Written by Thomas Moore

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The Cleveland Browns fell to 0-5 on the season on Sunday, as the New York Giants ran through them and over them in a 41-27 defeat that really wasn’t that close.

The 0-5 start is the first time the Browns have pulled that off since the expansion team in 1999 and they have now lost 11 games in a row, tying a franchise record.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning torched the Browns secondary for three touchdown passes to wide receiver Victor Cruz (who only had five catches on the day but clearly knows how to make them count), and running back Ahmad Bradshaw pounded the Browns on the ground, rushing for 200 yards and an average of 6.7 yards per carry.

It was like a Bruce Springsteen lyric come to life:

The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight but there’s no place left to hide

The Browns were in the game for a hot minute. Following a Bradshaw fumble on the first offensive play of the game, running back Trent Richardson ran seven yards and then 15 yards right up the middle of the field for a touchdown and a quick 7-0 Browns lead.

The defense forced the Giants to punt on the ensuring possession, and five plays later Brandon Weeden hit Josh Gordon for a 62-yard touchdown pass and, amazingly, the Browns had a 14-0 lead.

Unfortunately, there were still 50 minutes left to play and very little would go right for the Browns.

Manning immediately moved the Giants 92 yards, hitting Cruz for his first touchdown of the day, to cut the Browns lead to 14-7. Somehow, even though it took them 11 plays to go the 92 yards, the Giants never faced a third down on the drive.

It all fell apart – and the game got away –from the Browns in the second quarter.

The teams traded field goals and the Browns took over with 6:46 left in the half with a chance to go into halftime feeling good about themselves. That feeling didn’t last long.

After moving to the Giants 25-yard line, thanks in part to a 38-yard catch-and-run from Chris Ogbonnaya, the Browns faced a third-and-1. Weeden tried to hit Gordon in the right flat, but he was intercepted by Stevie Brown, who returned the ball 46 yards before being pushed out of bounds at the Browns 40-yard line.

“I was trying to make a play. It was stupid,” Weeden said in published reports. “I should have airmailed it and let Phil (Dawson) kick a field goal. That was the one throw I want back.”

“It was a bad throw,” Browns coach Pat Shurmur said. “You don’t throw an interception on third-and-1. We don’t want to throw interceptions. We are in a situation and a part of the field there where you want to do the right thing with the football.

“It’s a bad decision and a nice play by the defense. I don’t care if you are a rookie and I don’t care if you’ve been in the league a long time. You don’t do that. I think we need to get off this rookie kick, we’ve got to play ball.”

The you-know-what is going to hit the fan over the decision to throw the ball in that situation. Richardson had run the previous two plays, gaining four yards and then five yards. But if the Browns had run a third straight time and Richardson had been stuffed, the same people who are complaining about the pass play would have complained about the Browns being too conservative.

Who knows? These are the Browns after all, no matter what they did in that situation it may been predisposed to fail.

Following the interception, Manning hit Rueben Randle for 36 yards, Bradshaw ran in the final four yards for a touchdown, and suddenly the game was tied at 17.

The Browns weren’t done, though. On the kickoff, Josh Cribbs fumbled the ball and the Giants recovered, setting up at the Browns 29-yard line. Five plays later Manning hit Cruz for his second touchdown pass and the Browns found themselves down, 24-17.

But the Browns still weren’t done, because were would the fun be in that?

Taking over at their own 17 with 1:10 left, the Browns put up a four-play “drive” that netted minus-five yards, thanks to a penalty and a five-yard pass to Jordon Norwood on third-and-12. The Browns punted and the Giants had the ball on their own 42 with 17 seconds remaining.

With time running out, Manning went deep for Randle (who caught 6 passes for 82 yards; he came into the game with one catch for four yards on the season) and cornerback Buster Skrine was called for a bogus pass interference penalty (that CBS suspiciously never showed a replay of). The penalty allowed the Giants to kick a field goal to go into the half with a 27-17 lead.

“We started out fast and got an early lead,” Shurmur said. “We had a three-minute stretch before the end of the first half that was, ‘Wow, you can’t do that against a good football team.’”

That was a whole season worth of Browns football encapsulated into one several-minute sequence in the second quarter.

The Browns got the ball to start the second half but could only move 28 yards. Following a Reggie Hodges punt, the Giants were 95 yards in nine plays (although they did have one third down on this drive; baby steps, people), scoring on a 28-yard touchdown reception by Cruz to push the lead to 34-17 and essentially seal the deal with five minutes left in the third quarter.

The Browns had one last tease in them, though, as Cribbs returned the ensuring kickoff 74 yards to the Giants 30-yard line. But the Browns were only able to move seven yards, highlighted by a one-yard completion on third-and-four and, despite being down by 17 points, settled for a Phil Dawson field goal.

To recap, just in case anyone missed it, the Giants had an 80-yard touchdown drive, a 92-yard touchdown drive and a 95-yard touchdown drive on the day as they rolled up 502 yards of offense, including 7.1 yards per carry on running plays.

On the flip side, the Browns had too many turnovers (three) and, after converting three of their first four third downs, went 0-for-11 the rest of the day. That probably contributed to the loss as much as, or more than, a third-and-1 call in the second quarter.

The Browns did rush for a respectable 4.4 yard average, but only ran the ball 19 times on the day, with Richardson only getting 17 rushes – and only four of them came in the second half as once again the Browns refused to stay committed to the run. On the day, Richardson finished with 81 yards and became the first Browns rookie to record a rushing touchdown in four straight games.

Gordon also had a second touchdown catch, this one a 20-yarder that Weeden zipped between two defenders with just under four minutes remaining.

So that was good, it was just everything that occurred between Gordon’s two touchdowns that the Browns would rather forget.

The Browns have now lost 22 of their last 26 games dating back to the end of the 2010 season, and 37 of their last 51 games since firing Romeo Crennel (the Curse of Romeo?)

As Bruce would say:

I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun

What we do know is, at least for another week, the Browns are still in the dark on how to get a win.

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Here are a few additional postgame notes, courtesy of ClevelandBrowns.com:

After throwing for 291 yards on Sunday, Brandon Weeden now has 1,288 passing yards on the season. That is the second most by an NFL rookie – behind Cam Newton’s 1,610 – for a rookie QB through their first five games.

Josh Gordon’s 62-yard reception is the longest play of the so far for the Browns.

Jordan Norwood had NFL career highs in receptions (nine) and yards (81).

The Browns did not allow a sack for the first time since Week 3 of last season.

(Photo by ClevelandBrowns.com)