm, why that’s 21 points. When the awful New York Jets offense takes maximum advantage of all of its opportunities in the red area, you are just as bad as they are. Maybe worse.

These were the same Jets whose offense was so bad in the first half, they didn’t run their first play in Cleveland territory until their fourth possession with about four minutes remaining in the second quarter.

At that point, the Browns' defense was in the process of collapsing ingloriously as the Jets subsequently rattled off one 13-play and a pair of 14-play scoring drives totaling 251 yards as the gassed Browns defenders offered absolutely no resistance.

During those three drives, that defense had the Jets in a third-down situation a staggering 10 times. Ten opportunities to get off the field. Ten opportunities to give its offense a chance to awake from its slumber. Ten opportunities . . . aw, forget it.

The Jets converted all 10. That is not a misprint. That is just plain bad defense.

The conversions ranged from third and 1 to third and 10, third and 12 and third and 13. Each time Ray Horton’s defense was asked to deliver, it failed miserably. It was almost as though no matter what the third-down yardage, it was advantage Jets.

How can any team win when the defense, for all practical purposes, shuts down? Don’t answer. That’s a rhetorical question.

Failure to score touchdowns in the red zone, failure to prevent the opposing team from scoring touchdowns in the red zone and failure to get off the field on third down is a prescription for, you guessed it, failure.

All season long, Horton has boasted about his defense and its ability to stop the run, or at least control it. Last Sunday, Chicago’s Matt Forte became the first 100-yard runner against Cleveland this season. Add Jets running back Chris Ivory to that list with his 109 yards. Overall, the Jets gouged the Browns for 208 yards on the ground and 422 total. So much for run defense dominance.

At one point early in the game, the Browns did play dominant football. They owned the ball more than 13 of the first 19 minutes. From that point on, the Jets took over, winning the time of possession battle, 27:03-14:14, the rest of the way.

Anyone who puts a positive spin on what happened Sunday in New Jersey is either dreaming or on drugs. And with Pittsburgh looming large next Sunday, there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news? It’s the Steelers . . . in Pittsburgh. The good news? It’s the final game of the season and the nightmare ends.

A coin-flipping dilemma

There are so many good reasons to pick the Browns to break their five-game losing streak Sunday in New Jersey against the New York Jets.

And there are a few good reasons to pick the Jets. More on that later.

So why pick the Browns? Because the Jets’ offense stinks. There is no other way to put it.

Think the Browns have problems when they own the ball? Compared to the Jets, their offense borders on championship caliber. At least they’ve got a couple of outstanding playmakers in Josh Gordon and Jordan Cameron.

The Jets have no one on whom they can rely. There isn’t a member of their offense who can stand up and say, “Follow me,” and be reasonably assured that will happen. On offense, the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jet, Jets are B-A-D-D, bad, bad, bad.

They have no quarterback – unless you consider rookie Geno Smith a quality National Football League quarterback – and that spells offensive disaster. Smith is a statistical nightmare.

He has thrown just 10 touchdown passes this season, connected on 21 other passes to the opposition and throws an interception every 18 attempts. He averages an anemic 189 yards a game.

Thrust into the starting position at the beginning of the season by coach Rex Ryan out of default, Smith has experienced growing pains unlike most rookie quarterbacks.

Mark Sanchez was ticketed to be the Jets’ starting quarterback, but fell into disfavor for some unknown reason and was relegated to the bench during the exhibition season. Smith, the club’s second-round selection in last April’s college football draft, was given every opportunity to win the starting job.

When Sanchez went down with what eventually turned out to be a season-ending shoulder injury in mop-up duty in an exhibition, Smith was anointed. And it has been a decidedly more difficult season than he envisioned.

Because of his generosity with his passes to the opposition, the club’s turnover ratio is an astounding minus 19. Five of Smith’s picks have been returned for touchdowns. That they are 6-8 entering the Browns’ game with stats like that is rather remarkable.

The Jets have scored 61% of their 246 points in five games, compiling a 4-1 record. They have lost only one game when scoring 27 or more points. When they score 20 or less, they are 2-7. And they have scored only 20 offensive touchdowns.

Their defense is on the field way more than it deserves to be. It is a testament to Ryan’s defensive staff that the Jets, who have lost four of their last five games, have a shot at finishing even on the season.

The only reason they are at 6-8 and the Browns slumming along at 4-10 is the Jets hold serve at home, where they are 5-2. The Browns finished 3-5 at the Factory of Sadness.

This is the kind of game the highly overrated and underperforming Cleveland defense has a solid shot at winning. Even if cornerback Joe Haden is unable to suit up, the Browns’ secondary should have no problem locating Smith’s passes.

And the Cleveland pass rush, which has operated on peaks and in valleys all season, should have no problem working against an offensive line that has surrendered 47 sacks in front of a quarterback who is supposed to be mobile.

Then again, when you consider Smith’s favorite targets are tight end Jeff Cumberland (tight ends have been a season-long problem with the Browns) and wide receivers Jeremy Kerley and David Nelson, how frightening is that? Cumberland and Kerley have caught seven of Smith’s 10 scoring throws.

So why pick the Jets when there is overwhelming evidence that the Browns really have to screw this one up to lose? Let’s start with the stronger side of the ball for the Jets.

Defensively, they are geared to stop the run, limiting opponents to just 86 yards a game. That’s good enough to be ranked near the top of the NFL. Considering how poorly the Browns have run the ball this season, this aspect of the game should be conceded to the Jets, although I’d like to see a lot more of newcomer Edwin Baker than we saw last Sunday.

If the Browns’ guards can get to the second level on running plays and neutralize inside linebackers David Harris and DeMario Davis, who have combined for 212 tackles this season, then maybe Baker and Willis McGahee can do something few teams have done all season against the Jets – move the ball infantry style.

But that’s a big if because that is something those guards have been unable to do this season. In small part, that’s one of the reasons the Browns’ running game is an embarrassment.

The entire Cleveland offensive line will have to be sharp, too. Jets defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson and outside linebacker Calvin Pace are constant threats to opposing quarterbacks. They own half of the club’s 38 sacks: Wilkerson with 10; Pace with nine.

You beat the Jets by throwing against a team that has picked off just eight passes. Considering how little Jason Campbell connected with Gordon and Cameron (iffy to play this Sunday due to concussion issues) last Sunday, look for more aerial fireworks their way.

If anything, there are more good reasons than not to pick the Browns in this one. And yet, there is the nagging feeling they do not play well on the road, although they sure looked formidable in New England a couple of weeks ago.

If that performance against the Patriots can be replicated against the Jets, the pick is easy. But if the Jets’ mastery at home trumps the Browns’ inability to win on the road, that’s an awfully persuasive argument to go the other way. This one looks like a coin flipper.

Considering it will be played in the venue that hosts this season’s Super Bowl, look at it this way. This might not be the Super Bowl for the Browns, but winning where it will be played is the next best thing. OK, that’s a stretch; a big stretch. And yes, I’m stalling.

The coin has landed on tails. The losing streak ends.  Make it:

Browns 17, Jets 13

Monday leftovers

There’s an excellent reason Jason Campbell is considered nothing more than a journeyman quarterback in the National Football League. And it was on display Sunday in the home finale against the Chicago Bears.

Consistency is the great separator when it comes to judging quarterbacks. The ability to play well on a consistent basis separates the wannabes from those who rise above others and excel. Campbell is a wannabe.

Playing well one or two games in a row means nothing if they are followed by games that make one wonder if this is the same quarterback.  Playing well occasionally doesn’t cut it. Eliminating those kinds of performances is something Campbell has been unable to do.

He plays just well enough to be called an NFL quarterback. One week, he will thrill you with a brilliant display of quarterbacking. The next week, he’ll make you scratch your head with a miserable performance.

And that, more than just about anything, is the clear definition of journeyman quarterback. He’s good enough to belong, but eventually he’ll break your heart and move on to another team that believes he belongs until he breaks that team’s heart.

That’s why the veteran has been with several NFL teams in his nine-year career. Cleveland is his fourth stop after stints in Washington, Oakland and Chicago. He’s good enough to hang on to just in case your starting quarterback goes down. We now know why the Redskins, Raiders and Bears let him go.

In examining Campbell’s career statistics, it’s easy to see why he’s 32-45 as a starter (he’s 1-5 with the Browns). He has thrown 86 touchdown passes and 57 interceptions in 84 total games.  That’s one touchdown a game.

Maybe that’s why Rob Chudzinski, no doubt lobbied hard by Mike Lombardi, chose third stringer Brian Hoyer over Campbell when Brandon Weeden suffered a concussion in the second game of the season in Baltimore.

And when Hoyer went down in game five, Weeden was brought back again only to fail again. That’s when Chudzinski had no choice but to turn to Campbell.

To be honest, Campbell has had a few good games for the Browns. And then he went out and played as though he is just learning how to play the position. He’s just good enough to rack up some nice totals, then exposes himself with games such as the one he unfurled against the Bears, for whom he played last season.

One would think playing against your ex-team might be enough motivation to take your game to a new level. After all, he was coming off maybe his best game of the season against New England the previous Sunday.

Rather than show off his strong arm against his ex-mates, Campbell became Captain Checkdown for the umpteenth time this season. Only 11 of his 39 passes were thrown 10 yards or more with just three completions. One was a 43-yard scoring bomb to Josh Gordon in garbage time.

Receivers were getting open in the Chicago secondary, but Campbell kept missing them if he wasn’t checking down. Many of his passes were off target. Now maybe the capricious winds off Lake Erie Sunday were a factor, but that didn’t stop Bears quarterback Jay Cutler from airing it out.

Cutler is a first-rate quarterback. Campbell is not. Never was.

Solid games, such as the ones he had against New England, Kansas City and the second Baltimore game, often lead to the notion that if he can do it in those games, he should be able to do it all the time. And that is where the great separator comes in.

So if you are asked what defines a journeyman quarterback in the NFL, all you have to do is point to Campbell as a perfect example. Good enough to hold a clipboard, but unreliable when called on to produce on the field on a consistent basis.

~ When Ray Horton was named the Browns’ defensive coordinator, most of us (me included) hailed the appointment. Finally, we believed, the dog days of bad defense were over. Passive football on that side of the ball was dead. Well . . . that hasn’t exactly been the case.

When the Bears roared to three fourth-quarter touchdowns in their come-from-behind victory Sunday, Horton’s reputation took a huge hit. It was almost as though his defense wasn’t on the field. In only 17 plays, the Bears racked up 21 points. The third-down and red-zone defense was embarrassing.

As pointed out here yesterday, the second- and fourth-quarter stats for the Cleveland defense in the last five games have been downright awful. Through 14 games, the defense has given up 130 points in the first and third quarters. In quarters two and four, that number jumps to 232. In other words, 64.1% of the 362 points the Browns have allowed this season were scored in the final 15 minutes of each half.

The defense’s net figure is 334 when factoring in the four touchdowns opposing teams’ defenses and special teams have scored this season. Last season, that defense allowed a net total of 347 points (368 total). In other words, this season’s defense will be statistically worse than last season’s unless, of course, the Browns can shut out the New York Jets and Pittsburgh in the final two games.

~ Paul Kruger surely has to feel at least a little bit guilty about stealing money from his employer. Well, maybe not stealing. Taking it under false pretenses might be a better way of putting it.

The outside linebacker, who burst onto the national stage with his post-season performances (13½ total sacks) with the Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens last season, was supposed to be the Browns’ best free-agent signing. He’ll fit in perfectly with Horton's defense, is what they said. That five-year, $41 million contract with $20 million guaranteed will be well worth it.

Through 14 games thus far, the pass rush specialist has 36 tackles (17 solo) and 4½ sacks. In Sunday’s loss to the Bears, the $41 million man checked in with no tackles and one quarterback hit. Played the entire game with no tackles. He is clearly the biggest disappointment on the team.

On second thought, maybe stealing is the correct verb here.

~ Notebook: Hard to believe, but T. J. Ward’s pick of a Cutler pass in the end zone on the first series of the game was the Browns’ first takeaway in the red zone in 10 games. . . . A thought: Greg Little is a running back masquerading as a wide receiver much like Joshua Cribbs when he was with the Browns. . . . Nice to see tight end MarQueis Gray, a college quarterback, run consecutive plays from the wildcat formation on the drive that led to the Browns’ first offensive touchdown in the third quarter. Two plays netted 30 yards and then he disappeared. Nice coaching. . . . Campbell targeted Gordon and Jordan Cameron 16 times and connected on just six passes. . . . Best players on the field on defense were Ward and Tashaun Gipson, the safeties. If Gipson times his leap better, Alshon Jeffery does not make that sensational TD catch on the first of the Bears’ three fourth-quarter scores. . . . Kudos to the offensive line, especially tackles Joe Thomas and Mitchell Schwartz, for keeping Campbell clean. . . . Offensive bust of the year: Davone Bess. . . . The Browns announced Sunday’s crowd as 71,513. Looked as though half were disguised as seats. 

Fourth-quarter blues . . . again

The Browns’ defense is an enigma. Just when you have it figured out, it goes in a completely different direction.

Take, for example, Sunday’s 38-31 loss to the Chicago Bears in the home finale.

The Cleveland defense, which produced 14 of those points by the way, came out in rip-roaring fashion at the beginning of both halves and virtually shut down the Bears’ offense.

Only seven Chicago points went up on the scoreboard in the first and third quarters. They came out of the dressing room ready to play even though the only thing they had to play for was pride and, to get sappy, the love of the game.

But when quarters two and four unfolded, that pride vanished. So did a pair of leads as the Bears unfolded 31 points. The inability to sustain a good start to a half is a malady that has plagued this defense during the team’s current five-game losing streak.

In those five games, the Cleveland defense has shut down the opposition with only 35 points in the first and third quarters. In quarters two and four, that figure zooms to 130 (64 in the second quarter, 66 in the final 15 minutes).

And you wonder why this team has lost five in a row and eight of its last nine? This is not an accident. It is not a trend. It has happened too often this season to become anything less than a huge problem that hasn’t yet been fixed.

Sunday’s loss is a perfect example of how this team falls almost completely apart when it matters the most. The fourth quarter was a microcosm of the extremely frustrating afternoon.

The Browns clung to a 24-17 lead at the end of three quarters mainly because of that defense. Safeties Tashaun Gipson (44-yard pick 6 in the second quarter) and T, J. Ward (51-yard fumble return for a touchdown in the third quarter) outscored the offense at that point.

In the fourth quarter, it was as though the Cleveland defense turned everything off and stopped playing, and the Bears’ offense could do no wrong. Welcome to the Browns’ fourth-quarter meltdown.

Three possessions, 17 plays, 209 yards and three touchdowns later, the Bears erased that seven-point deficit and turned it into a 14-point advantage. Just like that. It took just seven minutes and 56 seconds off the clock.

Quarterback Jay Cutler, playing his first game in a month after an ankle injury, shook off the rust after a rough beginning and connected with Earl Bennett and Alshon Jeffery to begin that fourth quarter, and Michael Bush put the bow on the victory with a 40-yard burst over right guard with 2:17 left.

Drives of 95, 36 (following a 21-yard punt return by Devin Hester that set up the Bears’ offense in Cleveland territory) and 78 yards were accomplished in ridiculously easy fashion as the Cleveland defense disappeared.

And it had no one to blame but itself. On the first drive, which began at the Cleveland 5, the first two plays were incomplete Cutler passes. But cornerback Leon McFadden was flagged for pass interference on the first and fellow corner Buster Skrine was nailed for illegal contact on the second. A 35-yard free gift from the Browns.

Four times on those drives, the Bears were in a third-down situation and four times, the Cleveland defense whiffed. For the afternoon, the Bears were 9-for-14 on third down.

While he did not get into the end zone, Chicago running back Matt Forte was a thorn all afternoon and became the first back to run for 100 or more yards (127 on 24 carries) against the normally stingy Cleveland run defense.

He picked up a significant amount of yardage on a misdirection counter pitch play where the flow went right and the two guards pulled backside and led him to sizable gains on four occasions.

So how did the Cleveland offense answer the three Chicago scores? With a three-and-out and a five-and out after the first two. On the three-and-out, the Browns were penalized on the first play of the drive for delay of game at their 14-yard line. A delay penalty on the first play of a drive?  What’s wrong here?

The offense, which had sputtered hopelessly most of the afternoon, looked nothing like the offense that gave the New England Patriots fits last Sunday. Jason Campbell had a terrible afternoon. His numbers (23-of-39 for 273 yards) were respectable, but also misleading.

Two of his passes wound up in the hands of Chicago cornerback Zack Bowman, who took the second one 43 yards to the end zone on the third play of the third quarter, and a couple of others were nearly picked off. He looked shaky and somewhat confused most of the afternoon.

It wasn’t as though the Bears’ defense harassed Campbell. He had time to throw and missed wide-open receivers. On a couple of occasions, his receivers either ran the wrong route or he threw where he shouldn’t have.

The running game, meanwhile, was its usual awful self against the worst run defense in the National Football League.

However, newcomer Edwin Baker ran well in his NFL debut. The 5-8, 200-pounder, who joined the team this week after being picked up off the Houston Texans practice squad, ran for 38 yards on eight carries. He ran hard and scored one of the two Cleveland offensive touchdowns.

The other was scored by Josh Gordon, a virtual no-show until he and Campbell hooked up on a 43-yard touchdown pass with a minute left in regulation and the Bears, who owned a two-touchdown lead at the time, loosening their coverage.

Once again, the running game failed to produce 100 yards (just 93). To give you some idea of how much faith the coaching staff has in this running game, that staff came up with a curious call when the Browns were in a third-and-1 situation at their 31 on the third series of the game in the second quarter.

Third-and-1 and Campbell lines up in the shotgun. That, right there, should tell you this staff has no faith whatsoever in this team’s ability to pick up a first down in a short-yardage situation. An incomplete pass later, Spencer Lanning punted.

Not certain whether that lack of faith lies with the offensive line or running backs. Probably both. Maybe someone should inform the Browns this is the NFL where the big boys play and third-and-1 calls for a big-boy play.

As the losses pile up and another 10-plus-loss season is a reality with this setback, one thing stands out: This team plays just well enough to lose.

As it sinks deeper and deeper into the sinkhole known as the basement of the AFC North, the last two games can’t come and go quickly enough.

Bearish on the Browns

Those of you who watched the Chicago Bears thump the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football this past Monday got a sneak preview of what the Browns’ defense will have to deal with Sunday in the home finale.

All the key elements in that victory will be in place for the Bears when they take the field against Cleveland. Except one.

Throughout this week, the Browns had no idea who would be under center for the Bears. Speculation centered on the return of Jay Cutler, who has missed the last several games with an ankle injury.

In Cutler’s absence, however, the Bears’ offense played at a such a high peak under Josh McCown, speculation was rampant that he would play at least one more game in order to allow Cutler to sufficiently heal.

And why not? Under McCown, the Bears’ offense has performed so well that many fans – and at least one ex-Bear great – strongly suggested that Bears coach Marc Trestman stick with his backup quarterback for at least one more game.

Retired Chicago linebacker Brian Urlacher called for Trestman to thumb his nose at conventional wisdom and keep the hottest quarterback in the National Football League right where he was. The coach didn’t listen.

Believing in the notion that a starter should never lose his job to injury, Trestman warned all week that “when (Cutler) is good and can have a full week of practice, he’ll be our quarterback.” He did not waver as Cutler did exactly that.

So Trestman is taking a quarterback who in six games this season has thrown for 1,747 yards, 13 touchdowns and one interception and is 3-2 as a starter and benching him.

In the last four games, McCown, whose younger brother, Luke, played momentarily for the Browns in 2004, has completed 70% of his 150 passes for 1.271 yards and nine touchdowns, run for another and compiled three straight 300-yard games.

That quarterback will be holding a clipboard against the Browns Sunday. And that, considering how quarterbacks have been ravaging the Cleveland defense lately, is a break. Cutler is having a so-so season with 13 touchdown passes and eight interceptions.

He has also placed the Bears in a unique position. He will be a free agent next season and the Bears very well could be using the final three games of the season as a stage to determine exactly what to do with him. They could (a) let him test the market, (b) slap a franchise tag on him or (c) sign him to a long-term contract.

In any event, Cutler, who is nearly four years younger than McCown at 30, gets the call against the Browns, a team he has faced once and defeated, 30-6, back in 2009.

That was when the Bears had a decent defense. This season, however, it’s the offense that has carried them to a 7-6 record and kept them in contention for the NFC North championship.

The defense, which has allowed 360 points (27.7 a game), surrenders 157 yards a game on the ground and another 225 a game through the air. It can be easily scored on, but it also can be lethal against the pass. The Chicago secondary has picked off 15 passes, returning five for scores.

Considering the Bears’ obvious weakness against the run, this game should tell us once and for all just where the Cleveland ground game stands. If it can’t generate anything against the NFL’s worst, then that speaks volumes on just what the club’s top priority should be in the next college football draft or free agency period.

If not for the Chicago offense, which has scored 332 of the team’s 368 points, there’s no telling how far out of the playoffs hunt they would be. There’s no question they  can move the ball. They didn’t punt once in the Dallas victory.

That offense features a trio of receivers who will give the smallish Cleveland secondary fits. With the likes of 6-4 Brandon Marshall, 6-3 Alshon Jeffery and 6-6 tight end Martellus Bennett on the receiving end of Cutler’s passes, that defensive backfield will be kept busy.

This trio has accounted for 212 receptions, 2,871 yards and 20 of the Bears’ 26 offensive touchdowns. Throw in the talents of running back Matt Forte and the Cleveland defense might face its sternest challenge of the season.

Whether he’s running the ball or catching it, Forte is the glue of this offense. He has touched the ball 299 times this season (including 65 pass receptions), totaling 1,591 yards and nine touchdowns, seven on the ground. He touches the ball 35.7% of the time and averages 5.32 yards per touch.

He presents a monumental problem for Browns inside linebackers D’Qwell Jackson and Craig Robertson, who also will be responsible for Bennett.

Trestman obviously believes Cutler will have no problem knocking off the rust following his lengthy absence. But will Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton gamble and employ the blitz coming off the bus against him in an effort to take advantage of his long layoff?

That’s about the only way the Cleveland defense can disrupt any rhythm Cutler hopes to establish. What do the Browns have to lose by resorting to this strategy on defense? Another loss? Big deal. They are 4-9 and headed for yet another double-digit loss season, anyway.

The season is drowning once again in losses, No reason to be passive. Same for the offense. Take advantage of the porous Chicago defense. Again, what do they have to lose? What’s the difference between 4-9 and 4-10?

Turn the J Crew – Jason Campbell, Josh Gordon and Jordan Cameron – loose. Have some fun. Maybe some of that will rub off on the defense. Then again, maybe not.

It’s so tempting to pick the Browns here with Cutler back for the Bears. But somehow I think the coaches won’t take advantage and will allow Cutler to WD-40 his way back into rhythm. However, the home finale will be highly entertaining for the fans from an offensive standpoint. Make it:

Bears 37, Browns 27

Monday leftovers

Normally, I’m not one to gripe about the officiating in a National Football League game.

As a general rule, I believe teams cost themselves more with mistakes than the mistakes of officials and thus have a tendency to even  out.

But if the officiating crew of referee Jerome Boger does not receive a stern rebuke from Dean Blandino and the rest of his NFL officiating office for their work in the Browns-New England Patriots game Sunday, something is wrong.

Boger and his men took the game out of the hands of the players with some bizarre late-game calls and virtually assured the Patriots that their unbeaten streak at home this season would remain intact.

The Browns had played a superb game until the final two minutes and 39 seconds of the game, even winning a couple of replay challenges by coach Rob Chudzinski on calls that were obvious to everyone except the officials.

To penalize the Browns – and that’s exactly what it was – with a couple of calls that should have been overlooked because they weren’t anywhere near being considered egregious to warrant a flag was an injustice that only further substantiates claims by conspiracy theorists that the NFL is fixed. (I don’t believe that to be the case.)

The Browns deserved to win the game. They outplayed the Patriots on both sides of the ball for the first 57½ minutes with a shocking (for them) display of solid football. They looked nothing like the team that had lost embarrassingly to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars seven days earlier.

They took on one of the premier teams in the league in their home stadium and outplayed them. They answered every Patriots challenge. Looking very unBrownslike, very little went wrong as they played their best game of the season.

To take that victory away from them was a miscarriage of justice. Yes, it’s only a game and in the grand scheme of life, this pales by comparison to other more important facets of every-day living.

But for the loyal following this club has maintained despite an incredibly long period of bad football, this was a blow that was much harder to take because the team deserved better. The players felt the same way.

“I have never been a part of a game like this,” said veteran Cleveland cornerback Joe Haden, who has had more than his share of misery as a member of this team. “This one hurts for real.”

Visceral feelings such as Haden’s emerge in games like this. Forget the blowout losses. Forget the close games that are lost because of stupid mistakes. And forget those games where the Browns arrived not ready to play.

This was one game where the Browns, in spite of a smaller talent quotient, played like the team with the larger talent quotient. Their David was beating up on Goliath. And still did not win.

The Patriots needed help. And it arrived in the form of Boger’s officiating crew, most notably the field judge. His name is not as important as the two calls he made that severely tilted the game in New England’s favor.

To call unnecessary roughness on Cleveland rookie cornerback Jordan Poyer for a shoulder-to-chest hit on Julian Edelman’s touchdown catch was bad enough. It showed that some officials have no clue in interpreting the difference between a clean hit and dirty hit. There’s an alarming inconsistency that needs to be addressed.

And then after the Patriots recovered the ensuing onsides kickoff (blame the Browns here for not executing better), that same official called pass interference on Leon McFadden, another Cleveland rookie corner, while hand-fighting wide receiver Josh Boyce into the end zone two plays later.

At best, that’s a no call because both men could have been flagged for interference. In that case, you swallow your whistle and keep your hand away from the yellow laundry.

Boger and his men also messed up a couple of grounding calls that would have penalized the Patriots. New England quarterback Tom Brady intentionally grounded three passes, but Boger penalized him only once. Brady successfully lobbied the referee out of flagging the other two.

As for the field judge, the NFL knows his name and hopefully will act accordingly. However, any admonition he and the rest of Boger’s crew receive will not reverse the final score. It will forever be recorded as a New England victory with no asterisks to indicate officiating incompetence.

It’s possible the league might send a note of apology to the Browns for that incompetence, but it would serve merely as salve for a wound that might take a while to heal.

~ Folks are running out of adjectives to describe Josh Gordon. The second-year Cleveland wide receiver now has the full attention of everyone in the league, including the media, which is belatedly extolling his accomplishments.

His remarkable performance the last four weeks is now part of the NFL record book. He became the first receiver in league history with four straight 100-yard games . And with Sunday’s 151-yard effort against the Patriots, he smashed the league record for most receiving yards in four consecutive games (774). In the last three games, that figure stands at 649 yards or 216.3 yards a game. Incredible.

On the season, he has 71 catches for 1,400 yards (127.3 a game) and eight touchdowns in just 11 games, and averages 19.7 yards a reception. He has seven games of at least 100 yards in those 11 outings. He was relatively shut down by Cincinnati, Buffalo, Green Bay and Baltimore.

Gordon is just a baby in terms of professional football growth. There is so much more he will learn as the game slows down for him and becomes easier. Right now, he’s relying on his enormous raw talent to put up some of these astounding numbers.

As he grows, the sophistication of the game will become more apparent to him. And if he’s as smart as I think he is, what he’s doing now will pale in comparison to what the future holds.

His biggest enemy is not an opposing defensive back. It’s his stage three status with regard to the NFL’s drug program. One slip is all it will take to remove all that wonderful talent from the league landscape and sit him down for a full season.

~ One Patriot the Browns didn’t pay nearly enough attention to was running back Shane Vereen. As it turned out, he was the piece that was missing as the Patriots stumbled around on offense in a scoreless first half.

It was obvious he was a large part of the Patriots’ second-half strategy since nothing else worked in the first 30 minutes against a Cleveland defense that blunted every New England effort.

Vereen touched the ball only three times (two passes and a run) in the first half. Halftime adjustments helped create 12 more opportunities (10 passes and a couple of runs) in the second half and the Browns couldn’t stop him. He was the key factor that got the Pats’ offense started.

Following Gordon’s 80-yard catch and run that gave the Browns a 19-3 lead late in the third quarter, Vereen was a one-man gang that enabled New England to get back in the game, figuring in all three plays as the Patriots negotiated 72 yards that took only 1:19 off the clock.

His 50-yard catch and run with a Tom Brady pass on the first play of the subsequent series triggered the drive. He caught a 16-yarder then that set up his TD on a six-yard draw play. Vereen wound up with 10 catches in the second half for 141 yards. The Browns never adjusted.

~ Red zone defense has been a problem most of the season for the Browns. Defensive coordinator Ray Horton is aware of it and probably harps on it on a daily basis.

Didn’t work against the Patriots, who didn’t reach that territory until late in the third quarter, when the Browns held and forced Stephen Gostkowski to kick a 33-yard field goal. The next three trips resulted in touchdowns. The last one was made easy with the McFadden interference call that placed the ball on the 1-yard line.

~ Notebook: When a team leads the turnover battle and time of possession, odds are that team wins the game. Not so Sunday. The Browns forced two turnovers and had none, and had a 31:40-28:20 edge in owning the ball. . . . Nice to see that Paul Kruger is still on the team. The linebacker played his best game of the season against the Patriots with a couple of sacks – he had only 2½ in the first 13 games – a couple of quarterback hits, forced a fumble, batted down one pass and hurried Brady on several other occasions. . . . Other solid performances were turned in by D’Qwell Jackson with a pick , T. J. Ward and nose tackle Phil Taylor. . . . Brady was 7-of-19 for 95 yards in the first half; 25-of-33 for 323 yards in the second half. . . . The Browns need a kick returner. They really miss Travis Benjamin. 

Jinx? What jinx? Oh that jinx

Yes, Browns fans, your team does lead the National Football League in one category: Creative ways to lose football games.

Take Sunday’s 27-26 loss to the New England Patriots in Foxboro, Mass., for example.

The Browns owned a 26-14 lead with two minutes and 39 seconds left and looking every bit like the winning team.

Up to that point, they had actually outplayed the Patriots, making Tom Brady look, at times, more like Brandon Weeden than the future Hall of Fame quarterback he is certain to be when he decides to retire.

To Browns fans, though, two minutes and 39 seconds seem like an eternity even with a 12-point lead. That’s the nature of being a fan of this team.

Over the past 14 seasons, or since the resurrection in 1999, no lead is safe until the clock numbers are 0:00 and the scoreboard says the Browns have scored more points than the opposition.

Too many times, the impossible has become the possible and a victory has become a loss. Add Sunday’s loss to the Patriots as the latest iteration.

It never ceases to amaze how this franchise can turn winning into losing. It’s almost enough to cause even those who don’t believe in them to think this franchise is, indeed, jinxed. In this case, it was the Factory of Sadness, northeast sector.

All the Browns had to do was recover an onsides kick by New England after the Patriots cut the Cleveland lead to 26-21 with about a minute left in regulation when Julian Edelman scored on a two-yard scoring pass from Brady.

But rookie defensive back Jordan Poyer was flagged for hitting a defenseless receiver (Edelman), the penalty assessed on the ensuing kickoff. (I still don’t understand why the man who scored the touchdown was a defenseless receiver.) That meant the Pats kicked off from midfield instead of their 35.

They hadn’t had a successful onsides kick since a AFC wild-card game in January 1995 against, you guessed it, the Browns, coached then by Bill Belichick. The Browns won that game, 20-13, in Cleveland.

Sunday, the Cleveland hands team lined up at the 40-yard line for the obvious onsides effort. These are the guys deemed to have the best and surest hands on the team. But don’t forget, these are the Cleveland Browns.

Stephen Gostkowski’s onside effort seemed to travel toward the Cleveland defenders in slow motion. It headed right for Cleveland running back Fozzy Whittaker. All he had to do was fall on the ball at the Cleveland 40 and the game would have been over because the Patriots were out of timeouts.

Make a play. Validate and punctuate with an exclamation point the team’s performance against one of the NFL’s best teams on their home turf. This was a game the Browns absolutely deserved to win because they played well enough to win.

Instead, and this is where the jinx or curse or whatever you want to call it, kicked in. Whittaker got his hands on the ball, but the ball did want to cooperate and skidded away where New England cornerback Kyle Arrington recovered it with only 61 seconds left.

At that point, you just knew the Browns, who at one point had a 19-3 lead, were not going to win this one. Somehow, some way, the Patriots would find a way to win. Considering they won their last two games in comeback fashion, it was a virtual certainty.

Three plays and 30 seconds later, they took the lead. But it took a ticky-tacky pass interference call against Cleveland rookie cornerback Leon McFadden in the end zone while chasing Pats rookie wide receiver Josh Boyce to set up a one-yard scoring pass to Danny Amendola

The Browns, with no timeouts left, remarkably stormed back and got to the New England 40 with one second left, but Billy Cundiff’s 58-yard field-goal attempt fell a few yards shy of the crossbar.

It spoiled (no, make that ruined) a 391-yard passing, three-touchdown afternoon by Jason Campbell, a seven-catch, 151-yard performance by the amazing Josh Gordon, and a nine-catch, 121-yard effort by Jordan Cameron. Both men scored touchdowns, as did Gary Barnidge with a 40-yarder early in the second half.

The big difference is that Brady and the Patriots made the big plays when needed. In the fourth quarter alone, he completed 16 of 20 passes for 142 of his 418 yards.

It seemed as though he hiked his game to another level after tight end Rob Gronkowski, his best and most reliable receiver, left midway in the third quarter with what was believed to be a torn ACL following a clean tackle by Cleveland safety T. J. Ward.

Except for the ending, the game couldn’t have gone anymore Cleveland’s way. Just about everything went right, including a pair of successful replay challenges by coach Rob Chudzinski.

The only misstep was Chudzinski’s puzzling decision to go for two points instead of a Cundiff placement following Barnidge’s 40-yard scoring scamper that gave the Browns a 12-0 lead five minutes into the third quarter.

Conventional thinking would call for such a move, but not so relatively early in the game. Perhaps later when a two-point try would have been a no-brainer. The move appeared to show Chudzinski’s lack of faith in his offense.

The play chosen for the attempt was unwise (being kind here) and not because it failed. Chris Ogbonnaya on a draw play from the 3-yard line? Are you kidding me? There have got to be at least a dozen plays in the playbook for such an occasion and they chose that one? A running play for one of the worst run offenses in the NFL?

If that’s the best they can do, if that’s as creative as they can get, they might as well send out Cundiff every time the book calls for a pair of points.

The offensive line played well and protected Campbell, who was sacked only once. There is no question he was dialed in all afternoon on Cameron and Gordon, who scored on an 80-yarder late in the third quarter to give the Browns the 19-3 lead.

The defense, despite the 28 points the Patriots put up, played well and harassed Brady all afternoon, sacking him four times and forcing one intentional grounding penalty. A couple of other passes were close to being flagged for the same reason.

This was one game where Belichick, if he is honest with himself, has to admit his team was outplayed and was extremely fortunate to escape with the victory. The better team did not win.

The Browns beat the Patriots everywhere but on the scoreboard. And in the bottom line world in which we live, that is all that matters. Sure the Browns can hold their heads up high after this one, but at the same time wonder what they have to do to win.

The question, thus, is why haven’t they played this well on a consistent basis all season? Why did they lose last Sunday to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars at home? Why are they 4-9 entering the homestretch of the season?

If nothing else, they proved to themselves they can stay with a good team like New England. Now they have to go out and prove in the last three games that this one was not a fluke.

(Correcting information on New England's last successful onsides kick.)

The wonderful world of what if . . . 

Let’s get this out of the way right now. There is no way the Browns will defeat the New England Patriots Sunday. Absolutely no way.

There. The prediction right up front. Final score to come.

No messing around. Get right to the point and be done with it.

Why screw around with the what ifs?

What if the Browns play their best game of the season on both sides of the ball and on special teams? What if Jason Campbell completes every pass he throws? What if Tom Brady is injured in the first quarter of the game? What if Bill Belichick coaches like he did in Cleveland two decades ago?

What if . . . what if . . . what if.

Normally, you can what if your way into just about anything. But the world of what if is a fantasy world, a dream world

It’s not going to happen.

Most fans know that. They don’t want to think about what’s going to happen in Foxboro, Mass., Sunday, but they are also realists. They realize the Patriots are an infinitely better football team than the Browns. They just hope the Pats show some mercy.

There is a monstrous chasm that separates the talent bases of the teams. The Patriots’ goal every season is go win the Super Bowl. Not get to the Super Bowl. Win it.

The Browns’ goal is to get better any way they can. Game by game, quarter by quarter, play by play. Just play better than the last game.

Under Belichick, the Pats are perennial contenders. Hard to do when you constantly pick at the bottom of each round in the college football draft. Unless, of course, you employ someone who selects wisely. And they do.

The Browns, on the other hand, are perennial residents of the AFC North basement. That’s because no one is bad enough to challenge them. The Baltimores, Cincinnatis and Pittsburghs of the professional football world know how to right a sinking ship.

Cleveland just ambles along each National Football League season, showing up when and where the schedule says it should.

The uniforms remain the same, although that reportedly will change sometime in the near future. The players come and go. Front offices come and go. But the results, like the uniforms, remain the same.

But I digress.

The game Sunday will be a study in contrasts. One team headed inexorably toward yet another postseason. The other headed inexorably toward what is hoped to be a painless conclusion to a miserable season.

The Patriots, unbeaten in six home games this season, against the Browns, a team that has won only once in five road games. One team with a future Hall of Fame quarterback against a team that might not know who will open under center until the day of the game.

Will it be ugly? Maybe. Depends solely on Belichick and how benevolent he feels between the hours of 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock.

Does he still have an affinity for Cleveland because that’s where he got his head coaching start? Or does he remember the last time these two teams met?

The date was Nov. 7, 2010 when the Browns welcomed the Pats to Cleveland Browns Stadium and proceeded to humiliate them, 34-14.

Peyton Hillis ran for 184 (of the Browns’ 230) yards and a couple of touchdowns, Colt McCoy managed the game nicely (14-of-19 for 174 yards and a touchdown with no picks) and the defense created three turnovers.

Brady threw for a pedestrian (for him) 224 yards and a pair of touchdowns to Aaron Hernandez, now incarcerated in a Connecticut jail, awaiting trial on murder charges.

The victory proved sweet revenge for Browns coach Eric Mangini, whose relationship with Belichick soured over Spygate. The Browns went on to win just two games the rest of what turned out to be Mangini’s last season in Cleveland, and finished 5-11.

The loss was New England’s second and last setback in the regular season. The Patriots finished 14-2 and went on to win eight straight games following the Cleveland loss before falling to the New York Jets in the division playoffs.

The current Patriots, who have scored 27 or more points in six of the last seven games, have played remarkable comeback football after sluggish starts in their last two games against Denver and Houston.

They overcame a 24-0 halftime deficit against the Broncos to win, 34-31, in overtime. They knocked off the Texans by the same score in regulation after trailing, 17-7 at the half. That’s just seven points in the first half of those games and 61 the rest of the way. Brady completed nearly 70% of his passes in those victories.

The Browns this season are much better in the first half than in the final 30 minutes. They’ve scored 135 of their 231 points (or 58.4%) in the first half and struggled with only 96 (or 41.6%) in the second half. Their best quarter by far is the second with 88 points (or 38.1% of their overall scoring).

So does that give the Browns some hope to at least stay in the game for the first 30 minutes? Uh, no.  Don’t forget about the difference in talent, especially in the passing game.

The receivers the Cleveland secondary will have to particularly mindful of are tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receiver Julian Edelman, who was a quarterback in his collegiate days at Kent State.

Gronkowski, who missed the first six games of the season following back surgery, has caught a touchdown pass in his last four games, while Edelman, who has become Brady’s second-favorite receiver, has 18 receptions for 211 yards and a pair of scores the last two games.

Where the Browns might have a slight advantage is on the line of scrimmage when the Pats have the ball. Brady is not as mobile as he used to be. If the Browns’ pass rush, AWOL the last three games, ever reappears, the New England offensive line, which has given up 31 sacks, is vulnerable.

As for Josh Gordon, a third straight 200-yard game falls into the same category as the Browns’ chances of winning this game. If he gets 100, consider that a victory of sorts. You can bet he and tight end Jordan Cameron will be accorded close attention wherever they go. And since the Browns have no other receivers who worry opposing offenses, it’s time for the running game to finally step up. (Just kidding.)

Hard to believe, but the Browns lead the all-time series, 13-9, against New England with most of those victories (11) recorded by the old Cleveland Browns prior to the resurrection in 1999.

Suffice it so say, the Cleveland victory total against the Patriots will stay frozen after Sunday’s get together. The Pats get their revenge for 2010. Make it:

Patriots 37, Browns 10

Monday leftovers

The numbers for Josh Gordon are absolutely staggering and rapidly reaching Megatron levels.

Many pundits around the National Football League are just now beginning to realize what Browns fans have known for the past two seasons. The kid can really play this game.

Now consider the lean wide receiver has had three different quarterbacks throwing the football his way this season, which makes the following statistics that much more remarkable.

For your consideration, here is how Gordon’s numbers compare this season to those of Detroit’s Calvin Johnson, the original Megatron.

The 6-5, 240-pound Johnson has 72 receptions for 1,299 yards and 12 touchdowns in 11 games. The 6-3, 225-pound Gordon checks in with 64 catches for 1,249 yards and seven scores in 10 games (he missed the first two games serving a suspension).

Johnson has 19 catches for 20 or more yards; Gordon has 22. Johnson has caught five passes for 40 or more yards; Gordon has seven. Johnson has caught 60 passes for first downs; Gordon has 47. Johnson averages 118 yards a game; Gordon averages 125.

Now comes the kicker. Gordon is the first receiver in National Football League history with back-to-back 200-yard plus games with his virtuoso performances the last two weeks in the losses to Pittsburgh and Jacksonville. He needs only 41 more yards to eclipse Braylon Edwards’ club record for most receiving yards in a season.

In just 26 NFL games, Gordon is becoming a folk hero of sorts. In those games, he has caught 114 passes for 2,054 yards, an average of 18 yards a catch and 79 a game, and 87 first downs. He is on pace to total 1,750 yards this season. In those 114 touches, he has fumbled just once.

He rarely drops a pass that hits his hands. He’s been targeted 209 times in two seasons with maybe five drops. The most notable drop occurred against the Indianapolis Colts last season when he couldn’t hold on to a sure touchdown pass late in the game that would have given the Browns a victory.

Hard to tell whether he just has natural football instincts or it’s hard work paying off handsomely. His seemingly effortless approach to playing the position appears to lull defenders into easing off in their coverage. His soft, yet strong hands enable him to make it look easy.

Whatever it is he has, it makes every offensive snap an adventure.

Gordon’s astounding performances are the lone bright spot in an otherwise dreary and very forgettable season. He’s so good, most fans blink in disbelief, “does he really play for the Browns?”

Browns Nation isn’t used to performances like Gordon has provided. They’re much more used to bad football. As stated here before, Gordon is too good to play for this team. His efforts deserve to be rewarded with much more than losing football on a nearly weekly basis.

The fact he is able to elevate his game despite the yoke of pervasive losing is an achievement in and of itself. If not for his feats, there’s no telling how bad this offense would be.

And to think the Browns seriously considered trading him earlier in the season. Thankfully, no team came along and offered Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi a deal they couldn’t refuse.

OK, so Gordon faces a season suspension if he has drug problems again. His immense talent is worth a gamble that he’ll stay straight and realize he can make a lot of money if he continues to amaze.

For those of you who like to dream, Gordon has an outside chance to become the first wide receiver in NFL history to record a 2,000-yard season. With four games remaining, he needs 751 yards, or 188 yards a game, to reach that total.

Impossible? Probably. The way he’s playing now, though, there’s no telling how much higher he can elevate his game.

~ All season long, the Browns’ defense has had problems covering tight ends. In Sunday’s loss to Jacksonville, for example, tight ends Marcedes Lewis and Clay Harbor scored touchdowns.  In the loss to Detroit, seldom-used tight end Joseph Fauria scored three times.

Whether it’s a linebacker or strong safety T. J. Ward in coverage, opposing quarterbacks seem to have little trouble finding the open tight end. And you can be certain Bill Belichick is well aware of that and game planning thusly for the Browns’ invasion Sunday in New England.

If you have Rob Gronkowski on your fantasy football team, count on a big week for points. The Patriots tight end, who missed the first six weeks of the season after undergoing back surgery in June, has roared back with 37 receptions for 560 yards in six games and has scored a touchdown in his last four games.

Count on Tom Brady looking often toward the 6-6, 265-pounder, especially on seam routes that appear to confound Cleveland defenders. If the likes of Jermaine Gresham, Tyler Eifert and Heath Miller have big days against the Cleveland defense, imagine what Gronkowski will do.

~ What in the world has happened to the Browns’ pass rush? After nailing quarterbacks 31 times in the first nine games, it has only two in the past three. And both came against an infinitely inferior Jacksonville offensive line Sunday.

Jaguars quarterback Chad Henne had all kinds of time to pick apart the Cleveland secondary in the final minutes of Sunday’s loss. The Browns applied no pressure whatsoever as Henne teed up Ace Sanders and Cecil Shorts III during the 80-yard scoring drive.

If the best they can do against the Jaguars is two sacks, then it challenges defensive coordinator Ray Horton to come up with methods to rediscover the secret to 31 sacks in nine games because what he’s dialing up now obviously isn’t working.

~ Of course coach Rob Chudzinski is upset with the Jacksonville loss. He should also be embarrassed. “We won’t stand for losing,” he said following Sunday’s loss. “We’re going to get this fixed. It’s unacceptable.”

It’s a little late to fix things. If you’re still fixing things after game 12, either you and your coaches are not coaching properly or you don’t have a good team. Maybe both. The Browns have some good individual players. Just not a good team.

However, Chudzinski won’t fault the way his men played against the Jags. “It’s not about the effort of the group,” he said. “It’s about the mistakes.” He’s got that right. But he fails to realize mistakes separate the bad teams from the good teams.

~ Notebook: The Browns have been in gift-giving mode the last three losses. They have committed 11 turnovers that have been turned into 46 points by the opposition. Throw in two blocked punts that resulted in points and that total rises to 60. . . . The Browns compiled only 97 rushing yards against the NFL’s worst run defense Sunday. Do you still think the Browns’ offensive line is good? Center Alex Mack has been the best of that group, notwithstanding his costly snapping problem against Jacksonville. . . . Willis McGahee’s rushing TD against the Jags was only the second of the season via the ground and the first since he scored in game five against Buffalo. . . . Strong safety T. J. Ward and cornerback Buster Skrine were the best players on defense Sunday. Ward has played several strong games in a row. And Skrine plays much bigger than his 5-9, 185-pound frame.