Browns’ wild win gives fans hope

The Browns offensive line protected the quarterback.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

CLEVELAND — Hope lives after all.

Make no mistake: The most important thing the Browns provided their so very deserving fans Sunday was a win. A win in a crazy, wild, up-and-down-the-field, 51-45 victory.

But they also provided hope.

Hope that something can be made of this season, which started so dismally with a loss to the Steelers in the opener.

Hope that all the criticism might have been excessive, that the criticizers might in the long run have to eat crow.

Hope for the fans, who showed up and stayed and earned special accolades from the coach for their dedication and perseverance.

Hope for fans who deserve hope after years and years of struggle.

If the Browns deserved criticism after the dismal opening loss to the Steelers, they deserve huge credit for hanging together to come back and beat the Bengals in an offensive performance that seemed to obliterate past futility.

Talk about pieces coming together.

Good performance

Derek Anderson justified every ounce of faith the team showed in him. Braylon Edwards looked like the third overall draft pick. Kellen Winslow contributed. Joe Jurevicius caught two touchdown passes. Jamal Lewis ran for more than 200 yards. The offensive line did not allow Anderson to be sacked.

Fifty-one points. Five touchdown passes. Two hundred sixteen yards rushing.

Stunning.

To the coach, the players, the fans and the media.

“You can’t explain it,” coach Romeo Crennel said of the turnaround from Week 1 to Week 2.

“Not in my wildest dreams,” Leigh Bodden said when asked if he imagined this kind of game.

The defense struggled, yes. Badly.

But the Bengals have an offense that makes a lot of defenses look bad.

And the idea in the NFL is to win on Sunday, so the defense could have looked like a bunch of grade-schoolers, and it would come in second to the most important fact: The Browns won.