It was another magical ending for the Cleveland Browns on the road in Tennessee on Sunday in Week 7, as the team locked up a 27-24 win on a field goal knocked through by Andre Szmyt with no time remaining on the clock. The kick came after a huge 36-yard catch-and-run from tight end Harold Fannin, who caught the pass from Deshaun Watson at about the 50-yard line with 25 seconds to play in a tie game, turned and rumbled another 30 yards down to the Titans‘ 19. That put Szmyt in position for the win.
So the fairytale season moves ahead, with the Browns now 5-2 and in first place as they face a monster game against the 5-2 Steelers on the road next Sunday. The Browns beat the Steelers at home in Week 4, and a win in Pittsburgh would be like two wins for Cleveland, because it would seal the tiebreaker.
Browns Clearly Guilty of False Start
Not everyone was taken by the thrill of the Browns’ final drive, though. In fact, many poked a giant hole in it: right tackle Dawand Jones, in for Tytus Howard, clearly was guilty of a false start before the snap, moving out of his set and stepping back in pass protection a full beat before the ball was snapped.
“I’ll have to look at the tape,” Titans coach Robert Saleh said after the game. “It looked like from live, I think they did (false start), yeah.”
The ‘TruthSeeker” betting account, with 130,000 followers, wrote, “THE NFL IS 100% RIGGED. This was clearly a false start by the #Browns.”
‘Titans Were Robbed’
There was not much sentiment in favor of the Browns on that one, other than to point out that other calls against the Titans were missed, too.
As @Matt_StCharles wrote, “Blown away by the amount of people acknowledging the false start but saying it didn’t impact the play. IF A FALSE START IS CALLED, THERE IS NO PLAY.”
Ari Meirov of The 32nd Team noted, “I have no idea how there isn’t a false start on Cleveland here on the play that got them in FG range. I mean, c’mon.”
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, added, “It was very early. Noticeably earlier than the move perfected in recent years by Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson, who routinely utilized the technique of going at the perfect moment to give him a jump on blocking the pass rusher without having the plug on the play pulled by a false-start penalty. Jones didn’t just leave early. And he didn’t use the far more common single early step with his right foot. He jumped back, like he’d just seen a rattlesnake.”
And from the Titans’ London fan site: “Seriously, how does every official with eyes miss this false start by the Browns RT on one of the biggest plays of the game? Our @Titans were robbed here.”
NFL Gets Backlash for Critical Browns Blown Call