The Top 12 Worst Games of 2021: V

Lions at Browns, Week 11: Bad Good Team + Good Bad Team = Bad Football

When the Browns win, they win ugly. When the Browns lose, they lose ugly. You’ll have deduced this conclusion if you’ve read this far since this is the third time the Browns have appeared on this list (they’re 1-1 in Worst Games of 2021, if you care to know). And no, I don’t hate the Browns. I just know boring football. And the Browns are prolific boring football merchants.

See the headline. How else to describe these two nigh-unwatchable garbage truck fleets of football teams in Anno Domini 2021? The Lions made it clear from the very outset that they weren’t particularly interested in competing this year: flushing out the psychic detritus Matt Patricia had permitted to cluster above the rafters of Ford Field would not take only a few weeks or a few months (hopefully for the state of Michigan’s sake it doesn’t take more than a few seasons), and with the timeframe of a probably long rebuild in view, new head coach Dan Campbell made it clear from as early as the construction of his assistant coaching staff and first draft that the goal early on would be to accumulate as much grittiness and FOOTBALL GUY mentality as possible: Campbell’s entire offensive coaching staff is made up of previous NFL players, including former Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn and former Super Bowl champion passers Mark Brunell and Antwaan Randle El, and is anchored by another former player on defense with Aaron Glenn acting as DC. Their first three draft picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, an offensive tackle and two DTs, weighed a combined 956 pounds! This decisively old-school team, which was interesting if not good (coming into the contest with Cleveland at 0-8-1), provided a study in contrast to Cleveland, whose pairing of Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski has been lauded for its nouveau approach and embrace of analytics in team building. This isn’t to say that you can’t be a smashmouth football team who also embraces analytics; that’s basically what the Browns were trying to be. Given that they barely hung on to win this game 13—10, though, it looks like the “smashmouth” side of the equation is winning out, and the 2021 Browns were not a convincing argument in favor of the combined arms new wave + old school approach.

But an ugly win is still a win, and even if Cleveland’s plodding offensive tedium didn’t win them a playoff berth in 2021, it was more than enough to outlast the Lions, whose foundations of competitiveness were hardly lain even well into the second half of the season. On paper, the teams looked pretty even in the rushing department, both performing fairly well against tough front 7s to the tune of 168 yards for Detroit and 184 yards for Cleveland. Both scored one rushing touchdown, but Cleveland managed that by virtue of a wildcat scramble by Jarvis Landry, who despite being held to 26 yards on 4 catches provided the game’s sole true highlight, turning a blown-up trick play where he lined up at QB into a Mike Vick style speedrun up the middle between flatfooted defenders. The creative plays were working for Cleveland on this day, and they were not for Detroit: Two of the best plays of the day on offense for Cleveland were the Landry runaround and a tight end screen to Austin Hooper, who caught the ball almost 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage but rumbled forth for 20 yards with perfect sprinter posture. By comparison, the Lions were trying out crazy plays not out of artistic vision but instead necessity. How do we know this? They tried throwing a screen pass to Jason Cabinda. You can be the judge of that.

The Lions’ quarterback on this day was Tim Boyle, who had been press-ganged into service after an injury (and, let’s be honest, a winding stretch of perceptibly ineffective play) sidelined starter Jared Goff. Even though Campbell had said that “they would not be handicapped” by having Boyle instead of Goff as a starter, actions speak louder than words, and based on the playcalling demonstrated by offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn (who even on a good day is one of the conservative and by-the-book playcallers you’re likely to find) they were playing in the offensive football version of a Red Cross field hospital. Forget “handicapped,” the Lions were playing maimed. They only ran 46 plays, and half were runs, half were passes. Racking up 168 yards on 23 rushes is actually a pretty good afternoon, so in fairness to Mr. Boyle, it’s possible that Campbell, Lynn and Co. just wanted to keep the productive rushing attack going. On the other hand, Boyle had not even exceeded 60 yards passing by the time the Lions’ final drive of the afternoon came around (coincidentally this is when his longest pass of the day, a strike to T.J. Hockenson for 24 yards that preceded a loss of 4 on a Godwin Igwebuike screen pass that fixed his total at 77 pass yards, happened). Boyle, simply put, did not pass the eye test: despite only 8 incompletions, every missed throw looked humblingly bad, and every completion had the appearance of a receiver going all-out to make the catch. He had 39 passing yards in the second half. At least it showed growth: Boyle only had 38 passing yards in the first half. But let’s consider the unreality of that figure for a second. The Lions, who entered halftime trailing 13-0, actually attempted fewer passes in the second half than in the first half. When losing by two scores! How? This is how: the Lions were sneakily tanking. Maybe it wasn’t even sneaky – most people who followed NFL goings-on knew what Detroit was up to, but even with the knowledge that the Lions were heavily leaning into their status as the worst team in the NFL, it was arresting to see how they managed their deficit in this game. “Show a little fight right now!”, implored color commentator LaVarr Arrington at a point when the Lions were down by 13. To the credit of the Lions defense, they showed fight; the offense, beleaguered with inexperience though it was with Boyle at the helm of the points machine, did not. Instead, they tried a smorgasbord of low-risk, low-reward plays, hoping that one or two broke a ballcarrier loose and put them on the scoreboard. Thankfully for them, one did – a disguise handoff to D’Andre Swift finally punctured deep into the Cleveland defense, the running back splitting the safeties for a 57-yard touchdown that showed to the world hey, maybe this whole “zero QB” thing can work. It was wrong, of course, as the Lions never sniffed the redzone again. But by God they could have, and the ignominious late-game acquiescence to impending defeat is the chief reason this game lands on the list. Down 6, at the Cleveland 25, in the fourth quarter, after throwing a short pass to Egyptian demigod Amon-Ra St. Brown and pounding the ball into the line twice with D’Andre Swift, and facing a 4th and 1, Dan Campbell decided to settle for a field goal. To cut the lead to 3. Such incomprehensibly risk-averse absurdity deserves to be exterminated with extreme prejudice.

There’s just not that much to say about this game. One thing that did stand out was how bad these two quarterbacks were at protecting themselves; both took huge hits after getting rid of the ball numerous times. In fairness, if I was someone rushing the passer, I’d be pissed I had to play in this game, too. Bad moods abound in Worst Games. Let’s move on.

The rain ponchos. The dog mask. The quarterback statline. The lowered head and downtrodden expression that cannot be concealed. When they write the history of the Cleveland Browns, this might be the picture on slide 1.