Browns-Seahawks Preview

So here we are, Canadian Thanksgiving weekend 2019, and to celebrate the event, I have decided to take the entire staff of 4338 out to celebrate with plum and fig lemonades.  (Staff pictured below)

Thanksgiving doesn't get a lot of run over here in Central Europe; neither the American holiday, or the knock-off version celebrated by Canada.  Despite rigorous searching I couldn't find anywhere in Prague that makes a decent tourtiére.  It did cross my mind to stop by the the Canadian Embassy here in Prague, but it's a weirdly intimidating place.  I did recently see the musical Come From Away, and my take away from the show was that Canadians are incredibly welcoming and goodhearted people.  So probably I could stop by, enjoy some poutine, and some maple infused deserts. 

Enough of my thinly veiled envy of all things Canadian, it's time to talk turkey about the Seahawks and the Browns.  A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how the Ravens game was a 100% must win situation.  Clearly my words rang in the ears of the team as they went to Baltimore, ran up 40 points like it was nothing, and assuaged the fears of Browns fans near and far.  However, it's two weeks later and the Browns find themselves in the same place, except now there's much more hanging in the balance.  It feels like we are a whisker away from being 2-5. (I'm not optimistic that the Browns can defeat the evil genius in New England, even though Cleveland will be coming off a bye) So I think the sense of urgency tonight is going to be sky high in Cleveland tonight.  The last time Seattle came to town, it was a thrill-a-minute game that finished 6-3 in favor of the Seahawks.  Colt McCoy threw for 178 yards, and the leading rusher for Cleveland was Montario Hardesty.  Fortunately, I don't think there are any players from those teams in 2011, so hopefully offense tonight won't look like 1936 football.  

In 2019, the Seahawks do have Russell Wilson, actually let's rephrase that, MVP candidate Russell Wilson. (12 TD, 1400 yds, and no picks) He's an amazing player, end of story.  I'm not sure why he doesn't get more accolades, all he does is win.  There's not another quarterback I would trust more in the fourth quarter than Russell Wilson. (Including TB12, Manning, Montana, Kosar)  He's unflappable, takes care of the ball, and they almost always have a chance to win when he plays.  The same cannot be said of Baker Mayfield right now.  If I look at Baker this year objectively, there's not a lot of bright spots.  He's obviously super talented and a fantastic athlete, but this season is largely forgettable so far.  That's not to say he can't turn things around, Baker is a fierce competitor, hates losing, and is capable of having games where he's electric.  I'm just not sure that can happen tonight, after the debacle last week.  There were fewer practices this week, and a laundry list of things the team needs to fix in the offense.  However, I am confident that he (and the offense) will play better tonight (literally cannot be worse than last week) but I'm not sure it will be enough tonight.

So now it's time to prognosticate.  I occasionally look at betting lines during the week to get a sense of where the public is on a game, and it opened at Browns -2.5 and as of right now it's a pick em game.  For the life of me, I cannot understand why it's not something like Seattle -6.  Their offense is clicking, the Browns are sputtering, and it's not like there's a crazy home field advantage in Cleveland.  Unfortunately, I think Seattle wins this game something like 27-20.  I hope I'm wrong, maybe this team can rally with their backs against the wall, but I'm skeptical.  What I really hope for the most (outside of a blowout) is Cleveland to at least be in the game most of the way.  If it's a one score game in the fourth quarter, at least we're within shouting distance.  There's nothing worse than being down two scores 9 minutes into a game like last week.  (All this talk about point spreads...good thing I'm not a gambler)

Go Browns.