In a game where it seemed that the Cleveland Browns held all the cards, they managed to squander every opportunity they had close out what looked to be an easy win. Not only did they lose to the ghost of Joe Flacco and a New York Jets squad that has won six games in the last two seasons, but they managed to lose spectacularly in front of a packed house in the home opener.
For those who missed Sunday’s unforgettable collapse, rest assured that the total implosion of the Browns’ defense in the final minutes was, in a word, astounding. They allowed the Jets to march directly into the end zone with less than thirty seconds left in the game for a go-ahead score that was nothing short of jaw-dropping to watch in real-time.
All this after an onside kick recovery by New York gave the Jets new life as the game, which seemed well in hand at the time, drew to a close. This wasn’t an ordinary failure, even by the Browns’ standards.
Whether Kevin Stefanski is aware of how sick Cleveland fans are of these meltdowns is unknown, but he did his best to address this latest disaster as plainly as he could. Speaking to reporters shortly after the loss, he did not mince words.
“We win as a team; we lose as a team,” Stefanski explained. “We lost. We got beat. Did not play a 60-minute game. It is really frustrating – frustrating to me, to our players in the locker room and I am sure to our fans. It is not how we play. It is we have to finish and do the things that allow you to win games, and we didn’t do that. Everybody is going to want to point fingers and say, ‘Whose fault was this?’
“Put it on everybody. It is all of us, me, coaches and players. It is everybody. What we can’t do is let this linger because we have a game Thursday night against a division opponent right back here. We have to real quickly move on from this one, and that was my message to the team. It is frustrating.”
After an awesome win in Week 1, the stunning fiasco against New York was unexpected. Stefanski will have a short week to get his team back on track after Sunday’s embarrassment of a game. To hear him tell it, he and his squad have quite a bit of work to do if they intend to actually compete against the division rival Steelers on Thursday.
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