Just the man I was looking for
I humbly request your top 5 must win games since the return and where this ranks amongst them
1) 2002 Wild card on the road against the Steelers. Browns get out to a 33-13 halftime lead and then blow it. Nobody is shocked. Everybody is depressed.
2) 2002 game 16 The Run William Run game. The Browns beat the Falcons to make the playoffs, clinching on a long William Green run down the sideline. Lot of big plays. A great memory for a lot of Browns fans.
Would be a completely forgettable game for any other franchise that qualified for the playoffs more than once a decade.
3) 2010 Game 1 @ Bucs
First year Browns QB Seneca Wallace and second year Browns HC Eric Mangini lead the much hyped Browns into Tampa Bay for the season opener.
We’re licking our wounds from the DA/Brady Quinn debacle and ready to move on to our new mobile stud.
The Browns lose 17-14 in a barburner and go 5-11 in a classic garbage-ville season.
4)2010 Game 16 vs Steelers
This is a must-win…for Eric Mangini.
Browns are only on their 2nd QB of the year and Peyton Hillis has exploded out of nowhere. Eric Mangini needs a win to keep his job. Nobody wants that to happen.
Browns come through and lose 41-9. They are limited to 43 rushing yards, but Brian Robiskie catches a TD pass from you guessed it…Colt McCoy. He is never heard from again.
5) 2020 Playoffs vs Steelers
Everyone is injured or potentially dying due to Covid, nobody knows, including the Browns HC.
The defense comes out and annihilates the Steelers. Nobody is comfortable until the final moments because the Steelers have come back from 20 points down in the playoffs and like 50 points down in the regular season.
Browns win and then lose the next week against the Chiefs. That game was a “must win” but nobody was counting on it, so I left it off.
Bonus:
2017 Browns @ Steelers
The Hue Jackson defeated season
The Steelers are clinched as the #1 seed and have benched everyone. They are playing waterboys and Make-a-Wish kids.
Some are rooting for a historic defeated season here. Others just want 3rd year wreck of a coach Hue Jackson gone.
Every week the team found new creative ways to lose, but nobody is expecting to lose against the Steelers backups to the backups.
The team went through a record 37 QBs this season alone and put the season in the hands of promising Notre Dame rookie Deshone Kizer.
The Browns are down 28-24 threatening to score with seconds left. Kizer scrambles and hits top 10 pick and Steve Smith play-a-like Corey Coleman who promptly drops a perfect laser beam pass, sealing the Browns defeated season.
Hue somehow hangs on for ANOTHER season after this.