CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There’s no scientific principle that requires a mixture of hope and disappointment to produce misery. I’m sorry to sound like a therapist about this Browns season, but that’s what hanging out on social media with a bunch of angry, self-righteous know-it-alls who seem to revel in Browns losses (and that’s just the national media) will do to a person.

What I’d wish for any Browns fan right now is that the disappointment of this season (piled on top of the disappointment from decades past) won’t prevent you from believing in the Browns again. Obviously this frustration is different, because the hope was real. It wasn’t misplaced. The roster created that. It turns out the best part of this Browns season was from the middle of March to the end of August, from the trade for Odell Beckham that took Cleveland football fervor to a new level to the start of the actual season.

I liked those five months. I hope you did, too. I hope you don’t regret them or feel duped. Because it’s not you. And I’m not sure it’s entirely the Browns. It’s life. And sports. This isn’t an attempt at Pollyanna hogwash or patronization. No exclamation points from me. But it just feels like some fans are so angry, when there is some bad luck and a few twists of fate in all this that warrant a shrug of the shoulders along with the pounding of fists.

The San Francisco 49ers, who went from 4-12 to 11-3, stole the Browns’ success. The Baltimore Ravens, who went from Joe Flacco to Lamar Jackson, stole the Browns’ excitement. But the belief in a franchise jump, and the belief in the rise of a second-year quarterback, was reasonable.

At the very least, the intentions of the Browns are on track, as are some of the building blocks. The owners backed off and let the GM take charge. The structure of the organization no longer encourages a power struggle. At least now we can just worry if people are doing their jobs well. Of course there are questions about John Dorsey and Freddie Kitchens, and of course both must do better.

But there’s a quarterback and running back who could be together for years, and the overarching question for the franchise isn’t where is the talent, it’s why isn’t the talent winning? Why is better than where.

If you’re tweeting in the middle of the game that you’re doubting whether Baker Mayfield is a franchise quarterback, you’re locked into the punditization of America, which is ruining politics as well as sports. Do you really think that? Or are your tweeting it because it sounds like something Skip Bayless would say?

That’s not to excuse Mayfield. Fix two bad plays by him and Sunday’s 38-24 loss to Arizona might have unfolded very differently. His overthrow in the end zone turned what should have been a touchdown on the opening drive into an interception. Young quarterbacks sometimes make bad throws. His third-quarter choice to force a pass to Jarvis Landry on a rollout to the right, rather than finding a wide open Beckham on a deeper route behind Landry, changed the game. Down 21-17, the Browns punted after the incompletion. Hit Beckham there and the Browns had a chance near midfield to march for the go-ahead score. Young quarterbacks sometimes make bad decisions.

This one hurt pic.twitter.com/TgIEOX3rb7 — Doug Lesmerises (@DougLesmerises) December 16, 2019

But Beckham also dropped a perfect Mayfield pass on the first drive that would have given the Browns a first down at the 15-yard line or better. Two plays later came the end zone interception.

What do you do with that drop? It hit the receiver who wants the ball more right in the hands.

Later, on a third-and-2 shovel pass to Landry, right guard Wyatt Teller got shoved aside when if he had made his block he would have cleared the way for a first-down gain. As the hole collapsed, Landry, instead of fighting forward to either get back to the line of scrimmage or maybe lose a yard, ran backwards eight yards and threw a lateral to Mayfield. Unjustifiable. Yet it was Landry who griped to Kitchens later in the game that he didn’t get the ball enough.

Have we properly assessed what a ridiculous move this is by Landry? pic.twitter.com/QG9qXA3rPZ — Doug Lesmerises (@DougLesmerises) December 16, 2019

Landry is the emotional leader of the Browns and a necessary cog in the plan, but he also sometimes behaves as if he thinks he’s the coach. At the time Landry left the field and complained to Kitchens, the Browns had 46 opportunities to give their skill players targets or touches. This was the count:

Nick Chubb, 19; Kareem Hunt, 10; Beckham, 8; Landry, 5; Others, 4. The running game so many believe the Browns should lean on was being favored. The No. 1 receiver so many believe the Browns should involve had the most receiver targets. Landry made his dissatisfaction public, then hung his head on the bench.

What do you do with that reaction? Landry was 10th in the league, and first on the Browns, in targets coming into the game.

Rookie safety Sheldrick Redwine, playing because two safeties are injured and another was released after a postgame social media tirade, missed a tackle and in the process knocked Joe Schobert off a tackle that allowed the Cardinals to gain an extra 36 yards. He also didn’t make much of a play on the ball on a touchdown pass. But he’s a fourth-rounder who’s only been playing for five games.

The offensive line whiffed on block after block, and I’ll save you from the Greg Robinson missteps I grabbed highlights of. But the line was the major issue entering the season and has been even more problematic than expected.

On a third down in the fourth quarter when a stop still would have kept the Browns in the game, the defensive line was Chad Thomas, Eli Ankou, Brandin Bryant and Porter Gustin. Why? Because Myles Garrett is suspended, Olivier Vernon is hurt, and Sheldon Richardson and Larry Ogunjobi were getting breathers. Kitchens thought that position group would be the strength of the team. But in the game that let the season get away, those lesser four were at the point of attack when it still mattered.

What do you do with that? The Browns lost because of the players they absolutely need to win, and they lost because of the players they never thought they’d rely upon. They need to immensely upgrade the offensive line, which is is obvious. But who saw Beckham dropping perfect Mayfield passes; and Mayfield missing perfect Beckham opportunities; and rookies forced to play and making crucial defensive mistakes; and a late-season pass rush that didn’t include Garrett or Vernon?

There are reasons to be angry now. They’re all listed on Twitter, which I might suggest we all quit. Oh, the misery there. But you don’t have to be angry about how you felt in May, though the know-it-alls will try to make that happen. There will be reasons to believe in the Browns again, maybe as soon as next year. We’ll all learn from this. Some of it maybe we could have seen coming. Some of it’s bad luck. It’s better to have hoped and lost than never to have hoped at all.

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