Written by Jeff Rich

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It’s just a shame; it’s almost not fair.  The only thing that stands between the Cleveland Browns and a realistic chance at this year’s Super Bowl are traces of Adderall in Joe Haden’s system during the off-season.  Though he absolutely took the banned substance recreationally, the powers-that-be treated the drug that can be prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder as a performance enhancer, and Haden got to take some unplanned leave away from football and the Cleveland Browns, derailing any Super Bowl travel arrangements I had previously booked.  Haden’s appeal process gave him a reprieve, which offered fans a glimpse of the third-year cornerback in Week 1, and the glimpses were impressive.

What factored mostly into the Browns 17-16 loss to Philadelphia was a virtual no-show on the offensive side of the ball.  The Browns defense showed promise, even without their 2011 top pick Phil Taylor, and nearly won the game in spite of the inept offense.   Haden shadowed DeSean Jackson, who finished with 7 catches for 77 yards, but got a large chunk of that on the opposite side of the field on a 35 yard catch.  The longest catch that Haden gave up was an 18 yard strike, and he kept everything else in front of him.  His interception with the Eagles driving at the end of the third quarter set up a field goal to put the Browns within striking distance, but the team couldn’t pull it out.  Shortly after the final gun, Haden went into apology mode with his teammates.

He knew it was coming, and the worst kept secret was confirmed; they’d be going to Cincinnati, Baltimore, and New Jersey, and hosting the Bills without his services.  While one might have held on to some optimism about the games in the state of Ohio, it was really easy go Walter Sobchak on the Browns win column through Week 5 and “mark it zero”.  Say what you want about being competitive, or being overwhelmed by real professional football, but it’s hard to disagree with the thought that a bona fide cornerback could have helped them.

The Browns were torched by Cincinnati, who threw at will on a depleted Browns secondary that featured Buster Skrine and Trevin Wade at times.  Andy Dalton may play in the league for another 15 years and not come within sniffing distance of 77% passing (24/31, 318 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT), a number brought down by some missed connections deep to AJ Green.  On paper, it wasn’t Green who torched them, even though he did get into the end zone on one of his seven grabs, but this humiliation of the Browns was more of a group effort.  They did such a number helping Armon Binns (5 catches, 66 yards) and Andrew Hawkins (2 catches, 56 yards, TD) makes name for themselves, that we immediately didn’t care that most of the team’s six sacks were actually coverage sacks in that 34-27 loss.

They could have used Joe Haden.  I wondered if whatever he needed the Adderall for was worth the while.  The NFL was docking him almost a million and a half for every game he was watching on TV.

After that, the 0-2 Browns hosted the Buffalo Bills, who have Stevie Johnson, but really feature CJ Spiller and the running game to alleviate the pressure from Ryan Fitzpatrick.  It was Spiller and his understudy, Tashard Choice who got to the Browns for a combined 167 yards of total offense.  Speaking of getting to people, the Browns didn’t get to the Bills Harvard-educated quarterback at all.  Zero interceptions and zero sacks from a defense that started the season with such promise and the Browns slept-walk their way to a 34-24 defeat in front of mostly Bills fans in the fourth quarter.  It only took a pedestrian outing from an average quarterback for Buffalo to win this one going away.

It’s hard to pin this one on Haden’s absence, but you can’t help but think that once Spiller, who was a very early candidate for the MVP, went down that Haden would have made the Browns defense better than the Bills offense.  Maybe Haden makes a play on one of Fitzpatrick’s 22 completions, or maybe Haden takes half the field away, and the Bills look as lost as ever in Cleveland.  Unfortunately, we will never really know.

That third loss really opened the door for 0-5 to be inevitable; and we must not forget that 0-16 is always in play until the Browns manage to win a game.  Trips to Baltimore and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford were “Sharpie’d” as losses before the Browns got on the plane for either destination.  Even with Haden, the Browns were probably a popular pick in most knockout pools for those two weeks.  I’m not eager to label Joe Flacco as elite just yet, but Eli Manning is in that class regardless of what happened under the lights in 2008.

What helps Joe Flacco, and it helps the Ravens defense get by on reputation alone these days too, is that he has Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith to help him look good.  The Ravens went deep on the Browns 13 times, and it worked 5 times, but Flacco destroyed the Browns underneath.  Boldin had 9 receptions for 131 yards, while Smith turned in a modest performance of 6 catches for 97 yards.  The fifth year quarterback from Delaware completed 28 of 46 passes for 356 yards, the third highest yardage total of his career, on what many saw as a lazy, disinterested night for Flacco in Baltimore 23-16 win over their division opponent.  I don’t dare say “rivals” in this match-up until the Browns defeat Flacco or Harbaugh one time.

It’s hard to say Haden slows this one down too much, since he’s only one man, but any time two receivers can put up 228 yards in sixty minutes, you have to hope something is missing.  Technically, the Browns were allowed to replace Haden on the field with another warm body, but they looked like they were playing with ten against the Ravens 11 on this Thursday night.

The Giants were angry and coming off a loss to the Eagles when the Browns came to the “New York” area last week.  Eli Manning threw for 259 yards and 3 TD, all to Victor Cruz, in the Giants 41-27 win over the Browns in the final game of Haden’s off time.  Cruz hauled in two other Manning throws to round out a 5 catch, 50 yard day for him.  Reuben Randle had only 1 career catch going into Sunday’s game, but the Browns secondary decided it was good time to let the rookie from LSU showcase his talent with a 6 catch 82 yard day without Dimitri Patterson on the field for most of the game.  In fact, the only thing that slowed down the Giants passing game on Sunday was their own rushing attack on Ahmad Bradshaw’s 200 yard rushing day.

The Browns were beat down, and Victor Cruz did his share, and Randall’s share of the salsa on Sunday.  I can’t say the Browns would have had answers all over the field with Haden.  Especially when you consider how beaten and battered they are, it’s possible that they’d have played keep-away from Haden and Randle comes to the scene strong anyways, but Haden probably could have played a role in keeping Cruz’s “So You Think You Can Dance” tryouts to a minimum.

Joe didn’t get paid and the team lost.  They lost every single game without him.  You know, it’s easy to point the finger.  Haden was the last guy to drive the car, and now the damn thing won’t start, so it’s naturally his fault.  All of it, the crushed Super Bowl dreams, it all falls on Haden’s shoulders.  Okay, I’m sorry; I know that’s the type of stuff crazy people say.  I know better than that.  There’s nothing we can do about the past, but there’s a game to be played on Sunday, and Haden should be part of it.

"It was just a mistake, just a very dumb mistake," Haden said. "It wasn't in any intent to hurt anybody or hurt the team or hurt anybody in that kind of way. It was just a young man making a decision I shouldn't have made."

Make Haden’s apology into whatever you care to make of it, but I’m taking it at face value.  There are no excuses in any of that, just remorse, and the desire to move forward.  That sounds good.  On a young team like the Browns, someone as outspoken as the former Florida Gator needs to be a glue guy that keeps this team together.  But, more than that, he’s on the verge of being the bona fide guy that we all tend to believe he is in this league. 

He’s going to have his chance with AJ Green on the other side of the line of scrimmage Sunday.  The game is at home, so that’s a plus, and he has a good enough reputation that he should receive a warm reception.  I’m critical of how much he hurt the team, and I hope to humble in stating that it wasn’t difficult to see that they weren’t going to win a game without his services, but I can let bygones be bygones here.  After Green, the Browns have to deal with the Colts and Chargers, so it will be nice to have someone qualified to handle the likes of Reggie Wayne and Malcolm Floyd on the field for the Orange and Brown.

You have to believe his teammates support him, especially in that struggling secondary that’s 28^th against the pass.  His Head Coach, regardless of his obvious lame duck status, needs him to get them in the win column.  And, the fans should want that win almost as much as any of them, so they should have this budding superstar’s back as well.