CHICAGO — It’s one thing to lose a road game to a superior team in miserably cold weather.
When that game becomes a complete steamrolling and feels completely decided in all of about seven minutes, you have your answers about the state of things and what has to be coming next for the hopeless Cleveland Browns.
For too long, they have been a miserable team. That was reinforced, again, on Sunday, with Myles Garrett chasing an NFL record amid another lost season and the rest of the operation getting bullied. A week after losing to the Tennessee Titans, the Browns’ visit to the Bears was much more familiar. The better team won, handily, with the Browns providing enough gifts, giveaways and blunders to erase any good they might have done.
And truly, there wasn’t much. The Bears dominated early, stalled a little through the middle two quarters, then turned three second-half interceptions into a 31-3 win that was every bit as lopsided as the final score indicates. It was only 14-0 at halftime, but it felt more like 40-0 as Cleveland had just one first down in the game’s first 30 minutes.
Yes, one. Until the game’s final seven minutes, the Browns had more punts than first downs.
These Browns are too sloppy. They’re short on talent in key spots. The run defense is leaky. The injury list is long. The special teams are a special kind of bad — and have been all season. Much of this is not new, which doesn’t make it any better. With three games left and no less than 30 legitimate questions about the future of the franchise lingering, it only feels appropriate to start with one.
What would be the case for bringing back coach Kevin Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry for another season, given the way the past two have gone?
There aren’t many reasons, if any, that support Stefanski and Berry getting a seventh season and another chance to oversee this necessary rebuild. After a big day by Garrett in Las Vegas in late November, paired with the first start for rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, provided a jolt and a reason to watch the rest of the season, the Browns have since delivered three consecutive losses that have featured different failures in big moments and a team struggling to run the ball and tackle opposing backs.
It’s bleak. Everything.
Of the 25 losses the Browns have now earned over the last two seasons, this latest was one of the ugliest. The Cleveland offense was penalized twice before it took its second snap. The defense was shredded early and again late, when it was understandably gassed from 30-plus minutes (and four months) of getting little to no help from the putrid offense.
The Browns didn’t get flattened on Sunday because they were missing injured starters on both sides of the ball. They continue to get flattened because the folks in charge did not sufficiently address the offensive line or wide receiver groups over the past two years, two positions that are especially key to helping any quarterback succeed.
These Browns first chose an older quarterback, then immediately bailed on their initial plans to turn to Dillon Gabriel, and now to Sanders, who’s provided a spark and some deep passes but has been under constant duress and got battered by it Sunday.
The Browns have only scored more than 17 points four times this season. Sunday was their third time failing to reach double digits.
Sanders led the team in rushing with 24 yards on two carries. That’s only part of the story, but the lack of any run game is a big reason why Sanders was put in so many difficult spots. And when he scrambled for what appeared to be Cleveland’s first fresh set of downs late in the first quarter, a booth replay quickly ruled that Sanders’ knee had touched about a half-yard short at the Browns’ 39.
With the three-win Browns already down 7-0, Stefanski quickly called for the punt team. The Bears then needed just seven plays to go 80 yards and make it 14-0.
If you still held out any hope that this coaching staff might ignite some sort of late-season rally around embracing the spoiler’s role, that was pretty much extinguished by the Browns giving up a 52-yard kickoff return to start the game. Then, following a quick defensive stop, they lost a replay challenge, committed a false start and was flagged for 12 men in the huddle after their first snap.
By that scale, the gutless decision to punt in the first quarter was a minor blip.
Whatever the answer is, it’s not in what’s been built here. Sanders threw two bad interceptions but finished with three. On what should have been a perfectly placed touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy in the third quarter, the pass instead bounced off Jeudy’s chest at the pylon and into the hands of Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
After another quiet day and crucial drop, how could you keep anyone who signed off on Jeudy being this team’s No. 1 wide receiver? The Browns got a great find in third-round tight end Harold Fannin Jr., but the pass offense being so reliant on the rookie continues to be a bad thing.
Sanders has some high-level skills and might still represent hope, but he was hopelessly overmatched for a lot of Sunday’s game. A lot of that was due to constant pressure from the Browns having a makeshift offensive line and playing the entire game while trailing. But there was no building upon Sanders’ big numbers and fourth-quarter playmaking from the previous week versus Tennessee.
Garrett finished with 1.5 sacks to move to 21.5 on the year and within one of the NFL’s single-season record. His solo sack in the second quarter stopped another Chicago scoring opportunity. But the Browns only ran 18 offensive plays in the first half and never sustained anything.
After Sanders and Isaiah Bond connected late in the third quarter for the second time on a deep pass down the middle, those two completions had accounted for 89 of Cleveland’s 121 yards at the time and two of the three first downs. The Browns finished with 192 yards at 3.4 yards per play. Quinshon Judkins, Cleveland’s only regular running back who was available, had 21 yards on 12 carries.
The numbers match what everyone watching knew was clearly a one-sided fight. This was a step up in competition for which again the Browns were not ready, and it was another reminder that they have missed in too many areas that could have helped them build a stronger, better and even semi-watchable product.
With three games remaining, it’s past time for team ownership to realize that 2024 was not a one-year detour. It’s time to prepare for a different future with different people in charge, one that is finally on the horizon.