May 24, 2013

Browns Find A Way to Beat Dolphins 17-16

September 25, 2011 by 36 Comments

The Cleveland Browns beat the Miami Dolphins, but it was a game that gave pretty much the entire Browns rooting world a heart attack.  The Browns scored a go-ahead touchdown to lead 17-16 with 0:43 remaining in the game.  Colt McCoy found Mohamed Massaquoi in the end zone after picking apart the Dolphins’ prevent defense for 80 yards.  The subsequent Browns kickoff was 15 yards back after an excessive celebration penalty by Ben Watson and Mohamed Massaquoi for both being on the ground at the same time.  The Dolphins needed to move the ball at least five yards in order to have a realistic shot at a field goal after setting up at the Cleveland Browns’ 47 after the kickoff.  The Browns’ defense heroically held and Mike Adams intercepted Chad Henne on 4th and 10 to seal the victory for the Browns.

The Cleveland Browns missed Peyton Hillis mightily today.  That isn’t to say that Montario Hardesty played badly, because he didn’t.  Hardesty had some decent runs including a long one of 19 yards on his way to 67 yards on 14 carries.  That being said, it never appeared that the Dolphins truly respected Hardesty and the Browns never established him enough to force the issue.  The results seemed to be Dolphins pass rushers pinning their ears back and receivers not being able to get open in the minimal amounts of time that McCoy had to throw.

Meanwhile the Browns defense was bending in spots, but didn’t break a lot.  With hefty time of possession deficits the Browns defense managed to keep away from giant plays.  Chad Henne, Daniel Thomas, Reggie Bush and Brandon Marshall were somewhat productive in spots, but they weren’t able to deliver consistently as the Browns defense managed to make big plays on third down with decent frequency.

The Browns gave up one touchdown on a perfectly executed play that had the Browns defense going right as the Dolphins blocked a screen perfectly to the left.  That was about halfway through the first quarter.  The Browns defense only gave up three field goals from 23, 41, and 38 yards.  Not bad on a day where the defense spent 37:51 of game time on the field defending the Dolphins.

The Browns lone first half offensive highlight was a great pass from McCoy to Josh Cribbs.  Cribbs soared above his defender in the end zone to pick the ball out of the air and bring it in for the TD.  McCoy placed it high where only Cribbs was likely to get his hands on it.

That was the problem though.  Before the final drive for the Browns offense versus the Dolphins prevent, Cribbs was the only receiver on the team with a catch.  He had three for 49 yards.  Mohamed Massaquoi and Greg Little finished the game with five catches and 50 yards, but all those yards came against soft prevent coverage on the last drive.

The Browns will have to do better than this and I think they will.  That being said, they might just want to take a look at getting Peyton Hillis locked up to a deal.  The team looked pretty ugly without having the big bruiser and pass-catcher out there to keep the defense honest.  Or at least more honest.

But the Browns are over 500 at 2-1 on the season.  They welcome the Tennessee Titans to town next weekend.

Stay tuned to WFNY this week as we will have a lot more about the Browns defense’s great day and the offense’s difficult one.

(Top Photo – The Official Cleveland Browns Bottom Photo – @WFNYCraig)

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  • St. McDuck

    Great win for a young team (especially without Hillis).
    Go Browns!

  • Chris

    How about McCoy/Little on that two minute drill? That’s the best our offense looked all game.

    Now here’s what I want to know: why does it seem like screen passes vs us are a guaranteed 6 plus yards but ours are lucky to get back to the line?

  • Harv 21

    Didn’t appear to me that Colt wasn’t under such severe pressure, but that he wasn’t able to timely find open receivers. Not sure if it’s Colt or the receivers. I’m guessing the receivers.

  • Subadai

    Harv,

    I agree. It seems to be the receivers. Up until the final TD me and my dad were cursing Mangini for leaving us in the position of having as our best two minute drill receivers two TEs and a rookie WR who’s playing his 3rd game at any level in 2 yrs.

    Imagine my surprise at the good play on the ball by MoMass. Makes me think he might still have something to offer as an NFL’er.

    Robiskie… not so much. His athletic ability is very poor. His “vertical” leap on the deep ball that McCoy threw him was pitiful. I think I can jump higher.

    It’s time to move on, Brian. You’ll make a good insurance salesman and be a great provider for your family. Time to meet the Turk.

  • Kevin

    Good win for a young team. I dont understand why some people are complaining. I mean we knew right from the beginning of the season that this team wouldn’t be top tier. But this bunch of guys showed us they have some heart especially when your starting RB is out and your playmaker (cribbs) is injured. Plus for once we were the one scoring the last second TD which should be celebrated in Cleveland

  • Jack

    Hardesty looked great. Don’t know why he’s not getting more props.

    Nice to see a back with a little speed/able to make some cuts.

    Should be a nice complement/equal partner to Hillis.

    He showed good vision and some nice acceleration.

  • Mark

    Well, if Robiskie is lucky, maybe Craig is hiring.

  • Harrison

    A favorable early schedule is allowing a young team with a new head coach installing new systems on both offense and defense to make some mistakes, learn, and still get some wins to build confidence. Can’t ask for a better situation. Two first rounders next year and look out.

  • cleveland12

    lastminute dot com or what!
    mccoy is trying to kill all of us, slowly…
    he missed some easy throws today, but came good.
    what an injection in the arm to this outfit.
    hopefully the curse of house of pain is now burried.
    La Hawla..

  • Doc1188

    Very happy for the Browns win. Sloppy game, Colt was missing targets throughout the game, but he made the touchdown when it mattered the most. I am concerned that Colt is averaging under 6 yards per completion.

  • Fritzer

    Pass Rush. How many sacks do we have in three games? We may be leading the league. Shears and Taylor are the real deal. Another great defensive draft by H & H.

  • saggy

    who is that guy, number 81? Smith? he is freaking awful. cut his ass now. he made so many mistakes and clearly doesn’t have what it takes to play the pro game. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, buddy.

  • chris

    Also, it should be noted I think, as sloppy as the offense looked today, Hardesty was a real bright spot IMO.

  • Jack

    @chris – I noted it.

  • 5KMD

    Falcons lost.

  • C-Bus Kevin

    A great ugly win for the Browns.

    Defensively, this team is doing just fine. Offensively, they have some good up and comin contributors that showed up today (Moore, Little, Hardesty, MoMass, McCoy), some vets that are playing consistently well (Cribbs, Watson), and some non-contributors.

    At this point, I feel like the same name(s) get called each week for the third category, and I just feel bad calling out names. When the Browns went into their two minute drill at the end of the game, it became clear which players Shurmur and McCoy trust when the game is on the line, because they were on the field and McCoy threw to them repeatedly.

    At a certain point, you can’t play 10 on 11 anymore.

  • REEPJP

    1. I was pretty pleased with how Hardesty played….will be a good compliment to Hillis once he’s back

    2. Our D was pretty good today in my opinion….Haden all but shut down Marshall and quite a few sacks/pressure plays

    3. Did Evan Moore wink at Shurmur’s wife last week or something? I don’t think I saw him on the field until the 3rd quarter…that guy is a huge matchup advantage for us and I can’t get over why we don’t use him more.

    4. Colt wasn’t brilliant (wrong shoulder throw to Watson that would have been a 20+ gainer, and huge overthrow of Cribbs on what would have been an easy 6), he found a way to win…..that’s all I really care about. There are no pictures in the box score!

  • -bobby-

    Colt just deosnt seem to be making the right reads a lot, or he makes them and makes the wrong throw. I hope we can pin it on him just being uncomfortable in this offense.

    As a side note, a win is a win. They aren’t easy to come by, and they aren’t just given to you. Proof is watching SNF with the Colts begining to come alive.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com DP

    Every Atlanta loss makes Draft Day 2012 that much more interesting. After seeing Alshon Jeffrey and Justin Blackmon this weekend, my hope is one of them ends up in an Orange helmet next fall.

  • Lyon

    REEP, Moore isn’t on the field b/c Smith is obviously a much better TE. Who else can drop passes & pick up holds on the same series? Who else is such a non factor the D doesn’t even bother covering half the time?

    Rant over, but seriously, our best players see the field so much less than they should. Little & Moore hardly were on the field until later in the game & we’ve seen in weeks past that Hardesty doesn’t get his share of the carries.

  • Lyon

    And can we PLEASE address the RT issue next year? High draft pick or quality FA. I’m tired of seeing the RT every year getting pushed right into the QB or being a turnstile.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com DP

    Lyon, I don’t disagree about Smith, but you have to admit he’s LIGHT YEARS better than Robert Royal.

  • EZ

    @REEPJP

    I think Grossi mentioned on last week’s PD podcast that since the RT situation is so dire they’re using Watson and Smith more because of their blocking ability and Moore has some knee issues that lead to not great blocking. Until we get a reliable RT we’ll probably mostly see Moore in the red zone.

  • Mark

    I think EZ got it right. Alex Smith is in there to help out the natural disaster that is our RT. It’s either Smith or FEMA. Moore is a TE in name only. He is usually split out wide. I’m still shaking my head at Heckert for screwing up the RT situation. Heckert is such a smart GM but was so dumb on this one.

  • Matt S

    I think Montario Hardesty, so far this season, has been a BETTER running back than Peyton Hillis.

    Hillis had WAY too many runs for 2 yard or less against Indy (12, if I remember correctly. He had something like 51 yards in his first 24 rushing attempts before finally “breaking through”.

    Every time Hardesty doesn’t run into somebody behind the line of scrimmage (side note, the stretch play needs work. Colt needs to recognize defenses better, and switch off when he sees that), he looks like he can gash the defense for 6 yards or more.

    That’s not to say that Hillis should be benched when he gets back. But they need to get Hardesty mixed in more often next week. He’s earned it. And truth be told, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hardesty takes the starting job by year’s end.

  • -bobby-

    @25- The colts have a pretty stout run D as demonstrated against the steelers again and us in back to back weeks. Looks like week 1 was more of an anomaly. And Hardesty wasn’t lighting it up when he had it vs. the colts either.

  • Jason

    2 reasons why Hillis’s production will be less this year:

    1: He’s going to get less touches than last year, due to the health of Hardesty, the implementation of the West Coast Offense, and the fact that they don’t want him getting worn out.

    2: They told him he’s not allowed to hurdle people anymore like he did last year because they’re paranoid about him destroying his legs (and I’m sure a certain video game cover has a bit to do with that paranoia.) Last year, defenders couldn’t go low because he would just leap over them, but now they are able to wrap up his legs and he goes down. Every other team in the league has seen the video of him running over that defender for the Carolina Panthers last year, so they know to never go high if they can help it. He also seems to have developed a sense that running anywhere other than Up The Middle is a sign of cowardice or something, because his only big run against the Colts last weekend was where he bounced to the outside, and I swear it looked like an accident. Jamal Lewis had the same hang-up, and look at what happened to him.

  • BuckeyeDawg

    I have watched the Browns lose “this game” so many time is the last 10 years, it’s refreshing to be on the other side.

    Didn’t get to watch it (maybe that’s why they won), but winning without Hillis and on an “off day” for Colt is a very good sign. It shows that this team can play less than their best and still have a chance to win…unlike other seasons when it took a near perfect effort to get to that point. Granted, the Dolphins are not very good, but still…a win is a win.

  • -bobby-

    Where did you hear Peyton cant jump anyone now? just because he hasnt in two games doesnt mean they said he cant. He hasn’t really broken any loose to where a jump would have helped.

  • REEPJP

    @bobby….they’ve also told Robiskie not to run too fast and try to get separation…it might cause him to pull a hammy.

  • Vengeful Pat

    Funny to see so many negative comments about tight end Alex Smith this week… he was getting lots of praise last week against the Colts. I’ve seen him play a little here and a little there ever since he was with Tampa Bay, and I think he’s a good tight end. He may have had a bad game, but usually his hands are better than that. Quality find for Heckert at a nice price.

    I was mostly disappointed with Colt yesterday… he had a couple of throws sail on him and he just wasn’t terribly accurate in this one. I’ll be looking forward to seeing him bounce back against Tennessee. Chad Henne looked really good in that first half, and I honestly don’t think any defense could have stopped what he was doing. Throws were accurate and he was using great footwork and timing of throws to avoid pressure. Maybe some of it was luck, but I’m glad the Browns were able to weather the storm.

  • TSR3000

    @Jason- You seriously think Peyton will be less productive because he won’t jump as much? That’s good for like 17 yards. I’d say the rest is from a more balanced running attack and teams stacking the box to stop him.

  • Lyon

    DP – Agree 100%.

  • Ike

    Miami didn’t respect Hardesty because he wasn’t given the ball nearly enough. Hardesty could’ve easily had 100 yards, if he would’ve been given enough carries (he had 67 with his limited carries).

    Regardless, we’re 2-1. Go Browns!!

  • Jason

    @29: I remember the play-by-play guys during the Colts game last week saying something to that effect, but I may have been mistaken. Still it does appear that he has been doing that a lot less, and it is the kind of move that makes coaches have heart attacks.

  • Fishead015

    Great win even with that lousy excessive celebration penalty what a joke, it was nice to see the defense come up big in the end after playing such a tough game all day.

    Go Browns!