The last Cleveland team to receive such an honor? The 2016 NBA champion Cavaliers.
The Browns didn’t win anything Sunday in Baltimore, other than a game, but it goes to show just how significant of a victory it was for the city, fans, and yes, the team too.
The victory was also a tremendous weight off the Browns’ shoulders following a difficult week filled with criticism.
“It was a good team win,” head coach Freddie Kitchens said. “We executed.”
Kitchens’ offense ran up a whopping 530 yards – the most since blistering the Bengals for 554 Sept. 16, 2007 and the 40 points scored were the most against a divisional foe since, well, that same game against the Bengals.
While Sunday’s performance didn’t win the Browns anything other than a football game, it did reset the narrative and vault them into first place atop the AFC North for the first time since Week 10 of the 2014 season.
“Division game, road game, especially against the Ravens, coming to a hostile environment, we did what we had to do,” defensive end Olivier Vernon, who recorded his first sack as a Brown, said. “We were facing a very elusive quarterback. Lamar Jackson is real talented with his feet and he can also make throws with his arm as well, so we just had to do what we had to do to contain him and sticking to the plan and executing.”
Jackson was held in check for the most part even though he threw for 247 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 66 more yards.
The Browns sacked him four times and intercepted him twice.
“Man, that's the standard, that is the standard, that's what we're supposed to do, man,” defensive tackle Devaroe Lawrence, who helped seal the victory with an interception said. “We knew it was going to be a fight when we got in here today and we just wanted to be the physical team and that's the standard, out-physical them.”
Baltimore converted just 4 of 10 on third down, was out-gained by 135 yards and beaten soundly on the ground, through the air and on the scoreboard.
“That's the standard, that's the goal, to step out and impose our will, do what we want,” safety Jermaine Whitehead said. “We left some plays out there, a lot of open guys. I can't wait to watch the film.”
Whitehead helped create three turnovers – an interception in the end zone, forcing a Mark Ingram fumble and forcing another interception.
“This is a defensive team, believe it or not, seriously, point blank, this is a defensive team,” defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson said. “Our backups come in, play like starters, you can't ask for more than that, period, point blank, at every position.”
The Browns pounded the Ravens all day on both sides of the ball.
Running back Nick Chubb was electric.
Chubb sucked the life out of M&T Bank Stadium and sent Ravens fans home early with three touchdowns, including an 88-yarder that left no doubt who was going to finish the day on top.
“I wasn't going to let anyone tackle me,” Chubb said.
“Every win is a great win. But we know it's a divisional win. We understand that. We've got to build on top of it and keep rolling and stack some wins.”
It’s been a long miserable road back to the top of the division since 2014, but the Browns are right where many expected them to be in March.
“Well, we’d love to be 4-0 but we’re not,” quarterback Baker Mayfield, who completed 20 of 30 passes for 342 yards, a touchdown and an interception, said. “We’re 2-2 at the first quarter, and the most important game’s always the next one.”
Mayfield thrives on the haters and criticism. It’s his fuel and he’s well aware the volume of it that he’s had thrown at him over the first three weeks of the season.
“The win’s great, but I hope everybody keeps the same energy,” Mayfield said. “Threw us in the trash, we won’t forget it.”
Last Monday ESPN analyst and former NFL head coach Rex Ryan called Mayfield overrated prompting the quarterback to fire back during the week. Following Sunday’s win, he no love for Ryan, who dressed Sunday morning in a brown suit and orange tie, a trolling of Kitchens’ and now Mayfield’s “if you don’t wear orange and brown, you don’t matter” mantra.
“Absolutely not. Rex Ryan does not get any credit for this week’s win,” Mayfield said.
For the first time this season, the Browns seemed to knock off the rust and run like a well oiled machine offensively, defensively and on special teams.
There were heroes a plenty.
Ricky Seals-Jones caught his first touchdown as a Brown after being left wide open in the flat where he walked in for the nine-yard score for a 7-0 lead. The tight end would add a 59-yard catch-and-run to set up another score and finish with a career-high 82 receiving yards.
Jarvis Landry led the team with eight catches before a concussion sidelined him. He finished with a career-high 167 yards.
While most players are too young to truly understand the bitter history of Art Modell’s thievery of the Browns in 1996 in which he turned them into the Ravens, it remains an open wound in Cleveland. Fans have had to watch the Ravens become one of the model franchises in the league and a two-time Super Bowl champion while Cleveland's replacement became a laughingstock.
So, finally drilling the Ravens – and doing it on their home field – in a meaningful game finally provided a little temporary relief to the throbbing pain that has lasted nearly 25 years.