Written by Thomas Moore

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It was all over after the first offensive play of the game.

The Kansas City Chiefs just didn’t know it.

After allowing Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles to go 80 yards for a touchdown on the game’s opening play, the Cleveland Browns shut down the predictable Brian Daboll offense on the way to their third consecutive win.

Final score: Cleveland 30, Kansas City 7.

Just like the Pittsburgh game two weeks ago, the Browns fell behind quickly, leaving fans to lose it and declare the game over. And just like the Steelers game, there was still plenty of time remaining and the Browns continued to turn into a team that finds a way to win, rather than one that finds a way to lose.

“It’s all kind of coming together,” kicker Phil Dawson said. “We’re just doing all the little things right now. Guys are hungry to come back to work every day. There’s some energy around here that I haven’t felt. This is all good.”

The Browns slowly worked themselves back into the game, eventually taking a 10-7 lead into halftime.

The highlight of the first half for the Browns offense was Travis Benjamin’s 93-yard punt return for a touchdown, the longest in franchise history. The Browns bamboozled the Chiefs, lining up Josh Cribbs deep before he swapped places with Benjamin. The rookie from Miami fielded the punt and showed off his speed as he took the punt all the way and brought the crowd back into the game.

“Biggest play of the game,” said quarterback Brandon Weeden. “They were yelling something crazy on the sideline. I didn’t know what they were doing, and all of a sudden they pulled something out their hat and Travis breaks one. That got us the lead and we were able to keep it.”

The Browns took control of the game in the second half, scoring on their first three possessions.

Cleveland took the opening kickoff of the half and drove 60 yards in seven plays, closing out the drive with a 1-yard run by Trent Richardson, the first of two rushing touchdowns by Richardson on the day.

Three plays later, Tashaun Gipson intercepted a Brady Quinn pass and returned the ball to the Chiefs 13-yard line.

The Browns would eventually have a first-and-goal at the two, before remembering they are the Browns and can’t ever do anything easy.

First, a touchdown pass to Ben Watson was called back because of an illegal formation penalty. Then a touchdown pass to Richardson was wiped out by a pass interference call against Richardson which could be generously labeled as dubious. (It was worse than that, but we are trying to stay PG-rated here).

The Browns finally got their act together and did what they so often do; settle for a Dawson field goal, to push the lead to 20-7.

The Richardson/Dawson combo was so nice the Browns decided to do it twice, repeating themselves in the fourth quarter.

Richardson’s one-yard touchdown run less than a minute into the fourth quarter was his ninth rushing touchdown of the season, tying Jim Brown’s franchise record for a rookie running back.

Dawson closed out the scoring with his third field goal of the game. In the process, Dawson became the 25th player in the history of the NFL with at least 300 career field goals.

While the Browns had no real answer for Charles – who finished with 165 yards on 18 carries – they had plenty of answers for everything else the Chiefs tried on offense.

Consider that, after the first play of the game, their drives went like this:

• Missed field goal
• Punt
• Punt
• Punt
• Punt
• Interception
• Punt
• Punt
• Turnover on downs
• Punt

 

Daboll-ball at its finest, everyone.

The Browns held Quinn to just 10-of-21 passing for 159 yards and sacked him five times – with four of the sacks coming from the defensive line. They also limited Peyton Hillis to just 11 yards on five carries.

The Chiefs were just 1-of-11 on third downs and, of their 11 drives on the day, eight ended up totaling 32 yards or less.

For the Browns, Weeden finished 17-of-30 for 217 yards and no interceptions (although the Chiefs dropped at least two). While it wasn’t a big-time game from Weeden, he did enough to win and he got plenty of help from wide receivers Josh Gordon and Greg Little.

Gordon and Little combined to catch 12 passes for 155 yards and while neither made it into the end zone, they gave Browns fans hope that the team actually has a pair of NFL-caliber wide receivers for the first time since Webster Slaughter and Reggie Langhorne wore the Orange and Brown.

The 23-point win was the Browns biggest since beating Arizona by 38 points in 2003, breaking a streak of 146 consecutive regular-season games without a win of more than 23 points (according to ESPN Stats & Information).

The Browns have now won three in a row – only the fourth winning streak of at least three games since the franchise returned in 1999 (we mistakenly said three in our preview). They are 3-0 on the year against the pillow-soft AFC West and were the only team in the AFC North to win on Sunday (not sure if that means anything, but needed to point it out).

The win also moved coach Pat Shurmur to within one game of Eric Mangini on the Browns’ all-time win chart.

“I knew when I came here two years ago, there would be some tough days,” Shurmur said. “But once you see (winning) happening over and over, you begin to think, ‘We can do this.’ ”

More importantly, the Browns are 5-3 after starting the season at 0-5, giving players and (some) fans a feeling that things are finally turning around.

“It’s been a long year,” linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said. “At first, it was rocky. We were in a lot of close ballgames and we weren’t able to finish, and now we’re starting to create something. We had some young guys at the beginning of the season that were a little immature, and they’ve grown up a little bit.

“We have something going right now.”

(Photo by The Associated Press)