National Football League

Browns position themselves for a run

Published Oct. 12, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET

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CLEVELAND -- Welcome, Cleveland, to football season.

A real NFL football season.

Check the standings. Fly your flags. Talk about how one good play set up the next, how the next guy up did his job, how the strengths mix with the weaknesses, how the right chemistry and the right bounces could lead to see some really big Sundays later in the season.

After the Cleveland Browns flattened the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday, 31-10, and left no doubt about which team is in better shape, you can go ahead and look at the upcoming schedule, too.

At 0-6 Jacksonville. 0-5 Oakland. 1-5 Tampa Bay, which has given up the most points in the league and it's not close.

The Browns are 3-2, it feels like 30-2 if you've been around this team in recent years and 6-2 isn't out of the question.

One step at a time. The Browns went ahead and exorcised the whole Ben Roethlisberger thing Sunday, a big step by any measure. There have been steps in lots of areas since the second half of the season opener at Pittsburgh, when Brian Hoyer first stepped up and started becoming the unquestioned leader of the Browns he is now.

The Browns beat the Steelers so thoroughly Sunday that Hoyer threw only 17 passes, completed only 8 of them and still played a damn fine game. The Browns have outscored their opponents 50-10 over the last six quarters and have outscored the Steelers 55-13 in the last six quarters between the teams.

That last stat matters little because these teams won't see each other again until next season. For the first time in a long time, though, the Browns are not only out of the AFC North basement but can look at the 4-2 Ravens and the 3-1-1 Bengals and wonder what they're doing because it matters in the standings, not just wondering how the other side lives.

One more time with the schedule: At Jacksonville. Oakland. Tampa Bay. At Cincinnati, which has a chance to be the biggest game in the NFL when it comes around. Really.

One step at a time. The Browns lost Alex Mack in Sunday's game, and he's been a big part of this offense's heartbeat. The defense keeps losing guys, too, and though the defense answered the call Sunday the pass defense is still somewhere between shaky and scary. The Steelers were just awful Sunday and were asking to be whipped; the Browns obliged and completely dominated.

"You can't underestimate how important this win was for us," Browns coach Mike Pettine said after the game, and the stubborn, resilient fans who have been living and (mostly) dying with this organization for the last 15 years nodded accordingly.

Yeah, last year's Browns were 3-2, too, but they lost Hoyer in that third win. After the Browns had -8 total yards in the first quarter Sunday, Hoyer got back to doing what he's been doing, and the Steelers had no answer. The Browns ran for 158 yards and Hoyer threw for 217. Early in the fourth quarter, it was 31-3.

Hoyer fooled the Steelers with play-action fakes, beat cornerbacks with well-placed darts and ran a precision offense the way it's supposed to be run. The Browns drove 85, 68 and 60 yards for touchdowns, the shortest one coming after Hoyer's biggest play, a 51-yard touchdown to Jordan Cameron down the middle.

Pettine said he wasn't sure it's possible to throw a ball any better than Hoyer threw that one.

Again, a fan base nodded.

Hoyer is 6-2 as a starter. Even without Mack, he's surrounded by a really good offensive line, a solid running game, enough guys who make plays in the passing game that -- especially if Cameron is going to be healthy enough to make big plays -- more wins can come. The defense was better Sunday; it actually got to play with the lead.

The Browns play wild games; their first four before Sunday were decided by a total of 8 points. Now, the Browns can go ahead and play in significant games. There's a long, long way to the finish but they needed to win Sunday to be able to claim any sort of legitimacy and they did win.

Convincingly.

"The Browns are a good football team," Roethlisberger said after the game. He wasn't in much of a talking mood.

In the other press conference room down the hall, Hoyer downplayed the hometown fans chanting his name and talked about knowing that the last time the Browns beat the Steelers -- one of only three times in 11 years -- he was the emerency backup quarterback for the Steelers.

Times have changed. Quite possibly, times are a changin'.

The Browns are entertaining, dangerous and worth watching. People are chanting Hoyer's name, and he's carrying himself like he knows he's good.

One step at a time, but beating Pittsburgh was a big one.

One step at a time. The Browns are really both building and chasing something.

Follow on Twitter FSOhioZJackson

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