Spencer German and Anthony Moeglin give their initial reaction and analysis to the Browns incredible road win vs the Ravens.
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00:00 Well, it was a wild one here in Baltimore. Browns fans, I don't even know where to start
00:12 with this game. It was absolutely absurd from the really from the second play of the game
00:16 on. It was absolutely ridiculous as our facial expressions certainly show you.
00:21 Browns win it 33 31 and one of the wildest games you'll ever see. If you're a Browns
00:27 fan looking back over the last, I don't know, let's say two decades. This probably is up
00:33 there in terms of one of the bigger wins, but also just one of the most emotional rollercoaster
00:38 wins that the bronze have ever given you and put you through for a viewing experience.
00:43 So it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of bad moments. It was a lot of good moments,
00:47 including the euphoric one where Dustin Hopkins obviously hits the game winning field goal
00:51 that silenced the crowd here in Baltimore.
00:54 Listen, we talked before the game, Anthony, how this how big the stakes were for this
00:59 game. What's the thing we always it's the old cliche, right? Like find a way to win
01:04 in the Browns very much did that today.
01:06 This is one of those where it's like you don't care what the stats look like. You don't care
01:10 on the only thing that matters is you have more points than they do at the end. And that's
01:15 the way it shook out. I mean, talk about like we're recording this. It'll be a recording,
01:19 but we're I don't know, two hours after the game finished up and my hands are still sweaty.
01:24 My heart's still shaking like it's that was so much fun to watch. And it was such your
01:29 typical Browns game where, hey, they start bad, they come back and it's a heartbreaking
01:35 loss.
01:36 And then you sit there all week long and you look at if we don't turn the ball over on
01:39 the second play of the game, we win the thing. But today and this team is a little bit different
01:43 where they came out and again, found themselves with an opportunity to win the football game
01:48 and they did what they needed to do at the end to to pull it out.
01:51 It was it was so awesome. Awesome to watch and awesome to I'm sure it was great to be
01:56 there. But the roller coaster was was was pretty crazy in this one. Yeah. And I think
02:01 we start maybe with that that second play of the game. Browns obviously started with
02:05 the ball to Sean Watson intercepted, returned for a touchdown by Humphrey or no, not Humphrey.
02:13 Excuse me. It was Kyle. Yeah. Kyle, I mixed the two of my head. I'm sorry. Yeah. Hamilton
02:19 made a great play. That's a guy who's obviously been coming out of college was kind of this
02:24 versatile. Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety type of player? And they kind of use them
02:29 in a lot of unique ways.
02:30 And on that play, I mean, I'm going to be interested to look back on that one with you,
02:34 Anthony, when we do our film study, because it was a play where the Ravens showed blitz
02:39 on the opposite side. And I don't think the Sean accounted for Kyle Hamilton blitzing.
02:46 And so that kind of left just a free rusher. And he and the Sean kind of said in his postgame
02:50 press conference, like that was just a great player making a great play.
02:53 Like there was really almost nothing he could do except, yeah, throw the ball a little higher.
02:56 But he just kind of tipped his cap to him on that one. And I think from that moment,
03:00 like I'm sure a lot of Browns fans watching at home had to just feel like, OK, same as
03:04 always, like big play here. Game's already over. We might as well just throw in the towel,
03:09 go golf, go do some yard work, whatever.
03:12 And again, like they somehow and then they gave up another score. They were down 14,
03:17 nothing. Like from the outset, this one felt like it was just going to be all Ravens. And
03:22 they weathered the storm somehow. It was remarkable.
03:25 And it doesn't make sense how they were able to do it. You know, you were going to watch
03:28 that play to start the game. And Kyle Hamilton coming out of college, like you said, was
03:33 this tweener guy. But it was one that I remember I watched a lot of Notre Dame football on
03:36 my day. That's where he went to college. I remember the Ravens picking him and being
03:41 like, oh, no, that's a problem because he's a star player.
03:44 You'll see it. He stands at six foot four. He had to jump to tip it up in the air. So
03:47 think of a six foot four guy with his arms outstretched jumping. That's, I don't know,
03:51 eight feet tall. You know, and he tips it up in the air, makes a sweet play. And you're
03:54 like, oh, my gosh. And then you look at the clock and you're like, holy cow, 20 seconds
03:58 into the game, there's 59 minutes and 40 seconds left.
04:02 We got to write the ship and then they go three and out and then they go on this big
04:05 touchdown drive. And you're like, oh, yeah, I was with some friends watching it. And just
04:09 like you said, two of them left. One of them was like, turn this off, put on, put on. They
04:13 want to start watching Christmas movies. And I'm like, geez, this is crazy. But just one
04:19 of the bad starts. And it had it had blowout written all over. Think back to Baltimore,
04:25 Detroit. You know, but Detroit had run nine plays before and they were down twenty eight
04:29 nothing. You know, so it's like the Ravens, not only are they capable of blowing you out,
04:34 but they've done it before. And you're watching the start. You're like, this is going to get
04:37 ugly quick. And to Kevin Stefanski credit, everyone wants to fire him for I got I got
04:42 someone tweeting at us in the first quarter fire, Kevin. And it's just like he keeps his
04:45 team battling, man. There's no reason that that offensive line should allow the Browns
04:51 to rush for one hundred eighty yards. There's no reason at all. But they did because they
04:55 did it together. They're tough as nails and they just don't quit. And that was the biggest
04:59 thing that kept coming up. This team does not quit. And it was it was awesome to watch.
05:04 As you brought up, Stefanski, I'll say this. I've always kind of said I said this at the
05:08 end of last season. Like I understood some of the concerns or questions and reasons why
05:12 people were ready to maybe move on. And, you know, you took two steps back after a playoff
05:16 year and all that. Fine. That's always going to happen. That's always the discourse that
05:21 comes up, especially at the end of the season when you have a losing season from fans, of
05:25 course. But the thing I said was when the Browns were basically kind of out of the playoff
05:29 picture last year was how does the team play the rest of the season knowing that that's
05:33 true? And if Kevin was going to kind of maintain the locker room and keep them focused, I was
05:37 like, OK, I think you bring it back for another year.
05:40 And I think you're seeing the same thing this year. I mean, this this team has had every
05:43 reason to give up in a game like today. They've had every reason to give up on the season.
05:49 Week one, you lose Jack Conklin. Week two, you lose Nick Chubb out there today. It was
05:54 an epidemic of injuries. Denzel Ward leaves the game. One Thornhill left the game. You
05:58 had the the Island Misfit toys playing in the secondary.
06:04 That's a little rude. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be that mean. I'm like Mike Ford, Jr. He actually
06:07 played a really good game after after World Went Out. But you had a bunch of guys that
06:11 aren't really household names back there in the secondary today. And they just kept finding
06:15 ways to make plays, kept finding ways to keep them in the game.
06:19 And I think you're right. Like, that's a testament to Stefanski, the attitude that he brings
06:23 this team and the fact that they must believe in him enough to keep fighting in an instant
06:27 like this, where the game's probably out of hand and they keep they keep fighting. They
06:32 keep scratching and clawing. I want to go because here's the thing. We're going to talk
06:36 more about, like, the mistakes that this bronze team made that actually wrote out, like all
06:40 the key moments, which I'll read off in a later video, all the key moments where, like,
06:45 the Browns would make a good play and then just completely shoot themselves in the foot
06:50 or momentum. Maybe felt like it was swinging back their way.
06:53 And then they do something stupid that swung it back in the Ravens favor. So we'll get
06:55 to that. But there were so many of those moments throughout. And then I and that's what's remarkable
07:02 about this game is like every time they tried to lose it, they found another way to win
07:07 it. And I think that's what feels different about this team than previous bronze teams
07:11 is like old bronze teams would not have won that game at all.
07:15 And somehow they found a way to get it done. It was awesome. I think, Meg's the seventy
07:21 five yard. The 17 play seventy five yard drive. Second, it was the Browns first possession
07:27 of the second half, second possession between the two teams in the second half. I thought
07:32 there was something about that drive that sort of changed my outlook on the game because
07:36 I was texting my friends like, man, this game's really a downer for people watching at home.
07:41 Like this game's over. Of course, like the game I get to come on the road for it's a
07:44 blowout. It's not going the bronze way. It's going to be terrible. I'm going to be driving
07:47 home like, why did I waste my time? Not really. But that drive, I felt like, OK, something
07:53 clicked like they were calm. They were cool. They were collected. They were mixing the
07:57 run in the past. They worked their way down the field. It felt like that was a moment
08:01 where they said, OK, we can move the football on this defense. And it almost unlocked something
08:05 for them. Then we saw sort of just spiral into the way the offense played the rest of
08:09 the second half.
08:10 Well, and I would add to without getting too detailed with it, that was our first drive
08:14 in the second half. So they come out, and I believe OBJ hits the 40 yarder. And the
08:20 crowd's going crazy. So Baltimore takes a 15-point lead after we kind of mess up the
08:25 end of the half. Deshaun looks lost. Seems like he's just chucking the ball down the
08:29 field, missing guys. And they come out. They hit OBJ to take that 15-point lead. And I'm
08:35 sure you felt it because we could feel it. Crowd was into it. Ravens were going to roll.
08:39 Here's another chance where it's going to slow them down.
08:40 Tell me that moment didn't feel like an insult to injury, right? Like the Browns were getting
08:45 beat all day. It's a bad game. And then, oh, on top of it, Odobeka Jr. scores against his
08:51 old team.
08:52 Of course. It's like seeing your ex-girlfriend at the dance, right? And you're like, oh,
08:56 my God. I didn't need that. So he hits that one. And then they rip off that drive. And
09:02 it was a 10-minute drive. And you're like, huh. That was-- A, that was bully football.
09:09 And B, we controlled it. And nothing about that was fluky. The problem was it took 10
09:13 minutes. And you're like, we need a big play. You need a big play somewhere because you're
09:16 still down 7. And you're like, hey, how can we-- where can we find this big play? Because
09:21 Amari wasn't getting too much separation deep. Elijah was good-- really good today. But just
09:27 we didn't-- you didn't have that threat of the home run.
09:29 But then they come out. And Lamar throws the pick 6. And you're like, OK, you're now all
09:34 the way in it, right? You're all the way back. You're all the way in it. And you're right,
09:37 you're-- and the pick 6 came a little bit later. I know that there was some stuff in
09:40 there. But it was like, hey, that drive was one that was like, all right.
09:43 That came with like--
09:44 You can hang in this game.
09:45 --8-16 in the fourth quarters when the pick 6 came.
09:48 Yeah. So it happened shortly thereafter. But you're like, all right, we can hang. Just
09:53 like you said, it felt like that was a proving point to this team. Like, you can hang in
09:56 this game. You're supposed to be in this game. We're going to need something special to win
10:00 it. But we're in it. And that's what it felt like on our side. It took the air totally
10:04 out of the stadium. Browns now had the momentum. They just needed a couple stops. And the defense
10:08 came through for them at the end.
10:10 Yeah. The pick 6 was obviously huge. And of course, in classic Browns fashion, they couldn't
10:15 make it easy. So Dustin Hopkins mixes the PAT. But he got the shot at redemption at
10:19 the end there.
10:20 A couple nuggets I wanted to bring up here. First of all, Lamar, first half was-- I don't
10:27 know that he was exceptional in the first half. They were running a lot with Mitchell,
10:31 who was phenomenal. That dude's an absolute monster. And the Browns really had no answer
10:36 for him. They were getting him into space, and he was just outrunning them to the end
10:39 zone. And Lamar was kind of mixing in the passes where he could.
10:42 But in that second half, it seemed like he was rattled. Like, the defense was getting
10:46 to him. The running lanes that are usually open for him were closing very quickly. And
10:50 I think that's a testament to some of what Miles Garrett said on Friday, where, hey,
10:55 we're not going to give up on the play. We're going to constantly just kind of squeeze on
10:58 Lamar and try to get him down. And I think they did a good job of that. They sacked him
11:01 three times today, which is pretty impressive for a guy who's that shifty.
11:06 And then, yeah, I think the other thing I wanted to bring up, of course, was Jerome
11:10 Ford. We're not-- I know, sort of an unsung hero of this game, but the offense was kind
11:16 of going as he was going. And I think today was a testament, Anthony, to-- even without
11:22 Nick Chubb, that run game has still been the bread and butter of this offense.
11:25 And when they've needed it most and they've been able to kind of rely on it, they have.
11:30 And it leads you-- it leads you, essentially, to win a game like you did today. That-- they
11:35 didn't lose their identity in all the madness that was going on, all the bad penalties.
11:40 They kept their cool and they stuck to their game plan. And it paid off once Deshaun kind
11:45 of started getting going along with it. That was fantastic to watch. I think he averaged,
11:48 like, six yards a carry today when he-- when the final buzzer sounded. Just a phenomenal
11:53 day by Jerome Ford. And, of course, the play were all-- basically, the entire offense was
11:59 pushing him forward. Kevin Stefanski said it was his favorite play of the entire game.
12:03 It was-- we'll start-- I'll start-- I have a thought on Jerome Ford first. And, you know,
12:07 that play, especially, you're going to watch it when you get-- when you get a moment, you're
12:10 going to see it on Twitter and-- or X. And it's just-- it's beautiful, man. It's football
12:14 at its finest because not only was it like, hey, he burst through the line. And at that
12:18 point, the situation was Baltimore had two timeouts. We got one first down. It was basically
12:23 like, hey, we can run this thing down to three seconds and kick the field goal to win it.
12:27 And that was the first and 10. He runs it, gets six yards. And you're like, perfect.
12:30 I remember looking away and then hearing my buddies, like, start cheering. I'm like, look
12:34 back up. And like, holy cow, they're pushing. And then James Hudson, it's my favorite thing.
12:38 He comes out of the pile and he gives this big old fist bump into the-- into the-- at
12:42 the crowd because they just pushed them, you know, 10 extra yards. This-- or Jerome Ford,
12:47 17 carries 107 yards, didn't score, but 6.7 yards or 6.3 yards of pop.
12:52 Unreal. Unreal.
12:53 And his criticism at this point has been he hits a big one at some point in the game and
12:58 then struggles to-- struggles to get anything else, like a lot of one-yard gains or zero-yard
13:03 gains or losing yards. Today was different, running downhill. And you'll notice, too,
13:07 when we watch the tape, Muttner, tomorrow, like everything was within the guard-- the
13:12 guard to guard, right? Kevin did a really good job of, hey, that's where our strength's
13:16 at. We're not going to mess with running outside with the tackles. We're going right behind
13:20 Joel Batonio, Ethan Posick, and Wyatt Teller. And that's where we're going. And they did
13:23 a great job. And Jerome Ford was spectacular and exactly what you needed.
13:28 He--
13:29 One shot on your--
13:30 This was his-- I was going to say real quick, this was his best game as a pro. Also, I have
13:33 a weird-- I don't know, we could call it, I guess, infatuation or-- that's maybe a good
13:38 word for it, where I want just one time to come up with a clever name for something that
13:42 goes viral. So are you with me, Anthony? Can we call that play the Cleveland Caravan? Is
13:48 that a good play, the Cleveland Caravan? You got the brotherly shove in Philly. We're going
13:51 to call it the Cleveland Caravan. How do you like it?
13:53 We got the brotherly shove. My only pushback would be, what if-- you get brotherly love
13:59 in Philly. Cleveland Caravan, I like it. I like it. But what is the--
14:03 Does it tie in with--
14:04 I don't like it at all, actually, if you can tell.
14:06 No, I love the idea.
14:07 You don't have to play nice. If you hate it, just say you hate it. It's OK.
14:13 We can brainstorm-- how about this? How about we brainstorm that one? Well, that's a good
14:16 starting point. Now we'll go from there.
14:19 We will come up with-- by the time we do our film study session on Tuesday, we'll have
14:25 a new name for it. I want to get us out of here for this video with one final thought.
14:30 Man, doesn't it pay off to have a kicker that can finally deliver for you? And it's funny
14:34 because he misses the extra point. And you know Browns fans were saying to themselves,
14:40 same old, same old. We just can't make the kicks when it matters most.
14:43 And he got a shot at redemption. And lo and behold, he didn't let you down this time,
14:47 Cleveland. Just remarkable. I actually-- I'm planning on getting the quotes transcribed
14:51 from his locker room interview. And he was very blunt about just the mental side of it.
14:57 And I think kickers try to ignore that a lot. When they talk to me, they're like, no, no,
15:00 it's not mental. I'm still confident in all these different things.
15:02 He was flat out like, yeah, I overcompensated when I missed it. And I knew if I got another
15:06 shot, I was going to do it right that time. And I did. So I thought that was awesome for
15:09 the Browns. And it certainly-- that's a decision going back to training camp to move on from
15:14 KJORC that I think we all kind of saw coming.
15:17 But man, has that paid off in a major way for the Browns. It was just a great, smart
15:22 move by Andrew Barry. Kind of had to be done. But the writing was on the wall. But to pull
15:28 the trigger on that when you know they probably didn't want to move on from KJORC because
15:31 it was a draft pick and all this. It's paid off immensely that they made that decision.
15:37 For obvious reasons, I really love what he's done. But just the way he is, like, DeHoff
15:44 has been one of the best Browns this year. He's just-- as a kicker, he's so confident.
15:49 And even when you talk to him, he's like, very matter of fact. And you believe when
15:54 you hear him talking, like, hey, he believes in himself. And that's what makes a great
15:58 kicker. I think that he's been awesome. And when he walks on the field, man, you're confident.
16:03 It's going straight through the pipe. Like, hey, the difference today was Justin Tucker
16:08 missed one and DeHoff made one. And how many times-- I was in the stadium, Spencer, and
16:14 I sit in the dog pound, upper side, while Justin Tucker hit one on Monday Night Football
16:19 to win the game at the buzzer. Exactly that. And for the first time in a while, we had
16:24 the opportunity where our kicker came out in enemy territory and just buried one to
16:28 win it. That was so cool. That was so awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome for Browns
16:33 fans. We barely even talked about DeSean Watson. First half, he was 6 of 20. Second half, perfect.
16:38 14 of 14. Tail of two halves, truly, as the old cliche goes for him. But we are going
16:43 to talk about that in a future video here. So stay tuned for that, because I think the
16:47 guy you saw in the second half is the guy that you paid $230 million for and traded
16:50 three first-round draft picks for. So we've got plenty more analysis to come, but keep
16:54 it locked. It's Spencer German. It's Anthony Maglin. We're recapping the Browns 33-31 win
16:59 with you here in Baltimore. Big one for the Browns today. Be sure to follow along on the
17:04 Browns Digest YouTube channel and, of course, at BrownsDigest.com.
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