The Eye of the Beholder: Browns 6 Bills 3

The safest thing we can assume about folks whose first reaction to yesterday's glorious Browns victory in Buffalo was to talk about how "ugly" it was, or how it "set the game of football back" however many years, is that these people don't like football very much.  Of course, there's no accounting for taste, but count us with Coach Mangini in concluding that what went down in Orchard Park yesterday was simply gorgeous.

("If you're worried about the weather, then you picked the wrong place to stay.")

First, we don't suppose it's a bad thing that football games are still played outdoors in some places, and in places where weather might affect the game.  Just like with real people in real life, it can be fun to see how football teams adapt to these conditions which yesterday included swirling winds up to 30 mph that significantly impacted the football's flight path throughout the game. 

Yesterday the Browns adapted with a dominating performance on special teams and a serviceable running game that gave the defense enough rest to allow it to keep the clamps on the Bills offense.  They did what they could with what was available, and they won a football game. 

To us and anyone else looking for signs of progress on the part of the Cleveland Browns, it couldn't have been any less boring.  And we can't imagine that anyone who's complaining about it today is much of a Browns fan.  Bills fan, we understand that it might not have been fun for you, of course, but you couldn't have been bored either.  And you non-Browns/Bills fans who were bored, and who for whatever reason didn't have the option to change the channel (questionable enough circumstances there*), you obviously didn't have a wager pending on the game.  However else you might have done it, you should at least know that it's free to open an online sportsbook account, and most if not all of those books will let you wager as little as $5 on a single game.  Point being, you had options, the least impressive of which is to voice a negative opinion as to what's largely if not entirely a subjective matter, a matter of taste.  It's a lot like complaining about what's in someone else's grocery cart, or on someone else's plate.  

Back to that gem of an American football game, there was a lot of pressure on the Browns to take advantage of what might be their only game against a non-playoff team until they head to Detroit on November 22, and they didn't crack.  There was no question it would be a tough week for a passing game that lost one of the league's most physically-gifted receivers in the middle of the work week, even without the swirling wind.  The Browns survived this too, and here there's no place to go but up.  This road win against a team that had the Patriots beaten in Week 1, along with developments yesterday in Denver and Baltimore, renders further ridiculous the notion that this Browns team is the worst or even one of the very worst in the NFL.  Again, look at that opening schedule. 

Whatever the talent level on this Cleveland Browns team, yesterday's win -- the way it went down -- was the clearest signal we've received since when (?) that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things in Brownstown.  It's safe to say that the Browns won by thoroughly dominating one aspect of the football game.  This, one of those games that for the better part of the last decade was one that the Cleveland Browns would have lost.  It's safe to say that the Browns won this game not necessarily because they were more talented than the opponent, but because they were organized better.  Talent will come.  But say it one more time:  Yesterday, the Browns were organized better. 

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*Implicit here is the suggestion that any non-Browns/non-Bills fan who found this game boring or ugly and didn't have the option not to watch it because he was being paid to watch the game for some reason or other might find something else to do for a living, or at least farm that Browns/Bills work out to someone who gives a crap.**

**As per "we love our towns and our teams, etc.," we'd be remiss if we didn't question those who say things like: "Cleveland vs. Buffalo ... Football representative of the quality of our cities."  For starters, we'd ask these people what it means for one city to be of "better quality" than another.  We further wonder what these people would think about what's a good city and what's not if/when the Colorado River runs completely dry, and whether there shouldn't be a file kept on folks who say such things for use with respect to waiting lists for health care at the Cleveland Clinic.  Just asking.      

Thanks to Mike Groll, the ABJ, and the AP for the photo.