OBR News-o-Rama: 12/03 AM

Post-loss Monday: The requisite despair, gloom, panic, fear, and soul-crushing commentary. Enjoy!

UPDATE: OBR HAS FEWER INJURY-GENERATING EXPLOSIONS THAN EXPECTED

Thanks everyone for the great feedback on the new-and-improved OBR Gameday Live stuff we cranked out yesterday. The new live blogging tool kicked butt, no one appears to have been permanently emotionally scarred and it was neat to get comments throughout the game. Between the new live blog and the in-page chat window, it's a cool way to experience the game (especially if you don't get it on TV). You can actually replay the live blog, check out the in-game polls and such, if you want. I'm looking forward to next week already!

Here's some stuff from our first-wave of post-game coverage, plus Sirk's typically epic Cow Patties from Sunday morning. Expect a photo gallery, gameballs and goats voting and more to magically appear on the OBR front page this morning. We'll have a report from Berea this afternoon, and lots more stuff, because stuff is something we do.

Brown Out in the Desert - Fred Greetham

The Law of Averages - Frank Derry

Fan View: *GASP, GASP, COUGH, COUGH* - Jeff Biletnikoff

Browns-Cardinals: Game Notes - Fred Greetham

Live Blog Replay - Slate Slabrock

Sirk: Cow Patties from Columbus - Steve Sirk


BROWNS NEWS FROM THE OBR NEWSWIRE (rss)

The Browns had a long plane ride home from Arizona, which will push media time back into the mid-afternoon today, so there will be some breathing room after the blast of news stories which hit last night and this morning.

The themes, as you would expect, center around how the team's mistakes doomed them, and around the dubious nature of the game's final play, when Kellen Winslow couldn't pull down a TD pass in-bounds while getting a lot of contact from Arizona defenders. Here's a photo of that last play.

My two pennies on this is that it's fairly impressive that the Browns took the Cardinals to the wire after having the very definition of an "off-game". If you want to know why the Browns lost, though, point to the thin defensive line and how the team couldn't stop an aging Edgerrin James with the game on the line. If you can't stop a mediocre running attack when you have to, you lose. That simple.

That sort of thing doesn't make nifty column fodder, though, so it doesn't come up a great deal on on this morning's newswire. It's more interesting to ruminate about officiating, I guess. It's easier still to fuss and moan about the Browns' various bonehead moves, of which there were plenty. The latter is right in the Plain Dealer's wheelhouse, so there are three or four articles from them on the subject this morning.

I'm still convinced this game comes down to who can block and tackle better, and the answer was "Cardinals" in the fourth quarter. The officiating is a wash over the course of a season and, in this game, within the game itself, as the Browns benefited from dubious calls as much as they suffered on the final play.

With respect to Winslow's play, there's the expected amount of fussing regarding how the system may not have worked correctly since the rulebook states that the play wasn't reviewable. John Czarnecki goes so far as to say that "such debate is never good for the game". I can't say that it's a great thing, but I doubt that this will be remembered long in a league where the miraculous, horrific, and absurd seem to happen on a weekly basis.

Last Play Chaos (discuss)
Tribune-Chronicle  Chronicle-Telegram  Plain Dealer  ABJ I  ABJ II

General Railing about Bonehead Moves
Mansfield News-Journal  PD (Grossi)  PD (Bud Shaw)  Tribune-Chronicle  Chronicle-Telegram 

Player-Specific Bonehead Move Parade (poll)
Simon Fraser (Dispatch) 
Leigh Bodden (Chronicle-Telegram, News-Herald) 
Josh Cribbs (Canton Rep, Plain Dealer)

We're Doomed! Everybody Panic! (discuss)
Plain Dealer


OUT OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

Not in the house of cards - Ace Davis
Merry Christmas, Arizona - Vinny and the Hornless Rhino
Bullet-Ridden Toes - Bitter Fans
QB Score: Week 13 - Disappointment Zone
Browns Fall To Cardinals In The Desert - Cleveland Sports Animal
Thoughts on the Game. 12/2/07 - T-Dog
Week 13 Recap - Cleveland Sports Authority
Feast your eyes - Ace Davis
Winslow's game winning touchdown catch! - Cleveland Sports Torture
Bad call doesn't erase bad play - Red Right 88

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

The Dolphins really do stink, at a level not seen since John McKay commented positively on his team's execution... Sometimes, it's best to just stay out of the hard NFL spotlight and drive around in circles. The media-saturated NFL is good at turning geniuses into dolts and dolts into geniuses. Sometimes it takes years, sometimes it happens in weeks... Rex Grossman outsucked Eli Manning on Sunday. Impressive...

FUNNIEST LINE OF THE DAY

No, oddly enough, it's not another Shannon Sharpe witticism that causes Dan Marino's head to explode with its sheer hilarity. Winding down after a full day of cranking on the OBR yesterday, I spent an hour with my kids digitally sating my bloodlust by blowing up stuff and killing things via Halo 3. While massacring evildoers with all manner of over-powered weapons and death bombs, I overheard one of the cannon-fodder alien "grunts" happily chirp "It's a biblical kind of doom!". As a Cleveland sports fan, only the darkest dark humor will do.