There’s winning football. And there are football wins. The Browns won Sunday, beating an undermanned Cincinnati Bengals team. But the Browns did not play winning football at Paul Brown Stadium.

Still, the sense of relief that permeated the team was nearly overwhelming.

Emotion was etched into just about every face, from the coach to the quarterback to the offensive line to the running back to the crack security force to the equipment guys.

Alka-Seltzer never provided more relief than that motley victory provided these Browns.

Heading into the bye week, the Browns can get their breath, regain their balance and point to the Monday night game Oct. 13 against the New York Giants.

But if games were scored by Olympic diving judges, the Browns would have had many tenths deducted. The Bengals, too. This was a game that was professional in name only.

There were stupid penalties, interceptions, more silly penalties, wasted timeouts, poor passes, an interception fumbled back to the offensive team, silly penalties and some basic inept play.

Put it this way: The Browns had to scramble and claw to beat a team led by a backup quarterback from the Ivy League. The Bengals did not have Carson Palmer, but the game was in doubt for quite a long time. If that’s not winning ugly, then Paul Newman was not an American hero.

At halftime, it looked like Derek Anderson was ready to be gonged.

He had thrown for all of 27 yards in the first two quarters, completing 4-of-10 passes.

He started the third quarter with an interception at the Bengals’ 12-yard line, and a three-and-out marred by another ridiculous penalty by Braylon Edwards.

At that point, it seemed the time had arrived to pick up the phone and make the call to the bullpen. It obviously crossed coach Romeo Crennel’s mind.

But Crennel remained steadfast, patient and consistent. He never even asked Brady Quinn to warm up, though the thought crossed his mind.

“I decided to give Anderson another chance,” Crennel said of his quarterback following the interception. “He took advantage of it.”

Anderson and the Browns responded with an 80-yard touchdown drive that ended with Anderson throwing a touchdown to Edwards, who made a one-handed snag worthy of his ability.

He overdid the celebration with an air guitar routine on one knee — Why did the Dallas Cowboys’ Terrell Owens get flagged for going to the ground and Edwards did not? — but at least he scored.

At last, Crennel’s players did something on the field to support his decision.

But to Jamal Lewis, there was never a need to consider a change.

“DA is not the problem here,” he said.

Better to state that he was not the only problem, but Lewis commands respect by the way he plays and approaches the game.

“This is DA’s show,” he said. “We’re riding DA. Nobody is turning their back on DA.”

Clearly, DA is important here.

Heading to the bye and the Giants game, the questions about whether DA will sit for BQ can be shelved. Whether it’s on the QT or in OT, DA is the team’s QB.

That’s what a win does for a team.

But as far as wins go, this one was a pile of dead raccoons on the side of the road.

It was a walking advertisement for TV Land and Grizzly Adams reruns.

Joshua Cribbs said the Browns played as a team, which, he said, “almost put tears in my eyes.”

The only ones crying should have been the people who gave up their afternoon to watch.

Why a high school team can line up properly and not be offside when the pros can’t is less explicable than the Big Bang Theory.

And let’s not ignore the fact that had the Browns lost the game to a backup quarterback, they would have lost to a team with a backup quarterback, a near unforgivable sin for an alleged NFL team.

Let’s also not ignore the fact that after halftime the Browns outscored the Bengals, 17-6, that they came up with a touchdown drive when they needed it, and that several players fought through pain to keep playing.

Kevin Shaffer and Shaun Smith both played with casts on their hand. Eric Steinbach fought through a shoulder problem to help the running game get going. Kellen Winslow had to leave the game and go to the locker room briefly, only to return, go right back in the game and make a key catch.

The Browns won ugly, but they won with perseverance, persistence and patience.

When it was over, Lewis said the win was something to build on.

“Something to get us going,” he said. “These last three weeks was not us.”

Perhaps not, but we also best hope that Sunday was not the real Browns, either.



McManamon is a columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal. Reach him at pmcmanmon@thebeaconjournal.com.