NFL Browns ponder what might have been

After losing to the Colts, the Browns still are clinging to thin playoff hopes.
BEREA (AP) -- Once again, the Browns are haunted by what might have been.
After losing 28-23 to Indianapolis on Sunday when Tim Couch's fourth down end zone pass fell incomplete, the Browns clung to thin hopes Monday that they still might make the playoffs.
"Last night was miserable, trying to go to sleep" Couch said Monday, "because you replay so many plays in your head, just sitting there thinking, you know, what if I would have scrambled around and tried to buy a little time for someone to pop open."
Coach Butch Davis said, "We're two plays away from today sitting here and talking about a victory."
The play that stands out is the last one.
Deflected by teammate
Fourth down and goal from the 5-yard line, down by five points, 37 seconds remaining and Couch threw to the back of the end zone for Kevin Johnson -- only to have the ball deflected by Andre Davis, the Browns rookie receiver who was in the wrong place.
"I think it would have been close, it would have been really close," had the ball gone through," Couch said. "I believe if it would have hit Kevin's hand, he would have caught it."
Johnson refused to blame Andre Davis. "He was trying to make a good play on the ball," Johnson said. "It didn't happen for us. If he makes that play, everyone's jumping up, and Andre Davis is the hero."
Butch Davis said a catch would have made Sunday's game similar to Cleveland's win the week before over Jacksonville on a last-second Hail Mary pass.
The scenario
But instead the ball fell, and the Browns (7-7) have to win their last two games and Pittsburgh must lose its last two for Cleveland to make the playoffs.
"Obviously it was disappointing to lose the ball game," Butch Davis said. "It was probably the biggest game of the two years that I've been here.
"The biggest thing I think about is how much closer we would be to getting to the playoffs. That's what weighs on my mind, because I want to get to the playoffs more than anything."
To get there, they have to beat the Ravens in Baltimore Sunday, the team they are tied with for second place in the AFC North.
"We're going through some crazy bizarre things," Davis said. "If there's going to be a 9-7 team that has a chance to make the playoffs, I want it to be us."
His quarterback agreed. "As long as we win these two games and finish at 9-7, we don't know if that's good enough to get in or not, but we don't know if that's not good enough," Couch said. "So we're going to try to just win these next two games and see where it leaves us when it's all said and done."
Johnson said he is holding out hope.
"There's always what ifs," he said, "we still have a chance."
Receiver Dennis Northcutt, one of the Browns most potent offensive weapons, may return Sunday from a sprained knee that has kept him out of the last two games. "I have guarded optimism," Butch Davis said. "I'm hopeful that he can. He ran on Friday and we'll see how much progress he has made in the last three or four days before Wednesday's practice."