Browns hoping comeback win on Sunday leads to more success

Photo by: Mark Duncan

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo

Miami Dolphins defensive end Kendall Langford, right, pressures Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy in the first quarter in an NFL football game on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Associated Press

BEREA

As the elated Browns celebrated in their locker room, Cleveland’s players didn’t mind that their win on Sunday was ugly.

Really ugly. Hideously ugly. Repulsively ugly.

Didn’t matter. Warts and all, the Browns (2-1) beat Miami 17-16, rallying in the final minute to get a victory that seemed unattainable for 59 minutes. And, in pulling out the win, they accomplished something more, something that may have gone unnoticed to Cleveland’s younger players.

“When all the odds are against you, you come back, you find a way, you keep scratching, clawing and digging and you pull it out, it says a lot about the character on this team,” 10-year veteran right tackle Artis Hicks said. “One thing you can’t coach a team is to fight.

“Either the team has it in them or they don’t.”

On Sunday, the Browns showed their grit at the end.

But for most of the day, they were in a football funk.

Quarterback Colt McCoy kept inexplicably missing open receivers and forcing throws as Cleveland’s offense struggled to find any rhythm. With running back Peyton Hillis out sick, return specialist Josh Cribbs unable to field punts or kickoffs because of a groin injury and Miami’s offense eating up the clock, the Browns seemed destined to lose their second straight home game.

McCoy, though, led the Browns on an 80-yard scoring drive, capped by a 14-yard TD pass to Mohamed Massaquoi, whose leaping, acrobatic catch with 14 seconds left gave Cleveland fans a chance to finally celebrate after so many late, punch-in-the-stomach losses the past few years.

Last season alone, the Browns lost seven games by 7 points or less.

“In the end, winning does wonders,” linebacker Chris Gocong said. “It really does boost your confidence and winning like that especially. They say that it wasn’t a pretty win, but I thought it was beautiful.”

Following the game, coach Pat Shurmur joked that he had upgraded his team’s list of corrections from a “boatload” to a “freighter load of stuff to correct.”

On Monday, the Browns, who are 2-1 for the first time in nine years, began fixing their many mistakes.

Shurmur’s first priority is to get the Browns to start faster.

Cleveland has been outscored 20-0 in the first quarter of its three games, putting the Browns in early holes and forcing them to have to play from behind. That’s a dangerous trend, one Shurmur knows needs to be corrected.

Shurmur feels the remedy could be as simple as getting his players to slow down. The Browns’ offense isn’t executing early on, and Shurmur said that could be a focus issue.

“That’s the message, ‘Listen guys, relax and just execute,”’ Shurmur said.

Shurmur dismissed a suggestion that McCoy was “way off.”

“We were just off a little bit,” he said.

“But a quarterback that’s just a little bit off makes it look like you missed by a mile. It’s something that we’ll work through.”