Overreacting, underreacting and properly reacting to Browns' Week 8 win over Ravens

CLEVELAND — It's been a while since the reactions after a Browns game have been anywhere close to positive. That's what happens when you go more than a month without winning a game.

However, Cleveland's five-game losing streak disappeared with Sunday's 29-24 win over the Baltimore Ravens. What hasn't disappeared is the Browns' losing record, although it looks better at 2-6 than it would've looked at 1-7.

The game featured Jameis Winston taking over as the starting quarterback after Deshaun Watson's season-ending injury the week before and Ken Dorsey taking over as play caller after coach Kevin Stefanski handed his offensive coordinator the role last week. It also included the defense taking over a game when the Browns needed it most with bookend fourth-down stops to begin and end the game to halt the Ravens.

Needless to say, the reactions have mostly been positive since the Browns won on Sunday. As usual, let's take a look at one reaction that feels like an overreaction, one that's an underreaction and one that feels like it's properly reacting.

Let's start with the last one first:

Proper reaction: Cleveland Browns had a much different energy against the Baltimore Ravens

There's nothing at all to dispute this thought. The Browns looked energized and engaged throughout the game, and it feels like it can be traced back to one person: Winston. Before you go any further and try to extrapolate meaning from that, understand this point. Even when he was the backup to quarterback Deshaun Watson, Winston was often the player on the field before a game providing the "juice" to his teammates. The self-proclaimed "Man of Increase" only increases his importance to the team's vibe and morale when he's the one who's actually the starting quarterback. So it was only natural that Winston's energy spread, and even more that it spread the longer the Browns found themselves winning or with a chance to win.

Overreaction: It's a whole new offense with Ken Dorsey calling the plays and Jameis Winston at QB

The plays, at least for one game, certainly were run with much more success after those two changes were made. Again, it's the correlation vs. causation idea. Whether it's a whole new offense, or just an offense that finally executed well enough to be successful will be something to monitor. If it's the latter, and that can be repeated going forward, that's not a bad thing at all. Winston did deliver the ball, for the most part, more decisively and certainly tried to stretch the field much more than Watson had over the first seven games. As for the play-calling, while there may have been some tweaks to pieces of the offense and even the rhythm of some of the calls with Dorsey, the overall look didn't vary too much from what had been called the previous seven weeks. Again, the only difference this time was the plays were being run to success instead of failing like they were earlier.

Underreaction: Cedric Tillman's turnaround second season just getting started

Let's be honest about what former third-round pick Cedric Tillman's first year-and-six games in the NFL had been like in terms of production. There basically had been none, save for sporadic flashes out of the 2023 third-round draft pick. Something, though, seems to be beginning to change with regard to the second-year pro. The last two games have both shown that Tillman may just be rounding into something resembling a legitimate, maybe even above-average, wide receiver. He had 12 targets and eight catches for 81 yards a week ago against the Cincinnati Bengals, before doing what he did against the Ravens on Sunday, when he had seven catches on nine targets for 99 yards and two touchdowns, including the go-ahead 38-yarder with 59 seconds remaining. It could be a sign that, after more than a year in the league, the light's finally starting to come on for Tillman. If that's the case, then it's another reason why the offense could be in line for even more growth going forward.

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ