For Browns, It’s All Clairvoyant

Cleveland Brown Coach Butch Davis joked with kicker Phil Dawson that the game would come down to his foot. Davis didn’t know how right he would be.

Dawson kicked a 44-yard field goal with 55 seconds left, and Tim Couch threw for three touchdowns and a career-high 336 yards as the Browns overcame a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Tennessee Titans, 41-38, Sunday.

“It is kind of scary,” Dawson said of a halftime prediction by Davis. “He needs to go into the stock market. He actually said it was going to come down to a 44-yard kick, and we are going to have the wind at our back. That is why we kicked into the wind in the third quarter.”

Tennessee’s Eddie George topped 100 yards rushing for the first time this season with 130 and his second touchdown of the game put the Titans up, 38-24, early in the fourth quarter.

Then Couch, the No. 1 pick in the 1999 draft, took control.

He led the Browns (7-8) to 17 unanswered points in the final 9:21, and his four-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Johnson with 5:37 left tied the score, 38-38. Couch threw for 137 yards in the final quarter, including a 78-yard slant play to Quincy Morgan.

“Games like this are a step--a huge step,” Davis said. “These are big steps for a quarterback to go out and orchestrate a win like Tim did today.”

The Browns gave up 452 yards but forced the Titans to go three-and-out on consecutive fourth-quarter possessions.

The Titans (7-8) admitted they relaxed. They had won an NFL-best 32 consecutive games when leading after three quarters and had been 18-4 at Adelphia Coliseum.

“I thought we had it in hand,” George said. “But you can never count the other team out. They made the plays to get back in it, and we didn’t help our defense. We couldn’t move the ball.”