Browns put up listless effort

By BILL RABINOWITZ

The Browns held the Colts’ offense to three points, but lost 10-6.

CLEVELAND — The Browns held a Peyton Manning-led offense to three points Sunday.

Should be enough to win, right? Not in this lost season.

Despite that stout defensive performance, Cleveland lost to the Indianapolis Colts because its 305-pound Pro Bowl left tackle couldn’t hold off a bull-rush by a 268-pound defensive tackle.

The fumble that resulted was returned for a touchdown, giving the Colts a 10-6 victory at Cleveland Browns Stadium and effectively ending any hope of an improbable late-season playoff run.

A year after going 10-6, the Browns must win their remaining four games to avert a losing season.

Making matters worse, Cleveland appears likely to have lost backup quarterback Derek Anderson only a week after Brady Quinn’s season ended. Anderson suffered a knee injury thanks to another hit caused by a bull-rush.

For more than three quarters, the Browns (4-8) played the kind of game they needed to against the explosive Colts (8-4). They gave the ball to running back Jamal Lewis and moved the chains with a short passing game.

A gritty defense kept the Colts out of the end zone, highlighted by a goal-line stand at the end of the first half that kept the Browns ahead 6-3.

That’s how it remained with 10 minutes left after each team missed a field goal in the third quarter. On third-and-8 from the Browns’ 45-yard line, Anderson dropped back to pass. Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney, whose speed rushes and spins had been blunted by Pro Bowl tackle Joe Thomas, tried a different tack. Instead of trying to go around Thomas, he decided to try to plow over him.

He succeeded. After bulling over Thomas, Freeney knocked the ball from Anderson. Fellow end Robert Mathis picked up the ball and ran 37 yards for a touchdown.

“As tackles, we did a pretty good stopping their spins, which is the thing a lot of guys get beat with,” Thomas said. “When you do that, you’re a little more susceptible to the bull-rush. That was kind of their Plan B.

“When you get beat on a spin, it’s because you’re trying to lunge and punch them. When you’re sitting back and waiting on the spin, you’re sitting on your heels a little bit and can give up a bull[-rush].”

The Browns considered challenging the fumble, but they decided not to after seeing that Anderson’s arm had not started moving forward before the ball came free.

The Browns had two more possessions to try to rally. The first ended in a punt. The second ended with the likelihood that Ken Dorsey has become Cleveland’s starting quarterback.

With just over a minute left, Mathis did the same thing to right tackle Kevin Shaffer that Freeney did to Thomas.

“He was showing me a lot of outside moves and spins and toward the end he got me on a bull-rush,” said Shaffer, who’s 70 pounds heavier than the 245-pound Mathis.

Shaffer got pushed into Anderson’s leg, and Mathis finished him off, leaving the quarterback writhing in agony.

“I felt a burning pain,” Anderson said.

He said he’d likely suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee. Tests are planned for today.

“It didn’t look good,” Browns coach Romeo Crennel said. “I’m not encouraged by the way he came off the field.”

Dorsey replaced Anderson and threw two incompletions and an interception to seal the defeat.

“I thought guys played the game plan very well,” Crennel said. “They hung in there and were fighting and were doing the things we needed to do in a close game. In the end, we made a couple of mistakes that cost us the game.”