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'That's your resume. That's who you are': Browns can't build on success in Chargers loss
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- 'That's your resume. That's who you are': Browns can't build on success in Chargers loss
CLEVELAND — The longest win streak of the Browns season coming into Sunday's home game against the Los Angeles Chargers was one. It's not even fair to call that a streak, because it really isn't one.
That didn't change with Sunday's game, which was an opportunity for the Browns to double their longest win streak of the season by making it two. Instead, their season essentially fell even further down the hole of irrelevance with a 27-10 loss to the Chargers .
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It was yet another time when success was fleeting for a team thought at the beginning of the season to be a playoff contender. Instead, the Browns, at 2-7, are two losses away from yet again following up a playoff season with a losing record.
How can sustained success be so fleeting for a team that was thought to be built off the continuity from last year's 11-6 AFC wild card team?
"Sometimes we get a little bit too high and we start feeling good about a win when we're nowhere near where we want to be," defensive end Myles Garrett said. "We got to stay consistent in our demeanor in how we're attacking each and every day. Sometimes we get a little bit too high, we get a little bit full of ourselves and that takes away from the kind of preparation that we need to get wins like this."
Los Angeles Chargers running back J.K. Dobbins (27) scores a touchdown as Cleveland Browns cornerback Martin Emerson Jr. (23) defends during the first quarter Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Cleveland.
There was one sequence Sunday that was the perfect encapsulation of that failure to maintain success, and it set the tone for the rest of the game.
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Browns defensive tackles Shelby Harris and Dalvin Tomlinson combined to sack Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert at the Cleveland 28 on the second Los Angeles possession to make it third-and-21. On the next play, a coverage breakdown between cornerback Denzel Ward and safety Juan Thornhill allowed wide receiver Joshua Palmer to get wide open on a 28-yard touchdown pass from Herbert.
At that moment, it was 7-0 Chargers with just 8:11 of the game having been played. The tone, though, was set.
"It is frustrating for sure," Tomlinson said. "Like I said before, you have to fix the small things. The small things turn to bigger things. It's one of those things where you want to be able to take care of that momentum from last week into this week.
"And I felt like just across the board, the first half of football today wasn't our standard of football. And like I said before, we got to fix those small things to be able to play like we can play."
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The problem for the Browns is they told on themselves the previous week. In fact, they've done it both times they've won this season.
Cleveland's Week 2 win at the Jacksonville Jaguars may not have been the offensive showcase the win last Sunday over the Baltimore Ravens was, it was at least a glimpse of a competent team. The win over the Ravens, though, seemed like it could've been the spark that potentially lit up the pathway to salvaging the season.
Instead, the Browns used it to light a dumpster fire with the loss to the Chargers.
"You see the two spectrums of it," Harris said. "Obviously, you see what we can do and you see when we make mistakes, that's also what happens. In the National Football League, we can get punished for those mistakes. And so, no matter what it is, that's your resume. That's who you are. And we can sit here and keep saying, 'Oh, we beat the Ravens,' and all that s***, but we just got to be better. They beat us, and we beat ourselves at the same time. So it's frustrating.
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"But at the end of the day, as a pro, you come back to work on Monday. There is no quit. There's no type of give up. We go and we go and we go, but that's it."
Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns can't build upon, maintain success in loss to Chargers
