It was seven days of glory, hope and hype atop the AFC North for the Browns, but they fell off their perch Sunday afternoon with a 23-7 loss to the Texans in which they inexplicably came out flat.
“The Texans came out focused and really hungry to win this game,” said defensive end Desmond Bryant. “I don’t think we were really prepared the way we should’ve been.”
How so?
“We may have been sitting back a little bit, kind of catching more than we were delivering,” said the defensive end.
The Browns let superstar defensive end J.J. Watt dominate the game with a touchdown catch, a strip-sack and a fumble recovery that led to the game-winning touchdown pass.
They let a first-time starting quarterback in Ryan Mallett beat them with two touchdown passes and a 95.3 rating en route to a resounding victory in the Brady Backup Bowl.
They let a rookie running back — a sixth-round pick no less — in Alfred Blue prance all over them for 156 yards on a Texans-record 36 carries while star back Arian Foster rested a sore groin.
“We saw on tape that he’s a good back,” said Bryant. “I guess we didn’t prepare to stop him the way we should have.”
As a result, the Browns fell to 6-4 and toppled out of first place in the AFC North. The Bengals climbed back into the top spot at 6-3-1 with their 27-10 rout of the Saints, and the Browns are bunched up at second with the Steelers, who the play the Titans Monday night, and the Ravens, who are on a bye.
“I’ll just start off by saying it’s a disappointment,” said Hoyer (20-of-50, 330 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 61.2 rating) “We had a good opportunity to come out here, and we let it slip through our hands. Give a lot of credit to their team, their coaching staff. We were just outplayed. We just realized we’re not there yet. We’ve got to be better.”
Coach Mike Pettine, who cautioned against the “major overreaction” to the Browns climb into first place, watched his team for the second time this season follow a huge upset in the division with a big dud.
The first time, it was the 24-6 loss to the Jaguars after clobbering the Steelers 31-10. This time, it was a similar meltdown after routing the Bengals on national television 24-3, a week ago Thursday.
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