As we struggle to survive another season with the new-era Browns, one way we can try to get through it (besides alcohol or heavy medication) is to look back at the best individual weeks of the Browns’ new era to remember times in recent memory when this particular week didn’t suck.

To an outsider, the frantic hysteria which often accompanies final week of the NFL season seems utterly absurd.

Fans of contending teams obsess not only about what their team needs to do, but they also wring their sweaty hands over how the stars must align correctly elsewhere.

If you’re not hip-deep in the situation, you can’t really understand it. If you are, it becomes your whole world. Kind of like Congress or the Twilight saga.

Only twice since the Browns returned have their fans found themselves in one of these nerve-racking final-weekend situations, and in both cases, the Browns’ hopes appeared slim going in. In 2007, the odds predictably went against the Browns and they were excluded from the postseason.

But five years earlier, things unfolded a bit differently.

In addition to having to defeat the Atlanta Falcons at Cleveland Browns Stadium in the 2002 regular-season finale, the Browns needed help to make the playoffs for the first time since the reboot. They got the first piece of the puzzle Saturday afternoon when Kansas City - who’d defeated the Browns on opening day thanks to Dwayne Rudd and his amazing technicolor helmet - lost in Oakland. And even if the Browns could knock off Atlanta, they’d still need one of two other games to fall the right way.

But since the Falcons also went into the day with their playoff fate hanging in the balance, for the Browns to look ahead would be preposterous. Especially since they would have the added “burden” of playing at home - where, incredibly, they were just 2-5 on the year.

Fittingly, their schizophrenic regular season would be capped by an equally schizophrenic performance in the finale.

Looking uncharacteristically sharp at the outset, the Browns grabbed a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter following a nifty touchdown run by rookie William Green - who’d carried the team into contention in the second half of the season - and appeared to have control of the game.

But Atlanta, led by second-year quarterback Michael Vick, gradually chipped away and, despite missing a pair of field goals, took a six-point lead into the final quarter, which the Browns would enter with a new quarterback.

Tim Couch fractured his fibula on a first-half sack and would be out for the game and - just in case the two durations weren’t identical - the rest of the season. It would be up to Kelly Holcomb - who’d started the first two games of the year and looked damn-near brilliant before suffering a leg injury of his own that sidelined him for the next month and headed off the impending quarterback controversy at the pass.

Catapulted into action for the first time in over three months, Holcomb looked rusty for much of the game, and after another quick three-and-out with just over nine minutes remaining, it looked like the Browns were running out of chances. A play later, they sprang back to life when Gerard Warren recovered a fumble at the Atlanta 11, and Holcomb cashed it in on a third-down touchdown strike to Kevin Johnson that gave the Browns back the lead at 17-16.

The defense forced a key stop and the Browns regained possession at their own 29 with just under five minutes to play looking to milk some clock and hang onto their one-point advantage. Instead, they delivered the most memorable play of the new era.

On second down from the 36, Green took a handoff, broke through a hole over right tackle, and steamed downfield. With Jim Donovan deliriously cheering him on in the radio booth - “Run, William, run!” - Green crossed the goal line to make it 24-16 with 3:53 left.

But of course, this being the Browns, it wasn’t over.

The Falcons, who by this point in the afternoon had been secured a spot in the playoffs by virtue of a New Orleans loss to Carolina, began cruising downfield. They reached the Cleveland 4, then a three-yard first-down run by Warrick Dunn put them at the 1 with the clock ticking down under a minute. 

A touchdown and a two-point conversion and the game would head for overtime. But Atlanta coach Dan Reeves, knowing his team was headed for the postseason, played it safe, opting for a Dunn handoff and a pocket pass from Vick that fell incomplete on third down. Then on fourth, rather than running or rolling out the elusive Vick and risking injury, Reeves green-lit another safe Dunn carry, this one stuffed at the line of scrimmage by a wall of defenders led by Browns’ linebacker Dwayne Rudd - who you’ll recall began this crazy-ass season by pissing away a victory on opening day that at this point still could wind up costing them a playoff berth.

Holcomb kneeled out the final seconds and the Browns had wrapped up the victory and their first winning record in eight years. But it did not deliver a playoff berth - the Browns still needed one more break.

A few minutes later it appeared they’d get it, but Miami blew a comfortable lead to lose in New England in overtime. The Browns’ final hope depended on the 8-7 New York Jets in the 4 o’clock game, who would have to defeat the 12-3 Green Bay Packers, who themselves needed a win to get a first-round bye in the NFC.

Surprising everyone, the Jets rolled to a 42-17 triumph, and shamalamadingdong! The Browns were in the playoffs for the one and only time in their new era.

Their victory in the Atlanta game stands out for many fans as the best and most meaningful the Browns have played since their return, hence its inclusion in the NFL Films “Browns Greatest Games” DVD set released in 2007. (And, bizarrely, the game is also offered as a bonus feature on the fourth season of Sex in the City.) And deservedly so. Led by William Green’s career-best 178 yards and two scores, the Browns stood up when they needed to and delivered a rousing victory in the finale to a beleaguered fan base.

For the first and only time during Browns 2.0, we were part of the insanity and reveled in its final outcome.

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We all have had those moments. Moments an old boss of mine used to call, “Oh, sh*ts”.  Circa 1993, I was a young loan officer in the mortgage business. People were buying houses like mad, and refinancing again and again, on a regular basis. It was a great time for refinancing, so one might assume it was a great time for mortgage companies. That was true- only, those of us who were selling the mortgages were among a work force that was about twice the size of what it needed to be. We were everywhere, and there was hardly enough business to go around. Mortgage companies were fine with that, since we were paid on commission.

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Much about what you get out of the holiday season depends on what you believe in. It's a bit like the last line of I Believe in Father Christmas by Emerson, Lake & Palmer where Greg Lake sings "the Christmas we get we deserve." The Cleveland Browns got beaten down 34-12 on Sunday by the Denver Broncos and there's no question they got exactly out of that game what they deserved.

The team played just as a team who knows its head coach is on the way out tends to play, indifferent, distracted and dispirited. We know this because we've seen it out of various forms of this team just about every other year at season's end. To be fair and perhaps in a show of strength and faith for the players that stopped listening to him about 10 minutes after Jimmy Haslam III took over officially as owner and Joe Banner took over as president, its head coach, Pat Shurmur, coached Sunday's game like someone who knows that he'll soon be looking to latch on somewhere else next season as a quarterbacks coach. For the second straight week the offensive looked untethered, random, clueless and confused.

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Useless nuggets of information from Sunday’s Browns game that you can certainly live without…

BAD STARTS: This was the seventh time this season a Browns’ opponent scored a touchdown on its first possession and the fourth time an opponent scored touchdowns on its first two possessions.

DOUBLE-DIGIT DOLDRUMS: With their loss Sunday, the Browns became the 10th team in NFL history to post 10 or more losses in five consecutive seasons. The good news is they still have a long way to go before matching Tampa Bay’s record stretch of 12 straight seasons of double-digit defeats from 1983 to 1994.

ONE-SIDED: This was the Browns’ largest margin of defeat since getting manhandled by Pittsburgh 41-9 in the 2010 finale (and perhaps appropriately, Eric Mangini’s last game as head coach). Conversely, it was the seventh time the Browns had been defeated by 21 points or more in 15 games in Denver.

THE RETURN OF COLT: Sunday marked the first time Colt McCoy had thrown a pass in a regular-season game in over a year, since getting clobbered in Week 13 of last season in Pittsburgh. In his limited playing time, he notched a marginally better passer rating (85.2) than Brandon Weeden (77.5), though was sacked four times to Weeden’s two. And the Browns’ offense proved more efficient with Weeden at the controls, picking up 157 total yards on 38 plays (a 4.1 average). With McCoy in, the Browns managed 76 yards on 24 plays, a 3.2 average.

OFFENSIVE DIFFERENCES: This was the seventh time this season and the third time in four weeks a Browns’ opponent topped 400 total yards. It also marked the seventh time this year the Browns failed to accumulate 300 yards of offense themselves.

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