A solid D plus a late TO = an ugly W

You hardly know what to make of a win that looked much like a loss, but if you’re somebody who cheers for the Cleveland Browns, you’ll settle for a 6-3 victory regardless of how ugly it looked. Think about it: The Browns had been rolling nightmarishly toward a futility that would match what the Detroit Lions did a season ago. Sixteen losses, although hardly guaranteed, did seem reachable, and coach Eric Mangini and the Browns did nothing Sunday to suggest they could win a game. They dropped passes, slogged around in the wind and, essentially, played as if it were an exhibition game. One thing that helped the Browns was a Buffalo Bills team that couldn’t get out of its way. The Bills stumbled and false-started from the opening whistle to the game’s end. Yet they might have escaped with a win (or a tie) if a muffed punt hadn’t set the Browns up for Billy Cuniff's game-winning field goal with 23 seconds left. The muff was a gift from the football lords, the sort bestowed on a hapless team like the Browns. They can’t beat many opponents on merit alone. Even in this victory, the Browns didn’t show that their short-term future under Mangini was overly promising. They didn’t self-destruct totally, but they didn’t do much to win the game with fine play. While it might be fitting to applaud the defense for its play, but to be overly kind to the defense would be to give too much credit to the Bills. To put it bluntly, they fielded an offensive line that couldn’t stop a Division III defense. How these Bills (1-4) had beaten anybody this season is a question that can’t easily be answered, not based on their performance Sunday. If the Bills aren’t the worst NFL team, they find themselves in the same league as the winless St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders. The three of them will be lucky to combine to win as many games as the Indianapolis Colts. It’s no Herculean chore to deconstruct a lousy team like the Bills, because they did so many things wrong that it would be silly to dwell on the few things they might have done right. The chore is to figure out, even with all the mistakes the Bills made, how the Browns couldn’t turn the game into a blowup. That, too, isn’t a chore. For the figuring can start with what has been one of the glaring weaknesses for the Browns this season: a bad quarterback. Browns fans have seen sorry play from quarterbacks for most of this decade, but few quarterbacks, not even the flawed Tim Couch or the inept Charlie Frye, had a game like Derek Anderson did and came away a winner. Anderson completed two of 17 passes for 23 yards. In Anderson’s defense, his receivers dropped a half-dozen passes, and maybe his statistics might have been more pleasing had those passes been caught. But he looked as shaky as he has been since Romeo Crennell -- and then Mangini -- refused to anoint Anderson the unquestioned starter for what he did in 2007 when his confident was sky high. Still, Anderson deserved some credit for not losing this game. Mind you, he did nothing to win it, but against a pitiful excuse for an NFL team like the Bills, he spared the Browns a possible loss simply because he kept turnovers to a minimum (one). When you’re a football team careening toward 16 losses, an ugly win halts a date with NFL infamy. Browns fans don’t have to worry anymore about matching what the Lions did, but can those fans, after witnessing the horror show that Anderson directed in Buffalo, think that anything better than a 15-loss season awaits them?

Browns fans never warm to Braylon's drama

Braylon Edwards came to Cleveland in 2005 totting more baggage than a Pullman porter. He was a Michigan man, and Michigan men don't receive the warmest of receptions in what is Ohio State country.

Yet Browns fans aren't so closed-minded as not to give a Michigan man like Edwards a chance to prove his mettle, even if doing so might offend the late Woody Hayes. For they wouldn't care if the man came straight from the netherworld if he could throw, catch or tackle.

It didn't take long to discover that Edwards, a No. 1 draft choice, couldn't do any of these at an elite level.

He never blossomed into the football star people hoped he would become. While his talk was big and bold and brash, his play was small and inconsistent, which is to be expected from somebody who once suited up for the Maize and Blue.

Sorry if my partisanship got the better of me. It's just that my Scarlet and Gray roots don't allow me to be as forgiving as most people when judging a player from the University of Michigan. To satisfy me, Edwards would have needed to be the second coming of Jerry Rice (or Cris Carter). By the end, Edwards proved he was the second coming of Jerry Lewis, a comical joke of a football player who didn't play to his skill set.

His athleticism wasn't an issue, because Edwards was tall and lean and swift. He moved with the swift grace of a Broadway dancer, but he was soft as a goosedown pillow. Throw a ball over the middle and Edwards was more likely to duck than stretch his arms to catch it. And ask him to make a big catch late, and he'd be missing in action.

What doomed him in Cleveland, however, was his appetite for the nightlife.

He loved the fame; he craved it more than he wanted the team to succeed. Mention his name to people who know him, and they claimed he envied the adulation the fans here lavished on LeBron James. Edwards never understood it, much the way that Kellen Winslow Jr. never understood it or this market.

Envy can be a toxic emotion, because it debases a man. It forces him to do things he wouldn't normally do. Fine, perhaps if he's a person who lives his life outside the limelight. But when he's a public personality, he can't afford to let envy push him to behavior that speaks poorly of the community and the team he represents.

Edwards might find punching people in the face acceptable in Ann Arbor; he would never find it acceptable in Cleveland (or in other the NFL cities). Here, they expect more from their "stars," although they've found their expectations unfulfilled since their beloved Browns returned to town a decade ago.

Through those dark years, their fans have wanted a reason to cheer for anybody who could play worth a darn. They longed for Edwards to be that player, so they gave him as fair a shake as he could expect. In return, he did nothing to deserve their cheers. He disappointed fans at every turn.

His last disappointment cost him his career as a Cleveland Brown, though I doubt Edwards will lose one night's sleep thinking about it. He will wake up tomorrow prepared to go to another workout with the New York Jets. He will be just another player coach Eric Mangini has shipped to his former team. None of the others have been missed, and neither will a prima donna like Braylon Edwards.

The decision to trade him shouldn't cause a ripple in Cleveland. Good riddance, fans say. They already know that the 2009 season is sinking like the Titanic, and their Browns can finish last without the underachieving Edwards in the lineup. The team is playing for next season and a high-draft choice, a familiar theme in Cleveland where most pro teams are playing for things other than championships.

How the players who are coming to the Browns in the Edwards trade will help isn't something I want to speculate about. None are stars; mostly they are just loose pieces to plug small leaks here and there. They aren't long-term acquisitions of importance.

Obviously, nobody wants to hear talk about next season with this season still fresh. Harsh reality might be tough to deal with in October, but how does late season failure help energize fans? They know the score as well as Mangini does.

He didn't inherit much when he arrived, and he hasn't added much talent since. Mangini has figured out, regardless of what Edwards does for the Jets, the Browns are better off without Edwards than with him.

I agree.