It was not easy. It certainly was not pretty. But the Cleveland Browns secured the first home victory of the Freddie Kitchens era by beating the Buffalo Bills, 19-16. Baker Mayfield knelt in victory formation after Bills kicker Stephen Hauschka missed his second field goal of the game.
The game should have been more convincing of a victory for the Browns, but as the Kitchens era has quickly shown us, that just isn’t what this Cleveland team does. The Browns were the better team on both sides of the ball for most of the afternoon, getting over 100 yards on the ground from Nick Chubb and nicely working in Kareem Hunt. Rashard Higgins returned from his bizarre exile and scored the game-winning TD.
Statistically, it was a pretty even match at the end. The Bills strung together a couple of nice drives late to keep the yardage and first down totals close:
Now the Browns are 3-6 and drop the Bills to 6-3. As absurd as it might seem, this head-to-head win could come up huge come January.
