My guess is the 5 hour charter flight home from Seattle on Sunday night was an interesting one after the Browns let one get away 24-20. A game they really had no business losing bringing our record to 4-3. Granted, Seattle is a difficult place to win and the Browns are facing some challenges with Watson being out and other injuries, and that's what makes this so hard to swallow. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
This was not on the players, this one is squarely on the coach. Up until the crucial moment, the coach had a very good day coming back from 14 down in a tough environment. Would someone else please tell the coach that you don't put your third string QB in a bad position when there are other options to close out a well played game? The only way the Browns were going to lose that game is by giving it away, and Stefanski was happy to oblige. He put the entire game in the hands of a journeyman QB with 2 minutes to go and it wasn't fair to him or the team. After the interception, you could see the Browns were totally shell shocked and the Seahawks were completely rejuvenated. Those intangibles again are a blind spot for this coach - the game within the game.
Third string QB P.J. Walker played about as well as he's going to play in any game at the NFL level. In fact, he played about as well as Watson has in any single game since we signed the Bezos priced QB a couple years ago. And Stefanski rewarded his QB and his team by making a totally Bozo-ic play call of a pass on a critical third down that resulted in a truly fluky interception that a couple minutes later cost us the game. Say it with me - run the ball, and if you don't get it, punt it away with the leagues BEST PUNTER and make Seattle drive 90 yards against NFL's BEST DEFENSE - OURS!!! Why is this so hard? If Seattle drives the field and scores they deserve to win. But that was not going to happen from deep in their own end.
Seattle had not moved the ball since the first quarter and wasn't going to then either. Would someone please tell Stefanski that he has the best defense in the league and that's the reason we have a winning record? Does he know? What in the world is wrong with him in these kind of moments? There comes a moment that you have to stop being the worlds smartest man in your own mind - and understand you now look incompetent in everyone else's - yet again. Including your 53 man roster and staff.
The players have to be sick and silently steaming over this. Putting Walker in a position to fail after playing so well all day when that was the last thing that was necessary. Yes, it was a fluky play that wouldn't happen again, but it happened Sunday and we paid the price. I'm guessing that ride home was a very tense one. The only thing that diffuses that is Stefanski being accountable for his boneheaded snafu, but that's not in his DNA at all. There is no other real way to look at this. He put a good dude who played hard in a position to fail when we couldn't afford to.
Arizona today and we have no business losing this game either. Kevin humble yourself, take accountability and make far better decisions when it matters going forward.
GO BROWNS!!
