Bills vs. Browns: Cleveland Playing David To NFL's Goliaths

The 5-7 Cleveland Browns have done something this season the Buffalo Bills haven't done in ten years; beat the New England Patriots. The Browns also boast an impressive win over the New Orleans Saints and in back-to-back weeks no less. How have the Browns been able to topple the mighty? I asked Dawgs By Nature blogger Chris Pokorny.

"Against the Saints, the Browns played a good game but were fortunate to have a couple of huge plays on special teams and defense. On special teams, the Browns ran two trick plays - the first involving Joshua Cribbs throwing the ball laterally to another player across the entire field, and the second involving punter Reggie Hodges running for a near touchdown. On defense, linebacker David Bowens intercepted two passes and ran them back
for touchdowns.

In both games, Cleveland ran a unique defense where only one defensive lineman would have his hand on the ground (announcers called it the amoeba). The rest of the defense was standing and constantly moving, and
Drew Brees and Tom Brady struggled reading the defenses. Neither team had their running game going very well at the time, so that helped Cleveland pull this type of defense off. The Browns ran the ball very well against
the Patriots and arguably had their best gameplan of the season.

Since that game, Cleveland has gone away from the "amoeba" defense for the most part, possibly because the team lost their best linebacker, Scott Fujita, to injury. Nonetheless, the defense has held it together since then, including a great performance against the Dolphins this past Sunday."