Berea, OH (92.3 The Fan) – Sunday’s overtime loss in Oakland that saw the Browns squander leads of 14 and eight points in the second half and fall victim to a controversial replay reversal felt like just another memorable loss in a litany of them since 1999.
While making no excuses for the 45-42 overtime loss to the Raiders, Jackson feels this loss isn’t like the other 217 of them since 1999.
“We've never been this close since I've been here,” Jackson said. “This team feels different. This team is more talented.”
Baker Mayfield, making his first NFL start, fumbled twice in the second half and the Raiders turned both into touchdowns. Mayfield took responsibility for all four of his turnovers, which were turned into 24 points by Oakland, but they weren’t necessarily his fault.
“They're not all on Baker, but at the same time, I appreciate him taking responsibility,” Jackson said.
Mayfield’s first interception that was returned for a touchdown went off the hands of rookie receiver Antonio Callaway, who appeared to slip on the play. The second interception at the end of regulation was a result of him taking a shot down field when he should’ve just thrown it away.
The Browns blew the 14-point lead, fell behind by six and then rallied to take an eight-point lead, something Jackson doesn’t believe would have happened the last two years.
“It's a whole different feel, it's a whole different mentality on that sideline now,” Jackson said of their resiliency.
The bottom line is this: for the third time in 4 games, the Browns allowed victory to escape their grasp.
“Being up 28-14 in the third, we thought we had the game in our hands,” Jackson said. “Obviously, in those situations, when you turn the football over, you give teams life. That was a 14-point swing. We have to do that better.”
One of the many reasons not related to officiating – dropped passes.
“We had way too many drops,” Jackson said. “We had nine drops [Sunday]. Period. We had nine drops. Nine. That is not winning football.”
As for the officiating, Jackson clearly was not pleased at several calls – most notably the review that took away Carlos Hyde’s third down conversion with 90 seconds left, but he chose his words wisely Monday afternoon when asked if he could’ve asked for another measurement after the football was moved back.
“We could have asked for a whole bunch of things,” Jackson said. “I do not even want to get into it. I do not want to say something that I am going to get myself in trouble about up here. You guys are not paying the fine so I am not doing it. I will send a lot of things in [to the league office] – the kicking of the football down the field right next to the official, the sack-fumble on a quarterback… Do you guys want me to keep going? The spot. It goes on and on and on. We have to do a better job of being in control of it, not the officials being in control of it.”
Fans are angry, and Jackson assured everyone so are his players.
"They're frustrated by it,” Jackson said. “As I told our players – I think that they have said it – not one call or two calls were the difference in the game. We had our chances. What we understand is let’s take it out of the officials’ hands. Let’s play well enough and put ourselves in the best situation so that it is not even question about a call. Let’s do our part better. Let’s not turn the ball over. Let’s get more turnovers. Let’s make third-and-1. Let’s make sure that we are better on third down on offense. Let’s see what happens then. I think that we will be happier about that.”
Jackson’s belief in the talent on the team showed early when he went for 2-points after Nick Chubb’s 63-yard touchdown run to go up 9-7. Duke Johnson converted their next 2 2-point tries, so why didn’t Jackson go for 2 again after Chubb’s ‘s 41-yard TD to go up 9 instead of kicking the PAT for the 42-34 lead? Or why not go for it on fourth-and-inches from their own 18?
“I was aggressive at the right times early,” Jackson said. “I thought just making sure that we made the point after try. I had been touching lady luck all day in this game in going for two.
“I told our team last week that I do not want to play with my hands behind my back anymore. I told them that for now on we are going to be as aggressive as we can be. We practiced a lot of different things and those situations, a lot. Why not go after people? I heard the room go, ‘Yeah, Coach. Let’s do it.’ That is what this is all about. I want to change the mentality here. We are trying to defeat people, not just beat you. We want to defeat you. We need to do that, and we need to continue to do that and get it right.”
With a quarter of the season in the books, the Browns are still below .500.
They could easily be 4-0 or 0-4.
“The first quarter's over with. We earned our record, 1-2-1,” Jackson said.
