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Browns Fall To Cardinals In The Desert

The Browns lost (or won depending on how you look at it) the Battle of the Penalties this afternoon, as the Cardinals managed to hold on to win 27-21 in Arizona.

For the Cardinals, the win helps them out tremendously in the NFC playoff picture, while the loss for the Browns (7-5) is a minor setback for their playoff hopes in the AFC, as Jacksonville lost today as well.

If you watched the game, you know that penalties and horrible officiating was fairly prevalent this afternoon at the Buzzsaw. The Browns may or may not have had a questionable call go their way on the Braylon Edwards 67-yards touchdown grab. Personally, I think it was a touchdown. Dan Dierdorf, however, did not.

Perhaps the wost call of the game came at the end when Kellen Winslow Jr. came down with a catch as time expired and was clearly pushed out of bounds. However, no call was made, and despite not being able to reverse the call, the officials still felt the need to review it for two minutes. Thank you for wasting two minutes of my life.

From the get-go, this game was ugly.

Derek Anderson looked Charlie Frye-esque early on, which is something I haven’t been able to say about Anderson in what seems like forever. His pass that was intercepted and returned for a touchdown was the worst ball I’ve seen him throw in recent memory. But with that said, today’s “What The Hell Were You Thinking?” performance had to come from Leigh Bodden when he decided to give fans at the Buzzsaw his best Phil Dawson impersonation after the Browns defense made a key stop on third down to force a punt. In case you missed it, Bodden booted the ball 20-yards out of bounds, thus penalizing the Browns and leading to an Arizona score. Yet another reminder of the Dwayne Rudd incident, only this week, it didn’t work in our favor.

But despite turning the ball over four times, the Browns never seemed out of it, which is something you couldn’t say in years past.

Next week, the team travels to the Big Apple to take on the Jets, who pounded the win-less Miami Dolphins this afternoon. A few weeks ago, the Dolphins upended the Steelers, so I don’t think the Browns will take them for granted like they may have a little bit today with the Cardinals.

In other news and notes, it was announced tonight that OSU will play LSU in the National Championship game in college football, further proving how messed up the BCS is. Dan Wetzel from Yahoo! Sports wrote this piece on how the NCAA should institute a playoff system in Division I. It’s a good read.

Anyhow, until next week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Game Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.