CLEVELAND, Ohio — Playing catastrophe-free football for the first time in a month, the Browns restored some faith in themselves Sunday by beating the Jacksonville Jaguars, 14-10. They did it with a goal-line defensive stand at the end when the Jaguars were denied on four plays inside the 5.
They did it with a redemptive touchdown drive in the fourth quarter by Colt McCoy after he threw an interception at the Jacksonville 3.
They did it with a monster second half rushing by Chris Ogbonnaya, who had 98 yards after halftime and 115 for the game.
They did it with a replay review that was fuzzy enough to cast doubt on whether a tipped pass should undo a Jacksonville pass interference in the end zone, which set up Ogbonnaya’s first career TD run from a yard out.
And, yes, they did it with a questionable decision by the Jaguars to put the ball in the hands of scatter-armed rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert on the final two plays from the 1 rather than give it to Pro Bowl running back Maurice Jones-Drew.
“Our offensive coordinator calls the plays,” Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio said, throwing Dirk Koetter under the bus. “I can’t speak to his thinking.”
Gabbert, the league’s only starting quarterback completing fewer than 50 percent of his passes, had moved his team from his 29 to the Browns’ 5 after the two-minute warning.
On first down from the 2, Jones-Drew dived ahead for one yard. Del Rio used his third timeout with eight seconds left. A failed run there would have secured the loss. So Gabbert threw for Jason Hill in the right corner. Joe Haden was beat, but he closed and slapped at Hill’s hands to break it up.
Tony Grossi’s Take
- Offense: Big days for Colt McCoy, who atoned for a red-zone interception, Chris Ogbonnaya, who had his first career 100-yard rushing day and touchdown, and Jordan Norwood, whose 51-yard catch and run woke up everybody. Nice border awareness by Josh Cribbs on TD. Very quietly, the offensive line also had a good day. Bottom line: Home TD drought is over.
Defense: Except for dropped interceptions by Joe Haden and Sheldon Brown, it was an excellent performance. Holding Maurice Jones-Drew to 87 yards was the key. Blaine Gabbert had to throw 41 times. Haden defended the next-to-last play in the end zone and D’Qwell Jackson was close enough on the last one to influence Gabbert’s bad throw. Bottom line: Catching the INTs would have made it a laugher.
- Special teams: The wind played havoc with one Brad Maynard punt. Then same thing happened to Jaguars. Overall, this was a stalemate. Bottom line: No catastrophies.
- Coaching: The Browns had the ball for 16 plays in the red zone (inside the 20). Pat Shurmur called nine passes and seven runs. Even after McCoy’s interception, the coach called two passes on the ensuing drive, the last resulting in the winning TD. Bottom line: Take that, you armchair critics.
— Tony Grossi
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“He walked off like it was a run play, then next thing you know he just pushed and went to the corner,” Haden said. “So I just chased him and wasn’t in good enough position to look back for ball, so soon as it touched his hands I made sure I hit his hands to knock it out.”
So it came down to one play from the 1 with three seconds left. A handoff to Jones-Drew, the rolling ball of butcher knives, was on the minds of most in the half-empty Cleveland Browns Stadium. Defensive tackle Ahtyba Rubin said he was mindful of a keeper run by Gabbert. Linebacker D’Qwell Jackson was thinking a play-action pass.
Under center, Gabbert dropped back and looked again toward Hill in the right corner. His second read took him to Mike Thomas, his team’s leading receiver, crossing to the middle of the end zone. Thomas had a small edge on Jackson, covering the middle, but Gabbert’s throw sailed high and wide, slightly behind the receiver.
“I anticipated the route he was running, but it was tough route to cover because the guy works away from you,” Jackson said. “I saw his hands went up, my hands went up. I didn’t even see the ball.”
Jackson added, “About time some things swing in our favor.”
Like earlier in the fourth quarter, when Gabbert missed Hill wide open in the left corner of the end zone after Sheldon Brown slipped and fell at the line of scrimmage. Gabbert’s throw sailed out of the end zone. Jacksonville was forced to settle for a field goal.
Although the Browns extended their touchdown-less streaks in the first and third quarters to a season-long 10 games, McCoy’s indefatigable fourth quarter touchdown drive proved the game-winner. It atoned for McCoy’s one bad play of the game — an interception at the Jacksonville 3. What made that mistake even worse was that coach Pat Shurmur had taken a field goal off the scoreboard.
Jacksonville linebacker Mike Lockley was penalized for leaping during Phil Dawson’s apparent 40-yard field goal. Referee Terry McAulay said to a pool reporter after the game that “a player who starts more than a yard from the ball cannot jump up and land on another player.”
By accepting the penalty, Shurmur received a new set of downs at the Jaguars’ 11. Criticized severely for setting up for a field goal at the end of the St. Louis game, which was botched, Shurmur allowed McCoy to throw. It backfired when McCoy’s late pass on third down for tight end Ben Watson was intercepted by safety Dawan Landry.
Undaunted, Shurmur called two pass plays on McCoy’s next drive from the 3. The second one was completed on a sprint rollout by McCoy to Josh Cribbs, who ably got his feet down with one hop in tight quarters inside the goal-line pylon.
In all, the Browns had 16 plays inside the 20 — the dreaded red zone. Shurmur called nine passes and seven runs. The Browns scored two touchdowns in the four red-zone possessions — gigantic improvement over last week’s 0-for-4.
“Everybody had issues about the red zone, and we got in the red zone and scored,” Shurmur said.
“Some day we’ll all sit down and watch the red zone together. I threw the ball quite a bit in the red zone. I chose to run it at the end of the game [last week] and that was situational football. I believe it’s important to throw the football and I believe it’s important to trust your quarterback, and that’s what we did and we won the game.”
The win halted a three-game losing streak and improved the Browns to 4-6.
“It changes the whole attitude, gives you a new energy, makes you excited to go back to work,” Haden said.
It also gives the Browns a new frame of mind as they enter their scheduled death march to conclude this season. Five games in the division over the last six weeks, starting with a visit to Cincinnati.
“It’s not getting any easier for us at this point,” Jackson said.
On Twitter: @TonyGrossi
There is the quick update of the day.
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