CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Brows beat the Giants 20-6 on Sunday night. But that’s exactly what the scoreboard said.
Here are the real winners and losers:
Winner: Playoff chances
The Browns are 10-4.
You need all your fingers to count that win.
Rashard Higgins knows.
The last time the Browns won 10 games was in 2007, the rookie year of the Tho Tho Tho Mass. That team didn’t make the playoffs. The final wild card placement was ruled out by the Titans based on their winning percentage in general games.
On Sunday, the Browns won a memorable game against the Giants that we probably won’t talk much more after the season is over. But the 10th win this week was important because of the rest of the playoff field.
Only two teams with at least 10 wins have failed to make the AFC playoffs since the 2007 Browns. Could produce the next 10-win miss this year. Eight AFC teams have at least nine wins with two weeks, and six have at least 10 wins.
The Browns are still sticking with the best wild card spot, the No. 5 seed. They have tiebreakers over the Colts and Titans and a game lead over the Dolphins.
Despite such a successful season so far, according to the New York Times Playoff Picture Simulator, the Browns’ playoff hurdles would have sunk with losses on Sunday. The Browns had a 74 percent playoff chance before the kickoffs for winning the Titans, Colts, Dolphins and Ravens this week.
The loss will be reduced to 53 percent. Next week’s win against the Jets will also increase by 67 per cent after the Giants’ loss, which will put Brown in a position to win against the Steelers in Week 17.
Instead, the Brows beat the Giants and have an 89-percent chance at play. A win against the Jets next week raises it to 98 percent.
And, importantly, the loss to Steelers only reduces it to 97.
Loser: Kicker TD
I’m sure throwing a touchdown on an offensive lineman after being done by the Browns in Tennessee two weeks ago is all the rage, but you don’t give your kicker a chance to touchdown.
The Giants blew it up.
On an early drive to the game the Browns faced a fourth and 5 from an 8-yard line, the Giants trying to trap the Browns by failing to field a goal. As the Giants led an aggressive formation and the linemen widened to the left, kicker Graham would split the wide right and Punter Riley Dixon into a song shotgun formation.
Dixon tried to connect with Center Nick Gates on the play by putting in triple coverage, and that’s what you’d expect.
It would be hard to ask your punter to drive his progress on a fake field goal, but instead of forcing Gates to pass, a better option for the relay was the song, which crushed its own traverse and it was open.
Gano has to dream about what might have happened. The rest of us will wonder what kind of touchdown celebration he would have had.
It was set in 1999 by Bar Phil Dawson and Chris Guardoki.
Winner: Baker Mayfield
Baker Mayfield completed 84.4 percent of his passes against the Giants (27-of-32). It’s not his personal best as a pro. That was last season against the Falcons, when he completed 85 passes (17-of-20).
But thanks to Sunday’s performance, Mayfield now has the second and third best single-game finish percentage in Browns history. Only Vinnie Testavarde’s 21-of-23 performance in 1993 (91.3%) was good.
Mayfield’s season rating rose from 96.6 to 99.4 in Sunday’s 126.2 passing rating. It is the fourth best single-season pacer rating in the Browns history (minimum 100 attempts). Mayfield is second only to Otto Graham (99.7, 1953) and Milt Plum (110.4, 1960). Bernie Kosar ranks fourth (95.4, 1987).
Loser: Double Grand
Nick Chubb ran for 50 yards against the Giants and needed just 69 more in the final two weeks of his second straight 1,000-yard season. But on Sunday, Karim Hunt’s chances to join him hit another hit.
Chubb and Hunt were on track to become the sixth running back pair for each rush for 1,000 yards in a season, but Hunt’s production has fallen from his 100-yard game against the Texans in 10 weeks. He scored just 21 yards against the Giants. , And that comes after two straight games of 33 yards.
Hunt before Sunday needed an average of 76 yards per game to reach the target in the final three weeks. Now he needs 103.5 per game.
Winner: Omaha!
Omaha was mysterious. You may recall that Pythagoras used to shout the word manning instantly. It was something about his meaning in his playing days.
“I have a lot of people asking what Omaha means. Well, Omaha, it’s a run play, “Manning Deadpanned in 2014.” But it could be a pass play or a play-pass action pass, depending on one of two things: the wind, how we go, the quarters, and the jersey that we wear. It really varies from play-to-play. So that’s your answer. “
After retiring, Maning Ning admitted that the term was often indicative of a fast-paced ball due to the declining playing clock. He used the term more than 40 times in a playoff game.
Colt McCoy seemed intent on topping it on Sunday. His repeated voice “Omaha!” Quickly and loudly on NBC’s broadcast before.
Winner: Looooong Drives
My colleague Dan Lebe pointed out in our postgame podcast that the Browns-Giants are his favorite drive of the game season.
It extended from the third quarter to the fourth and ended with the Browns ’final touchdown, which stretched the lead to 20-3.
Here’s a break:
Start: Browns 5-yard line
Plays: 14.
Yards advanced: 115.
Penalty yards: minus -20.
Net Yards: 95.
First downhill. Six.
Time: 8:04.
It was the longest drive in a game full of them. The Browns also had two plays out of 10 plays and 13 plays. Their four drives lasted at least 4:30 p.m.
The Giants had 12-play drives and three nine-play drives. They also drove two drives over six drives.
There were a total of 15 drives in the game. Last week, the Browns and Ravens combined for 23.
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