SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Kelly Holcomb turned the frown on Carmen Policy's face into a smile.
Holcomb hit Andre Davis with a pair of touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, the second an 11-yarder with just 29 seconds left, to lift the Cleveland Browns to a 13-12 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.
Holcomb had directed just one touchdown drive in 11 quarters this season before engineering two in the fourth quarter to rally the Browns from a 12-0 deficit.
"That is Cleveland Browns football, just wait until the last minute and 35 seconds of the game," said Browns coach Butch Davis. "Nothing came easy today. But these guys have a lot of character, they have a lot of guts, they're going to fight and they're going to play."
After the Browns managed just 113 yards in the first three quarters, Davis admitted he was thinking of replacing him with Tim Couch to shake up the offense.
"If he had continued to struggle, we might have taken him out and given Tim Couch a chance," Davis said. "What can you say about the way Holcomb played in the fourth quarter?"
Holcomb directed scoring drives of 75 and 91 yards in the fourth. He capped the first one with a two-yard touchdown to Davis with 10:42 left, pulling the Browns (1-2) within 12-7.
The winning drive took 17 plays and consumed nearly six minutes. Holcomb was nearly perfect, completing 12-of-13 passes for 87 yards.
"We just hung in there and when we needed to make plays, we made them," said Holcomb, who finished 25-of-38 for 222 yards. "It's just satisfying that when we had to do it, we stepped up."
But no was happier in the Browns locker room than Policy, who left the 49ers to serve as president for Cleveland when the franchise was resurrected in 1999.
"I think we saved our season today," Policy said. "We were Nineresque at the end."
Policy earned a reputation as one of the preeminent executives in the NFL when he served as president and chief operating officer of the 49ers from 1991-98. He is perhaps best known for pushing the salary cap envelope in 1994, signing cornerback Deion Sanders and linebackers Ken Norton and Gary Plummer. The moves helped the Niners win the Super Bowl that season and they haven't been back since then.
However, Policy's spending eventually gave the Niners major salary cap problems which former coach Bill Walsh was forced to clean up when he rejoined the organization as general manager in 1999.
Four field goals by Owen Pochman, who was signed this past week after Jeff Chandler was released, staked the Niners (1-2) to a 12-0 lead.
Jeff Garcia completed 21-of-35 passes for 198 yards and Terrell Owens caught eight passes for 90 yards, but the two failed to get the Niners in the end zone.
"It's frustrating," Garcia said. "It's one of those games where we had opportunities, we just weren't very good in the red zone. We allowed them to hang in the game. I take full responsibility offensively, we didn't do what we had to do. As an offense, I, myself and the rest of the offense take responsibility for losing this game."
Owens threw his helmet on the sideline in the third quarter to express his frustration and broke his media boycott after the game to voice his displeasure.
"I don't know how many times we've been in the red zone and my number hasn't been called," Owens said. "I feel bad because we're letting the defense down. They played their tails off today."
Cleveland's defense also responded after yielding an NFL single-game record 295 rushing yards to Baltimore's Jamal Lewis last week. San Francisco's tandem of Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow were held to 32 yards on 16 carries.
Pochman made field goals of 38 and 44 yards in the second quarter. He kicked a 46-yarder in the third quarter and a 36-yarder four seconds into the fourth quarter.
The Browns were helped by two pass interference penalties on cornerback Mike Rumph on their 75-yard scoring drive.
"It seemed like they wanted it more than we did in the fourth quarter," Rumph said.
Holcomb picked apart the Niners with short passes over the middle on the winning drive. The longest play was a 19-yard pass to Kevin Johnson, who finished with 11 catches for 109 yards.
After two incompletions, Holcomb then fired an 11-yard touchdown to Davis, who made a leaping catch in the end zone.
"We settled down in the second half and we slowly started to pick them apart," Johnson said. "That last drive is as big as it gets. We needed a touchdown to walk out of here 1-2, otherwise we go home 0-3. I was exhausted but we had to get it done."
