Browns beat Buccaneers 22-17! Tweets of the Game – Second Half
November 2, 2014
Browns beat Bucs, Cavs early season and lots of music – WFNY Podcast – 2014-11-02
November 3, 2014Mike Pettine dodged a P.R. bullet today. He nearly had to answer a ton of questions about the clock. That’s all I could think about late in the game as the Browns were chasing the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Mike Pettine had chosen to waste a bunch of clock to end the first half. He ended up getting a field goal out of it – which he said was his plan – but if the Browns had lost the game, there’s just no telling how big of an issue it might have been. Thankfully for the Browns and Pettine, the team scored a fourth quarter touchdown to make it 22-17. Browns win. Questions go poof!
And don’t look now, but the Browns are 5-3 in November. Halfway through the season with an opportunity to take advantage of their schedule and the Browns have done it. They’re also 4-1 at home which doesn’t stink at all for home fans. It’s not always easy to watch this team struggle in various ways, whether it was early in the season on defense or more recently on offense, but winning isn’t easy, apparently. We wouldn’t know much about it, but thankfully, we’re learning. I don’t expect a lot of thank you notes are headed to Berea right now though.
Field goal, punt, field goal interception, punt field goal, touchdown, punt, punt, interception, touchdown, punt, downs. Of course that last one on downs was Brian Hoyer killing the clock’s last four seconds to send the faithful Browns home crowd to their transportation with a victory. The Browns managed to find a way to pass the damn test.
As I said, it was an ugly game. Buster Skrine was abused and targeted by Mike Glennon, Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans. Evans didn’t do it all to Skrine, but he caught seven passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns. That is quite a stat line for the Browns corners and safeties to give up. Surprisingly the Browns defense ended up OK in the box score against the run, but mostly because it seemed like Tampa gave up on it. Bobby Rainey had 80 yards on 15 carries at halftime and finished the day with 19 for 87.
The Browns persevered though. After being unable to get into the end zone in the first half and after being carried mostly by the defense, the Browns offense broke through twice in the second half. Brian Hoyer found Terrance West for a short pass TD. Then Hoyer caught the Tampa defense with a 34-yarder to Taylor Gabriel that turned out to be the game winner.
There’s lots more to talk about including the Browns’ stellar special teams unit that blocked a field goal and blocked a punt into being a 1-yard punt, but we’ll save that for tomorrow’s Winners and Losers. Today’s about just the winners. For another week, despite the struggles and some really ugly times, that was your Cleveland Browns at home where fans could enjoy it the most.
15 Comments
I’ll bet all the teams today with pretty losses would trade them for ugly wins.
A win is a win. But I’m sure some people will find something to complain about.
So excited about this team, and one of the biggest reasons is that they’re competently coached. I disagreed with the clock management at the end of the first half, but I think it at least showed that they’re learning that you should make sure you end a half with the ball if you have it with under 2 mins to play.
My biggest hope is that Hoyer can squeak out another 5% in pass completion. He’s so close to the second tier of QBs (move up from competent to above average).
It’s just great that playmakers are emerging every game. West throws that huge block, and Gabriel hauls in his first TD. Both new players making a difference.
Now, it’s on to the Bengals! So excited for this game.
This team is really gutting out wins with truly marginal talent. I’m proud of Hoyer getting the most out of this bunch. My main concern is the offensive line. I’m sure all of us saw McDonald getting blown up constantly and our run game is still laboring. Otherwise, we are still winning and scoring with the likes of un drafted Taylor Gabriel, Andrew Hawkins, and my man Jim Dray. The drama of these games may kill me though….see you Thursday..Woof
Gipson for mayor!
I’m probably in the minority, but I knew exactly what Pettine was doing at the end of the half. 3rd and 15, and you don’t want to give the ball back to the Bucs, who have been gashing you with screens and Mike Evans. What were the odds that they’d pick up the third down conversion? In hindsight, it looks silly, but I think they did exactly what they wanted to once they were in that down/distance, and I actually had no problem with it.
I was with you in the minority, but the only problem I had with it is I think they could have saved just a liiiittle more time. That may be hindsight since they picked up the first, but even if they had saved enough time to run one more play and failed, I don’t think TB would have been able to do anything with it. Hell, they probably would have just kneeled out the clock and taken their first lead into halftime since last season.
I know it has been mentioned, but I honestly believe that the loss of Mack hurt worse than anyone expected and now realizes. I just can’t get the image of McDonald getting pushed over like a high school freshman by a senior bully from the first series out of my head. We finished out the Poopsburgh game well enough after he went down probably due to high adrenaline, but after we came down from that high, the OL hasn’t looked the same.
I was sorta ok with the 3rd and 15 run down, but why after the unlikely first down did they let another 6 sec run off? They could have gotten another play in there and maybe gone for the TD, or at least made the FG attempt closer.
Tampa Bay is like the Browns of the last 4 years – moderately talented team that finds a way to lose close games. I wasn’t really expecting a blowout as Tampa has found a way to keep games close. The real test will be Thursday –
100% AGREE!
I had no issue with it. Our offense wasn’t doing well to that point and there wasn’t much reason to push it too hard there. We tried to gamble against JAX and got burned by it. I was actually happy to see him play it a bit more conservative there.
McCoy is a monster, but yeah, he looked terrible early on. I was actually surprised to see him somewhat holding his own in the 2nd half, but there were plays early that it looked like he was trying to help McCoy out.
I understood but disagreed to a certain extent. I can understand running off some clock, but they left themselves no chance at all to take a shot at the end zone in the event they converted the first down. Maybe the idea was that the 3rd down play could be a shot at the end zone, and it ended up being just past the marker instead. Either way, I think I would have taken the risk giving them one play from their 20 in return for a shot at the endzone from the same place. I think the smart play is to leave about 20 seconds on the clock, so if you convert you can call a timeout and run one more before kicking the FG. That way even if they get the ball back they’re only going to get to run one play.
The fact that the Browns are able to grind out wins like this, still with some of their best talent off the field due to injury or NFL sanctions, is a very good sign for the future of the team. It’s how you establish a culture of winning and accountability, both of which have been sorely lacking in the Browns locker room for a very very long time.
And this also is showing signs that Pettine might last a bit longer than Mangini, Chud, and Shurmur.
This was one of the rare times since I moved to Florida that I’ve been able to watch the full game from home on tv (usually I listen to Jim Donovan do his thing while catching parts of live action via Red Zone), and it was thoroughly unenjoyable. The radio crew does a great job, but actually getting to see the number of poor blocks, bad tackles, and fundamental mistakes (SKRINE) had me in bad spirits for much of the contest (if you follow my Twitter, this was probably obvious. I just stopped after a while). Part of me is glad I don’t see every play every week for myself. Hindsight has me happy to have at least gotten the W in a game we so often have lost, and relieved to not have to hear much from folks here at work today, with those motivated to say anything generally going the “at least the Bucs have won a Super Bowl” route. Adorable.