First, the elephant in the room:
As always, the referees didn’t do the Cleveland Browns any favors. But in all fairness, have they ever? To expect that to change just because the outlook of the team has changed is unrealistic. Out of the 18 flags thrown, there were three that appeared to be egregious or not called with any consistency.
Greg Robinson was flagged with an illegal blindside block that was questionable, Damarious Randall was hit with a defensive holding call on a bang-bang play, and Odell Beckham Jr. was called for a preposterous offensive pass interference penalty.