PUSKAS: Dismal day for fans in Cleveland

The Browns are trying to win the Daytona 500, but owner Jimmy Haslam and his front office — otherwise known as the cast of “Revenge of the Nerds” — have flipped head coach Hue Jackson the keys to an AMC Gremlin.

And Hue drives like he’s in a demolition derby.

All in all, just another lost day on the lakefront. You’d have been better served to do any number of other things Sunday and leave the postmortem of the Browns’ 31-7 loss to the AFC North rival Cincinnati Bengals to either true gluttons for punishment or those who actually get paid to deal with such abominations.

And if you were there at the start of an impossibly sunny day, you probably were halfway back to Youngstown by the time the Browns scored perhaps the saddest touchdown in NFL history with 1:54 to play.

No disrespect to second-year running back Duke Johnson, but his 1-yard plunge into the end zone was greeted with the derisive cheers of a handful of Browns fans left in a stadium that grew more cavernous with each Bengals score.

Jackson, now 1-19 as the Browns’ head coach, noticed those empty orange chairs multiplying like rabbits as the second half progressed.

Maybe “progressed” isn’t the right word, but you get the idea.

“It pains,” Jackson said. “It does. I see it all. I saw everything here today because we all want to give the fans what they deserve.

“We didn’t today. I understand our fans leaving. I probably would have, too.”

Those who stayed saved their most sarcastic cheers for wide receiver Kenny Britt, he of the $32 million contract and the 32-cent hands.

Britt had at least two more legitimate drops Sunday. One was a perfectly thrown ball from rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer that somehow hit the, um, er, ah … let’s call him a receiver … in the chest and bounced virtually giftwrapped to Cincinnati safety Clayton Fejeldem for an interception.

Britt now has two assists on opponents’ interceptions off Kizer, who leads the league with eight picks in four games.

These dawgs can’t run with the big dogs. They couldn’t even get off the porch Sunday, when the Browns — the NFL’s resident wrong-way drivers — somehow stuck fans at FirstEnergy Stadium with their worst performance yet a month into the season.

These Browns not only can’t run with the big dogs, they can’t pass, block, tackle or kick with them, either.

Write Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.