CLEVELAND — D’Anthony Bell was working construction pouring concrete and carrying around rocks in 2017. He was cradling a football in the end zone as time expired Sunday, restarting the hearts of Cleveland Browns fans across Northeast Ohio.
Geron Christian was at a family Halloween party when his agent called. Nine hours later, he was on a plane headed for Cleveland.
Advertisement
There’s something happening here, something that’s difficult to properly appreciate because this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. The Browns beat the Chicago Bears 20-17 and the band plays on toward the playoffs because that’s just how it is under Kevin Stefanski.
The age-old “next man up” mantra sounds good when coaches say it because what else are they supposed to do? But no one outside of the locker room actually believes it.
Personnel losses are legitimate, at least they’re supposed to be. So when a team loses four starters on the offensive line, the franchise quarterback and one of the most beloved running backs in team history, the draft typically becomes a much more important focal point than December football. Not here. Not this year.
This is the year of the unknown, underappreciated and underpaid. They’ve won with undrafted rookies, veteran castoffs and retirees. But most importantly, they just keep winning.
GO DEEPER
Browns top Bears behind late surge by Joe Flacco, inch closer to securing playoff spot
“Coach Stefanski has done an incredible job just having that never-quit attitude,” offensive lineman Michael Dunn said. “He has such a confidence about us and himself that it carries over to all the players. Whoever is in truly believes in what we’re doing. Even today, there were many points where we’re like, ‘Yeah we’re not in a great situation over here,’ but it always just kind of felt like, ‘Hey, you never know.’”
Dunn is one of those anonymous castoffs now playing a major role on a team sprinting toward the playoffs. Here are a few of their stories.
Marquise Goodwin
It’s a medical wonder Marquise Goodwin is even on a football field at all. He was diagnosed with blood clots in his legs in July, something so dangerous they ended Chris Bosh’s NBA career. Instead, Goodwin was back at practice within six weeks.
Goodwin was brought to Cleveland as the speedster capable of tearing the top off a defense, but he had just three catches this season, and the longest had gone for 6 yards.
Advertisement
With the Browns trailing 17-7 early in the fourth quarter and the offense unable to get anything going, Goodwin entered to try to provide some sort of juice. He raced into Chicago’s secondary, and Joe Flacco connected with him on a 57-yard throw, the second-longest pass play of the season. The drive resulted in a field goal but provided a bit of rhythm to a quarterback and offense who desperately needed something good to go their way.
“That was incredible,” Stefanski said. “Marquise did exactly what he’s supposed to do.”
Goodwin is 32 now. It was his longest catch since 2018 with the 49ers. In addition to the blood clots, he missed a month this season with a concussion. It’s been an incredible year for all the wrong reasons until he was exactly what the Browns needed exactly when they needed it.
“Buying in. That’s the only thing,” he said. “Who wants to be on board and who (doesn’t)? Teams who don’t have enough guys on board, they don’t win a game like this in the fourth quarter. We’ve had enough guys pull together and buy in to do great things now.”
57 yard deep shot dime to Marquise Goodwin 🎯#CHIvsCLE on FOX & NFL+ pic.twitter.com/JYHzVO4fj2
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) December 17, 2023
Michael Dunn
When Joel Bitonio dropped to his knees in the first half Sunday, Dunn was suddenly the Browns’ new left guard. Bitonio has been an anchor on the Browns’ line for 10 years, but he tweaked his back in pregame and tried to play through it until it was clear he couldn’t. His departure left Wyatt Teller as the only remaining healthy starter at right guard.
It wasn’t pretty for the line. The running game was invisible and Dunn was flagged for two holding calls. But the protection held enough in the fourth quarter for the Browns to rally.
Dunn was a surprise cut at the end of training camp. The Browns were willing to expose him to free agency to prioritize other positions and avoid guaranteeing his one-year deal. He was brought back on the practice squad and wasn’t activated until late September.
Advertisement
“Getting put on practice squad feels like an entire different season ago,” Dunn said. “Like I completely forgot that even happened.”
Dunn has been through the financial gymnastics before. He’s been cut, placed on practice squads and even sent to the Alliance of American Football and XFL.
“Was I surprised? Yes. Did I completely understand the roster dynamics of the moves and how things worked out? Yes, I understood,” Dunn said. “There was never a feeling of, ‘I’m just going to be on practice squad the entire year.’ I knew in my head I was going to be on the active roster. That’s what AB (Browns general manager Andrew Berry) told me. I had complete faith in him and he proved that was the case.”
D’Anthony Bell
Bell attended four colleges in five years, finally landing at West Florida before joining the Browns as an undrafted free agent last year. He even had to take a year off from school at one point because he didn’t have a scholarship and couldn’t afford tuition.
He played a total of 45 snaps before Sunday but was thrust into a starting role when the Browns were without Grant Delpit and Juan Thornhill.
Bell was steady throughout the afternoon, capping his day with the biggest play of the game. Bears receiver Darnell Mooney was flat on his back in the end zone with a potential game-winning Hail Mary on his chest at the end of the game, but Mooney somehow bobbled the catch and kicked the ball into the air. Bell caught it, raced out of the end zone and fell to the ground with the game-ending interception.
Bell had interest from a few other teams besides the Browns last year, including the Bears. But he chose the Browns because of his connection with former defensive backs coach Jeff Howard. Bell was a late addition to the East-West Shrine Bowl last year and Howard was one of the coaches. Howard was fired after last season, but Bell is still here. He won’t be going back to construction anytime soon.
Advertisement
Geron Christian
When Ty Nsekhe went down with a biceps injury at the Seattle Seahawks, the Browns needed yet another offensive tackle. They had worked out Christian early in the season but instead chose to sign Nsekhe.
Christian signed with the Houston Texans’ practice squad after his workout with Cleveland but was released in early October. The Browns brought him on to the practice squad after Nsekhe’s injury, and soon Christian was promoted to the starter after Jed Wills went down in early November.
Browns offensive line expert Bill Callahan was in Washington when the Washington Commanders drafted Christian in the third round in 2018, so there was familiarity. Christian tore his medial collateral ligament as a rookie and said he wasn’t the same player again until 2021.
“I feel like I’m playing the best right now. This is the best football of my career,” he said. “I dealt with a lot of injuries early in my career. The whole (mentality) of dealing with that. I had to get out of my own head.”
Nick Harris
Harris was supposed to be the Browns’ starting center last year. He lasted exactly two plays in the first preseason game before a devastating knee injury ended his season. By the time he was healthy, Ethan Pocic was entrenched as the starter.
Harris became a hybrid fullback/extra blocker in a lot of the Browns’ heavy sets. Whatever he needed to do to get on the field. But he had to fight through some dark days and bouts of depression while he was rehabbing.
“It was horrible,” Harris said. “I’ll be honest. It was horrible. A long, long mental journey.”
Now he’s the starting center again, at least temporarily, while Pocic is out with a shoulder stinger.
“What I’ve learned from it is I can’t control a lot of things,” Harris said. “Whatever situation I’m given, I have to make the most of it. Whether that’s me playing fullback, or me playing center, or on scout team. I’m just glad to be playing football again.”
GO DEEPER
NFL Week 15 takeaways: Bucs or Saints in NFC South? Are the Bills all the way back?
There are plenty of others. Dustin Hopkins was a camp castoff with the Los Angeles Chargers. Ronnie Hickman, like Bell last year, was an undrafted free-agent safety. But Hickman had the benefit of coming from Ohio State, not a Division II directional school in Florida.
And, of course, Joe Flacco, who at 38 is putting up a hell of a fight against time. His 939 passing yards are the most by any Browns quarterback in his first three games, and his seven touchdown passes tie Vinny Testaverde for the club mark in the first three games.
Advertisement
“I think it just tells you a lot about the kind of guys that this organization has purposely picked to put on the roster and in that locker room,” Flacco said. “And I think it’s one of those things that you probably can’t quite quantify. But having hard workers, having tough guys, if you’re put in situations where you need to have that resilience … not every one of them are going to work out. So there’s a little bit of probably luck involved in things like today, but I think it just speaks to the character of the guys in that room. And I think you have to give credit to the organization for probably doing that on purpose.”
(Top photo of D’Anthony Bell coming down with the winning interception: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
