By Cleveland Urban News.Com Sports Writer Karl Kimbrough
CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Cleveland Browns came back Sunday from a week off with a new attitude in playing against the Dallas Cowboys, a game that went into overtime, though the Browns lost 23-20.
In most of the first nine games of this season the Browns had been starting the game like first half doesn't count, being out scored going into halftime in practically every game.
But against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Cleveland had a 13 point lead at the end of the first half.
The Browns shutout Dallas in the first half, and shut them down playing with a purpose, and with intensity not seen from them this year.
The Browns dominated the line of scrimmage offensively and defensively and scored a rare first quarter touchdown after a 10 play 48 yard drive.
Quarterback Brandon Weeden threw a ten yard touchdown to Ben Watson. and then scored on two field goals from Phil Dawson in the second quarter after drives of 51 and 55 yards respectively.
And Trent Richardson dominated the running game in the first two quarters with 68 yards rushing.
On defense, the front four of the Browns hurried Dallas Quarterback Tony Romo into bad throws and sacked him three times. Romo was 10 of 17 for 83 yards in the first half. But in the second half, as the third quarter began, the Browns seemed to have left something in the locker room.
The same sense of urgency that the Browns played with in the first half was evident in the Cowboys in the second half. Dallas scored 17 unanswered points against the Browns, taking a seven to 13 lead with with 6:46 left in the fourth quarter.
It was not until Dallas took the lead with 6:46 left in the fourth quarter that the Browns offense began to play aggressively as they did in the first half.
Finally, with one minute and seven seconds left in the fourth quarter, Weeden connected with Ben Watson for the second time of the day for a touchdown, this time from 17 yards out. The one minute and seven seconds were all Romo needed to hurry his offense down the field to set up a game tying field goal by the Cowboys Dan Bailey, sending the game into overtime with the two teams tied at 20.
Bailey would promptly win the game for the Cowboys in overtime with a 38 yard field goal.
The lost for the Browns dropped their record to two wins and eight losses.
Richardson said that Browns played hard, but the win did not come their way.
“We put everything we have in the game and everybody was pouring what they had in this ,” said Richardson. "It is frustrating. You gotta finish these games if you don't you see what happens these last seven games, we gotta start fast and finish."
The Cowboys come back in the second half with pure aggression. They came to the line of scrimmage quicker to catch Cleveland off guard and started throwing several passes deep down field.
These passes resulted in seven penalties against Cleveland defensive backs. And those penalties gave Dallas 10 first downs and kept the drives alive.
Some Browns players thought the penalties were undeserved.
“A lot of calls were crazy, and we didn't get some calls that could have gone either way," said Sheldon Brown, a Browns cornerback.
Other mistakes and penalties put the Browns in a whole on kick off returns in the second half. These and similar type mistakes have happen in other games this season.
Just two weeks ago during the game against the Baltimore Ravens the Browns spotted Ravens 14 points before they woke up and started to compete.The same thing happened in Indianapolis when the Colt's jumped out to an early lead. It happened against Buffalo at home when they took a 14 point lead in the first quarter, and it happened against the Bengals in the Browns'first game of the season.
The Browns have also started out quick against the New York Giants with a 14 point lead and lost it like they did against the Cowboys on Sunday.
Also in the game against the Cowboys their secondary was once again exposed without Joe Haden.
But the Browns did have fans on the edge of their seats during overtime against the Cowboys, even if they ultimately lost the game.
Reach Karl Kimbrough by email at kimbrough@clevelandurbannews.com. Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone@216-659-0473.
