The Browns returned home on a short week after a less than impressive Monday night "victory" over the hapless Buffalo Bills to take on a Houston Texans squad that had dropped eight straight road games, dating back to 2007. An equally downtrodden Houston squad, behind backup QB Sage Rosenfels, came into the game losers of their last three.
The first quarter was all Texans, very nearly literally, as the Browns ran only five plays in the quarter. Houston started the period with a drive that consumed over 8:00 as they methodically picked their way down the field against a Browns defense that offered no resistance to take an "early" 7-0 lead. The Browns took the following kickoff only to turn the ball over five plays later with a rare Jamal Lewis fumble. Houston then killed the rest of the period the same way they began it, slowly making their way down the field toward an eventual second quarter field goal.
With the Texans up 10-0 early in the second, the game was effectively over. The two teams traded field goals in the second quarter, highlighted by a Browns block of a Kris Brown attempt, leading to an eventual 13-6 halftime score.
The two teams With the offense struggling, the Browns defense tried to pick up the slack early in the third quarter with an interception. Brady Quinn, though, was intercepted by Houston two plays later, leading to another Texans field goal to make it 16-6. Quinn would be interecpted a second time on the ensuing possession, which would bring Derek Anderson back in at QB for the Browns, hopefully to, as coach Romeo Crennel said, give the team "a spark" heading into the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter featured two teams trading punts, a missed field goal and a second interception by the Browns. The Browns, though, would fumble the ball right back two plays later. A later Derek Anderson interception on a tipped pass would cap the afternoon's frustration and ineptitude.
Hands down, one of the ugliest affairs a football viewer is likely to see. This game was more than just a microcosm of a futile Browns season. The "future of the franchise" was benched for player that he replaced only three weeks earlier, Braylon Edwards dropped three more balls (including one in the end zone and a third down pass that would have extended the Browns drive into Houston territory) and an offense that was given the ball twice by their defense only to cough it right back up. Over the span of this game and the previous, the maligned Browns defense has come up SIX turnovers and the offense has turned those into three field goals, two turnovers and a three-and-out. Even the players who generally perform were off - Jamal Lewis fumbled twice (his only two of the season) and the surefooted Phil dawson had one of the ugliest field goal misses on recent memory. This would be a game to file away and forget about...if we didn't keep seeing a lot of these same things week after week...after week.