Much as it pained and disgusted me to watch the Browns get trampled by the Cowboys on their own back forty, that game may be of remarkably little import in the season-long sweep of things.
That’s one reason Joshua Cribbs got an extra week to rest his ankle. And, shameful as it was, it’s one reason that the coaches didn’t pull all the strings on the field to try to get back into the game. Remember announcer Troy Aikman summarizing his pre-game conversations? “It almost seemed like they were building in a lot of excuses in case they didn’t play well.”
That’s troubling to hear. But this team was so dinged up, even one in-game injury would create a hole Dallas could exploit to victory. Little could anyone imagine that the injury would happen during warm-ups!
Hoping and assuming that Donte Stallworth’s leg injury is minor, it appears the Browns escaped with a loss on only the scoreboard and not the depth chart.
In retrospect — and this sounds bizarre for a home opener against a marquee team — it felt as if the Browns were looking past Dallas and gearing up for the Steelers and the rest of their daunting schedule.
I don’t like that posture, but I understand it. Dallas is a non-conference game, the least important when it comes to tie-breakers. The Cowboys will take on Pittsburgh, Cincy, and the Ravens in due time, and the Browns’ loss only really hurts if a division rival picks up a game against this tough common opponent.
Let’s hope that before next Sunday night, the Browns get healthier (e.g. Pool, Cribbs, Tucker, et al), scrape off more of that oxidized ferrous metal (Edwards and Anderson particularly), and open things up on both sides of the ball. A win over Pittsburgh will more than erase the memory of the pitiful preseason and the Dallas debacle.
A loss will make for an uphill climb the rest of the season. The Browns will either scrap tenaciously toward the final week’s rematch in Pittsburgh, or they’ll do what we saw on Sunday: get tired and sloppy, then punt and kick useless field goals in a vain attempt to salvage respectability.
