Browns fall to the Ravens, 27-10, as 0-16 looms closer

The Cleveland Browns closed out the home portion of the schedule on Sunday with a loss to the Baltimore Ravens, making 0-16 one step closer.

The Cleveland Browns played a football game on Sunday.

And, as they are wont to do, the Browns lost a football game on Sunday.

Cleveland dropped the home final to the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 27-10. The loss leaves the Browns at 0-14 on the season and 1-29 under head coach Hue Jackson, and concludes the first season where they went 0-8 at home since 1999.

Take a bow, coach Jackson.

The game was close for the first half, despite the Browns finishing the first quarter with zero yards of offense and minus-12 passing yards from quarterback DeShone Kizer. Somehow the Browns only found themselves trailing 3-0 in the second quarter and actually took the lead when running back Duke Johnson scampered 12 yards for a touchdown.

That touchdown run culminated a five-play, 96-yard drive that featured five runs, the biggest by running back Isaiah Crowell, who went 59 yards on the first play of the drive, which started on Cleveland’s own four-yard line.

At the end of that drive, which came with 8:12 left in the second quarter, Crowell had run the ball five times for 72 yards. But in another one of those puzzling play calling days from Jackson, Crowell would not run the ball again the rest of the game.

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In fact, on a day where the Browns rushed for 130 yards and averaged 6.8 yards per carry, Jackson had Kizer throw the ball 37 times, with predictable results.

Kizer finished the day 2o-of-37 for 146 yards, two interceptions and two sacks. Kizer has now thrown 19 interceptions this season, which ties him with Mike Phipps, Frank Ryan, Bill Nelsen and Derek Anderson for 10th place on the franchise’s all-time list for interceptions in a single season.

Since Kizer has only had two games this season where he has not thrown an interception, it seems like a lock that he will finish the season securely in the Top 10 list.

Things pretty much fell apart for the Browns once they took that 7-3 lead. The Ravens scored a pair of touchdowns in the closing minutes of the first half to take a 17-10 lead into halftime. They tacked on 10 more points in the third quarter – with a touchdown coming on a strip sack of Kizer in the end zone that was recovered by Baltimore’s Brandon Williams – to put the game away.

Other than that, what more is there to say, really?

The defense limited the Ravens run game, allowing just 3.1 yards per carry, but couldn’t keep Baltimore out of the end zone after a turnover right before the half. Falling behind by seven, even though there was an entire half to play, gave Jackson the excuse he need to abandon the run, and the Browns first three drives of the second half consisted of seven plays (five of them called pass plays) that netted two yards of offense and a Baltimore touchdown on the Kizer fumble.

Outside of the running game the offensive highlights were hard to find. Wide receiver Josh Gordon finished with five receptions (on 11 targets) for 47 yards, giving him 12 receptions on the year out of 27 targets. Other than that … we’re looking … nope, not much that would fall into the category of a highlight.

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The best thing about today’s game is that the home fans will no longer have to spend money to watch this team in 2017 as the Browns will finish the season on the road for the next two games.