Reaction to the moment that began the Cleveland Browns’ slide toward a 22-17 loss to Kansas City in their AFC Divisional Game of the National Football League Playoffs, and the end of its nevertheless remarkably rewarding 12-6 season, came in the blink an eye and with the jerk of a knee. It was understandable, if misguided.

In an old football city at the heart of a region where the sport is king, the naming of each new disaster to befall its beloved Browns is sacrosanct. Fueled by analysis from game’s  broadcast booth(s) and stoked by the studio crews, it went viral on social media, and was legitimized by the evolved old media that has had to supplement the staple of newsprint with all manner of tweets, twirls, and other do-dads.

This naming of the moment when the Browns are inevitably halted short of their goal of reestablishing Cleveland as a place where NFL championships are not only won but once were also commonplace. A legion of team followers knows them all:

Red Right 88. The Drive. The Fumble.

Such snappy euphemisms for disasters that have befallen the Browns were unnecessary during the days when Paul Brown, founder and coach, created championships so routinely that now they seem made of whole cloth and fairy dust. Or maybe they were pipe dreams. It is difficult remember.

The New Browns, NFL 1999 replacement token for the team Art Modell owned and moved but which, in truth, belonged to the city, have been so bad for so long that singular identifying names were unnecessary. It was an avalanche of disasters.

Until now. These 2020 Browns have proved themselves different under the most demanding and trying of circumstance—a pandemic season where COVID-19 has been an additional opponent to overcome. A good and inspiring coach, a winning quarterback who can lead an offense, an undermanned defense that may struggle but keeps fighting, and, best of all, a front office that has demonstrated it knows what it’s doing has changed things. The goal remains unreached but everyone can see it on the horizon.

That, I think, is why people reflexively reached back to the days when Marty “There’s a Gleam” Schottenheimer thought he saw a Lombardi Trophy sparkling in his team’s future only to discover the light was being emitted by an oncoming Super Bowl train, most often the Denver Express with engineer John Elway at the throttle.

Those Browns could not get past Elway and the Broncos and to the Super Bowl just as the great pre-LeBron-Cavs could not overcome Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. It may too soon to compare the Chiefs led by Patrick Mahomes to Cleveland heartbreakers of the past. Mahomes missed much of the second half with a concussion but Kansas City still found a way to win with Chad Henne. The impetus came earlier.

Near the end of the first half, with the Browns trailing 16-3, Mayfield, teaming with Rashard Higgins on two consecutive passes of more than 20 yards, looked to be on the verge of scoring. With the second, he found Higgins inside the 10-yard line along the right sideline. Higgins went airborne, stretching out to reach the pylon. He never made it. Safety Daniel Sorensen, like a missile, launched himself, helmet front and center, into Higgins’ helmet. The ball went flying but a penalty flag for an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit did not. To compound this disaster that would turn into a 10-point swing when Mahomes drove his team to a last-second field goal, the ball went out of the side of the end zone.

That set off the naming: The Call. The Un-Call. The Touchback.

Of course, the situation was more complicated than a one-or-two-word description. Higgins, in trying to score, had ignored what he had been coached to do. “Our rule there,” Stefanski said, “is not to reach the ball out when it is first-and-goal, and he knows that.” Higgins’ coach did acknowledge, however, that it was a mistake born of heart and effort. And Mayfield was throwing no shade: “The ball always finds a way to come back to you after things like that happen.” Another chance, yes, but trailing 19-3.

It was a moment from which the Browns did not recover. The defense never played well enough and could not hold in the end, even when the quarterback was not a former MVP but a 35-year-old journeyman in his first playoff game. He nevertheless made key plays with legs and arm in the last minutes of the game to allow the Browns no hope.

The assessment I prefer concerns broader and longer views, no naming required. Gene Steratore, former referee, and now CBS NFL rules analyst, confirmed on the game broadcast and on Twitter that while “not an easy play to officiate in real time, especially, when you’re dealing with that football, the pylon, the goal line and a fumble” what he saw was “by rule, [an] illegal use of the helmet.” Since officiating falls somewhere between difficult and next-to-impossible, there is a solution.

“You should be able to look at that play again then throw the flag afterward,” analyst and former Browns receiver Nate Burleson said on the CBS Halftime Show. Steratore agreed on Twitter: “I’ve been a firm advocate of making helmet contact reviewable. It’s a player safety issue . . . Ruling correctly on plays involving helmet contact actually benefits from the slower speed of replay.”

So what’s the delay? Fix it. The league claims its priority is safety yet does nothing. Likewise, the NFL has had contradictory rules regarding which team possesses the ball depending on where the ball leaves the field. If it is fumbled out-of-bounds in the field, the fumbling team retains possession, but if it is fumbled out of the end zone, as was the case with Higgins, it is handed, gift wrapped, to the other team as a touchback.

It’s more likely that Browns General Manager Andrew Berry and his staff will strengthen the Cleveland defense, as he did the offense last off-season, before the NFL addresses its grievous shortcomings. The Browns made mistakes that prevented victory— defense, game management, play-calling, penalties, defense—but the NFL once again proved it deserves an all-encompassing euphemism of its own: The Tarnished Shield.