CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns defeated the New York Jets Thursday night 37-20 and secured a spot in the playoffs, despite the challenges they faced this season. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Browns earned a spot in the playoffs after defeating the New York Jets

  • This is the third time since 1999 that the team has gone to the postseason

  • The Browns have had a tough season with many injuries including losing their star running back and starting quarterback

Hayden Grove, a social producer and reporter for Cleveland.com, has been covering the Browns for seven years and said that this season has been remarkable. The team has found ways to win regardless of the injuries that hit its locker room.

“The two words that come to mind when I think about this Browns team are mental toughness,” he said.

The Browns lost star running back Nick Chubb early in the season and then several weeks leader lost starting quarterback Deshaun Watson. Grove used the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” to describe the Browns.

“Overcome all the injuries, overcome that kind of desire to say ah well maybe this is just not our year because of all these injuries that we have and our leaders going down. Instead you know, they’ve used it as a rallying cry,” he said.

Grove expressed how much a season like this means to the fans that have stayed loyal to this team despite difficult seasons in the past.

“They’ve been through bad season after bad season but they stick with it because it’s their Browns and nobody’s going to take that away from them," he said. They’re so prideful of the city, they’re so prideful of the team and finally you know on a nationally televised game they clinch a playoff game at home."

Grove covered the 0-16 season in 2017 and now has had the chance to cover a winning season like this one and the one in 2020. He said going from that to this is like night and day.

The Browns close out their regular season next weekend against the Cincinnati Bengals.

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