CLEVELAND — Welp, it wasn't great. In fact, it was downright awful today down at Browns Stadium.
The Ravens come to Cleveland and throttle the Browns 28-3, a game not even as close as that final score might read. But I don't think today's a day where I really just want to bash the Browns.
I mean, could I take some easy cheap shots at them? Sure. The defense that people wanted to compare to the 1985 Chicago Bears already couldn't tackle today, and they continually got pushed off the football while the Ravens ran it down their throats. I thought Kevin Stefanski's play-calling left a lot to be desired, and the offensive line got beat up in the trenches all day.
But I don't think today is the day for all that, where I'm just going to bash them. I really don't think the Browns are in that awful of a spot.
I mean, it's Week 4; you go into the bye week at 2-2 on the season, and I think before the year started, we all would've signed up for that. Let's also address the big fat pink elephant in the room: Deshaun Watson — the Browns' starting quarterback, their franchise quarterback, the guy this entire offense is built around — did not play.
The shoulder clearly wasn't ready for game action today; he tried to give it a go before the game started. So, you call upon a rookie quarterback in Dorian Thompson-Robinson against the Ravens. That's just a lot to ask of a 23-year-old who was playing football at UCLA last season.
Now, we could debate whether you should've kept Josh Dobbs as the backup quarterback, but I don't know if today's the day for that, with the starter hurt as a late scratch in a tough divisional game against probably the best team in the AFC North to date, a team that was hungry after losing to a backup quarterback last week. They weren't going to let that happen again.
Today bothers me because the Browns lost, sure, but when look at it just a little bit deeper of how things shook out today — how things went, what happened before the game, during the game — I think you take your medicine today, you swallow it, and you move on.
And now, somehow, this bye week comes at the perfect time, right? All we've talked about was how early this Browns bye and how it might not be good if it's that early. To me, now it comes at the perfect time: Let your starting quarterback heal up, let your defense and your team rest up and heal up, and come out of the bye week ready for one of the best teams in football. The San Francisco 49ers will be here in Cleveland.
I'm not giving the Browns a pass today, OK? It was bad, but I think we have to move on quickly. It's Oct. 1, not Jan. 1. They're 2-2 on the young season. Again, 2-2 going into the bye week? I think we would've signed up for that.
Let this loss to the Ravens fuel you for the rest of the season. There's a long way to go. Let's forget about this one quickly and hope this isn't the beginning of some real problems.