Warner Facebook Photo

The old-school football of my formative years came with headaches and pleasures not much appreciated today. I played on a team that employed the single wing, a run-oriented offense as common today as the dinosaur. It could give its tailback and fullback the aforementioned headaches from blows to the head and sometimes resulted in concussions, though the “C” word wasn’t used. That danger was hardly recognized and euphemistically cloaked in an almost poetic explanation coaches liked to whip out.

“Oh,” they enjoyed telling us, sternly, “you just got your bell rung. Shake it off.”

I heard a few ding-dongs and saw a few stars, but that was the price of moving the ball on the ground, where the opposition could not intercept it. Our coaches took pleasure in the run and with loudly used powers of persuasion that demanded we do the same.

I still do.

When others lament the ugliness of the 10-7 victory Cleveland Browns achieved Sunday over the Houston Texans in their wind-and-rain-swept First Energy Stadium, I celebrate it. I do admit, though, it proved hard to do so before the beauty of the run became evident in the fourth quarter. Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, behind a line reinforced by the return of right guard Wyatt Teller and tight end Austin Hooper, sound blocker and important catcher of a thrown football, combined to protect the lead.

In a Facebook post Stuart Warner, former Akron Beacon Journal sports editor, and someone who should know better, illustrated his opinion of the game with a photo of his grandson (see above) and this: “Liam Stuart Schaefer seems as impressed as I am with the Browns offense.” My view is that the Little Man simply needed a nap so he would not be as cranky as his granddad and namesake. Warner should be forgiven. He is from Kentucky, where football is mostly a placeholder until the basketball season begins.

This is not to say Warner does not know football. He hired Ed Meyer in 1981 to cover the Browns and until Art Modell moved his team to  Baltimore, Meyer was as tenacious and tough in his writing as the last of the great Old Cleveland Browns teams were on the field. Even Meyer, however, was impressed Sunday by the running, especially Chubb’s last. Though he could not watch the Browns push their record to 6-3 because the storm that battered the stadium and delayed the game knocked out his power, Meyer turned to The Land on Demand.com. There he found an account of Tony Grossi, his former Browns beat competitor, of Chubb’s “amazing, selfless feat.”

It was not so much Chubb’s 59-yard run that impressed Meyer—and any a knowledgeable old-school football guy—as where Chubb ended it. He turned out of bounds just before he crossed the goal line, knowing more points did not matter as much as keeping possession of the ball. He did not want quarterback DeShaun Watson and his Texans to have it, even for the 56 seconds that would have been left with a TD.

Browns coach Kevin Stefanski explained after the game that he had told the team to employ a “no mas” strategy—no more points, no more chances for the Texans. Chubb, busy motoring down the left sideline on a recovered sprained knee, may not have executed it perfectly but it was close enough. Perfect would have been to drop to the ground inbounds to keep the clock running. Houston had no remaining timesout. “It was a split-second decision,” Chubb explained post-game.

No one was quibbling. Stefanski said he would not have been mad if Chubb had scored, and defensive end Sheldon Richardson said he, in fact, would have hauled the ball into the end zone. “Put us up two possessions,” Richardson said. “Pad those stats.”

As for Meyer, he would have done something very un-Meyer-like. Though it is not what a journalist (now retired) is supposed to do, Meyer wrote that Chubb’s selfless, team-first demonstration made him just want to “give him a bear hug, to hell with ethics” and journalistic impartiality. Those who had bet on the Browns to cover the 4.5-point spread as favorite may not have been in the mood to cuddle with Chubb.

ESPN’s David Purdum reported that “the Browns were supported heavily by the betting public.” Purdum went on to explain that Jeff Stoneback, sportsbook director for BetMGM in Nevada, said “the Texans covering the spread produced a mid-six-figure swing in favor of the house and a collective moan from the crowd of bettors at the Mirage in Las Vegas.” DraftKings also reported taking more bets on the Browns than on the Texans. Additionally Chubb might have given Fantasy Football participants a case of heartburn.

That’s the problem, in my estimation, with tangents to the game itself. They may heighten interest—a good thing—but they can diminish what’s important. Lose a bet or have a fantasy team player do the “wrong” thing and perspective is altered. It is not unlike being unable to properly appreciate a 10-7 Browns’ victory that keeps the team playoff viable, and makes the commentary of a Doug Lesmerises all the more valuable.

Lesmerises wrote for Cleveland.com an appreciation of a play that may have gone unnoticed by many because it involved one of the subtleties that makes the game interesting. It did not result in points but positioned the Browns to keep and take into the second half a 3-0 lead with which they could try to control the game with the run.

After a fake Houston field goal turned pooch punt had left the Browns on their 4-yard line, they faced a second-and-7. Stefanski called a play-action bootleg right with two tight ends on the field, including Hooper. He went down the middle of the field and then right, with quarterback Baker Mayfield. Miss here and it is third-and-7 with 3:30 on the clock. With three-time Defensive-Player-of-the-Year J.J. Watt in hot pursuit, Mayfield did not miss. He placed the ball perfectly for Hooper to get 11 precious yards. Time bought.

Mayfield’s stats look pedestrian—12-of-30 for 132 yards—compared with Chubb’s 19 carries for 126 yards and Hunt’s 19 for 104, but he made no mistakes and Stefanski’s run-first, winter-proof offense passed a test. Old-school subtleties can be beautiful.