Written by Thomas Moore

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The Cleveland Browns gave outgoing owner Randy Lerner the perfect parting gift on Sunday, beating the Cincinnati Bengals for Cleveland’s first win of the season.

The victory also snaps a franchise-record-tying 11 game losing streak, as well as a 12-game losing streak in the AFC North, and gives Browns coach Pat Shurmur his first division win.

“I’ve seen this team improve,” Shurmur said. “We all know this is a winning business so now we can quantify how this improvement points to winning.”

Much as the Buffalo and New York games were team losses, this was a team win.

Brandon Weeden celebrated his birthday by throwing touchdown passes to Josh Gordon and Ben Watson, eight different players caught passes (it would have been nine if Owen Marecic wasn’t, well, Owen Marecic), the offensive line had its way with the Bengals when it mattered, the defense intercepted Andy “Roadhouse” Dalton three times and forced a Dalton fumble, and the Browns outscored the Bengals 27-3 in the second half before giving up a garbage-time touchdown.

Things started out ugly, as they usually do, for the Browns as Dalton hit Jermaine Gresham with a 55-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter to give the Bengals a 7-0 lead. As Gresham is a tight end, the Browns are apparently contractually obligated to not cover him and/or exhibit poor tackling, as Gresham rumbled through most of the secondary on his way to the score.

The Browns answered back at the start of the second quarter when Weeden hit a wide open Josh Gordon for a 71-yard catch-and-run touchdown pass. It was the third touchdown catch in the past two games for Gordon, who is starting to make general manager Tom Heckert look really good for using a supplemental draft pick on the wide receiver.

The Bengals answered back as Dalton hit A.J. Green (who else?) with a touchdown pass with 1:54 left before halftime. Browns safety Usama Young was flagged on the play for holding Green, but it didn’t matter as Green pulled in his fourth career touchdown reception against the Browns. In four career games against the Browns, Green has 18 receptions for 344 yards; it’s good that the Browns don’t have to see the Bengals again until 2013.

Because the Bengals had all of their timeouts remaining, they were able to get the ball back with 1:21 left in the half. But, proving that the Browns are not the only team that struggles with clock management (the hoople heads are certainly angered by this), the Bengals bungled the clock and, despite moving to the Browns’ 16-yard-line, couldn’t stop the clock in time for a field goal try.

The Browns defense turned up the heat on Cincinnati in the second half, holding them to just 24 yards on four possessions in the third quarter (part of a stretch where the Bengals went three-and-out on seven consecutive possessions). That was key, as the Browns offense, despite starting two drives deep in Cincinnati territory (thanks to a Josh Cribbs punt return and a Joe Haden interception), could only put up two Phil Dawson field goals.

In a strange way, the fact that Dawson is so good almost hurts the Browns. Over the years his consistency has lulled the offensive coaches into a state of conservativeness whenever they approach the red zone.

A Montario Hardesty touchdown run finally gave the Browns the lead, 20-14, in the fourth quarter (and led to much speculation and agita over the Browns not going for 2). A Mike Nugent field goal cut the lead to 20-17.

Weeden led the Browns on a seven-play, 60-yard drive that featured (gasp!) a third-and-one pass to tight end Jordan Cameron that went for 23 yards and a three-yard touchdown pass to Ben Watson, who didn’t have a Bengal within 10 yards of him, proving that the Browns are not the only NFL team that struggles to cover tight ends.

You could almost see the gleam in Shurmur’s eye on the play call to Cameron, proving that passing on third-and-one isn’t inherently bad when your quarterback makes the right decision.

On the first play of the Bengals’ ensuing possession, corner back Sheldon Brown intercepted a Dalton pass, returning it 19 yards for a touchdown to essentially but the game away for the Browns. All that was left was for the Bengals to put up a meaningless touchdown against the prevent defense and the first victory formation of the season.

So what does this win mean for the Browns?

For starters, it means they are no longer the only winless team in the NFL (and, in fact, are only one win behind Pittsburgh). They are also no longer a team with a double-digit losing streak; rather they are among the dozen or so bad teams in the league.

“A big weight was lifted off our shoulders,” Haden said. “It felt like we won the Super Bowl. We just didn’t give up.”

The Bengals also showed they are not a very good team and are led by a poor head coach. At one point, they were flagged for having 12 men on the field following a timeout. Take Green off the Bengals and they are probably sitting in a 1-5 hole just like the Browns.

This isn’t to say all is right in Brownstown or that the team is going to turn into a powerhouse overnight (as we pointed out in Twitter during the game, with Shurmur and Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, it’s not as if Paul Brown and Vince Lombardi were matching wits), but rather to point out that, while they may not be among the best in the NFL, they are no worse than the other bad teams (that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but that’s not how we intended it).

If L.J. Fort holds onto that interception against Philadelphia, and the Browns catch a break or make just one or two more plays against Baltimore or Cincinnati, Cleveland could be sitting at 3-3 today. And how would that feel, Browns fans?

“Words cannot even explain right now how I feel,” Trent Richardson said. “We know that we’ve been in every game and we should have been finishing strong like this.”

Because they are the local team, everyone in Cleveland tends to hyper-focus on the Browns, not realizing (or refusing to accept) that other teams do the same stupid, maddening things the Browns do every week. Other teams make bad play calls, mismanage the clock, have special teams breakdowns and generally screw up on a weekly basis.

The Browns can now be just another team, rather than being the supposedly “worse team in the NFL.” Now that they have the first win monkey off their back, they can go about preparing for the next team on the schedule without all the extra media- and fan-driven noise.

The Browns travel to Indianapolis next week with a real chance to actually develop a winning streak – which would be the first since Weeks two and three of last season. But if they go and screw it up against the Colts, there is a real chance they could head into the bye week with a three-game losing streak, meaning everything that happened today at Cleveland Browns Stadium was all for naught.

“We got out stadium back today,” Hardesty said. “It was great. The crowd was going crazy. Now we have to build on that feeling.”

Perhaps even bigger than today’s win was that the game represented the last the Browns will play with Lerner as owner. With the NFL expected to approve the sale of the team to James Haslam this week, the last tie between the “new Browns” and the team that moved to Baltimore will finally be severed.

Whatever bad karma that has followed this team ever since Art Modell signed away his soul on board Al Lerner’s private plane, should hopefully end when Haslam takes over the keys to the franchise. Maybe after this week the Browns can go back to just being an NFL team.

It may not be a playoff appearance, but, for now, it may be enough.

(Photo courtesy of ClevelandBrowns.com)