CLEVELAND - There are lots of ways to lose a game (see Browns, Cleveland, 1999-2012) and lots of ways those losses affect a team's season and psyche, but the Browns losing to the Lions Sunday with the home crowd booing the home quarterback (again) probably qualifies as a worst-case scenario.
It's not the boos or the opinions or the frustration, and it's not even the blown lead, the lost momentum, or the cracks in the Browns defense that showed up Sunday. It's that it's more than fair to wonder if anybody involved can have enough faith in Brandon Weeden to produce different results than he and his teammates were able to produce in Sunday's second half, a crash landing punctuated by Weeden throwing the crippling interception with the flick of his wrist, basically shoving a high-arching pass into the air and into the arms of waiting Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy.
It was unexplainably bad, a lapse in judgement at the worst possible time, the final chapter of a slow death of a three-game winning streak. The Browns simply haven't had many of these chances to play for first place and for sustained success, and in this one they led 17-7 before that lead and all that momentum started to disappear.
The Browns are both in the race for the AFC North Division title and on their way to building something, but there are 10 games left in this season and the quarterback question, the one that's hung over this franchise more than it hasn't for more than a decade, continues to loom. Weeden should know his second chance this season is probably his last, and no one is asking him to be perfect but he can't do what he did on that interception, which came on first down in Detroit territory with just under five minutes left, the Browns trailing by a touchdown.
In a game they could have won, the Browns didn't score a point in the second half. In a situation that could have resulted in a four-game win streak and keeping a share of first place, the Browns came up empty. It's never just one play or one situation or one man, but it is fair by now to wonder if coming close but not close enough and throwing it to the other team at the wrong moment is just who Weeden is.
That thought makes it seem like a long way from now to the finish line, doesn't it?
The Browns proved that they weren't tanking after the surprising September trade of Trent Richardson, and no one is going to say they're going to give up now. But they sure squandered a golden opportunity on Sunday, and it ended with an incredible thud.
"We weren't able to close the game out in the second half," Browns coach Rob Chudzinski said. "That's something we need to learn and do, and be able to do, is take the game when we have the opportunities and be more consistent in that way."
Of the back-breaking interception, Weeden said: "I was trying the flip it over (Chris) Ogbonnaya's head. I couldn't really turn to actually throw it. I didn't want to take a sack there. Just tried to flip it as far as I could over Ogbonnaya's head."
Later, he called it a "boneheaded" play.
And no one would argue.
Chudzinski said he'd have to watch the tape to know more about what Weeden may or may not have been thinking, and for more answers in general. The Lions had the ball for 19:25 of the second half, slowly wearing down the Browns defense and taking over the game. The Browns, like in their first two losses this season, just didn't make the timely play. That defense was left on the field too long, and its deficiency in defending the middle of the field in the passing game was for the first time truly exposed.
Said Chudinski: "We had a couple of false-start penalties, little things like that that put us in some tougher down-and-distance situations. We just couldn't get a rhythm going. Sometimes you get that first first down, and once you get that, you get a rhythm going, and we weren't able to get that."
Weeden finished 26-of-43 for 292 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, the first also by Levy in the first half. Sixty-six of those yards came after the game was decided. The Browns completely abandoned the run in the second half, running the ball five times for 11 yards.
Weeden may not lose his job, at least not now, but the Browns went almost 20 minutes in the second half without picking up a first down, and that was before that throw that will go down as one of the most head-scratching throws ever. The Browns now have to pick up the pieces again, and try to recreate some momentum with road games at Green Bay and Kansas City on tap.
Chudzinski has to think long and hard about what he can do at the game's most important position, and in doing so he has to make sure the locker room believes he's making the right call. Because the Browns come out of this game knowing the result could have been different but not knowing if Weeden is good enough to make it different in the near future.
