Way to go NFL schedule makers. It’s absurd to play the same divisional opponent in back to back games, I’m not sure I can ever remember that happening in the NFL. Turns out that it hasn’t happened since 1991 and maybe I was too busy waiting in line for tickets to Silence of the Lambs to pay close attention to the Chargers schedule that year. Granted there is a bye week sandwiched in between the games, but what a “Cleveland” thing to have happen to us.
Regardless, Cleveland heads to Baltimore for a primetime game against the Ravens tonight, kickoff at 2:20 AM CET, so I’ll be reaping the benefits over the overpriced NFL gameday package in the morning. What a wild ride it has been for the Browns this year. Like many people across Northern Ohio, I had sky high expectations coming into this season. Not the superbowl necessarily, but I felt like it was reasonable to expect the Browns to make it into the AFC championship game. I thought the defense was retooled, a proper training camp would help this season to get off to a good start, and they would build on the momentum from last year. I thought the offense could be counted on for at least 28 points a game. But here we are with a team that hasn’t scored more than 17 points in five of the last six games. We’ve got a war-torn quarterback with a cranky attitude, a head coach that hasn’t been rolling out great game plans as of late, and every other week we seem to give up 40 points. And we even had a resounding chorus of boos at home last week in a win (albeit anemic) over the Lions. Suffice to say, this season hasn’t gone like we anticipated.
With six games remaining on the schedule, the Browns have work to do to try to win 10 or 11 games to try to squeak into the playoffs. In addition to 2 games with the Ravens, the Browns have tough road games at Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Green Bay. The point is, we’re sort of behind the eight ball right now, our backs are against the wall, or whatever cliche you prefer. I think the silver lining in all of this is that the Browns are absolutely forced to play each week like a playoff game, they can be singularly focused for a week at a time. That keeps the to-do list short in a way, and maybe they can filter out a lot of the noise and focus on what is right in front of them.
The Ravens are a tough team to figure out. They have great wins against the Chiefs and the Chargers, but they’ve also lost to the Dolphins and Bengals. The defense is nothing special, and actually they are dead last against the pass. They are no longer the unit with Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, and you can see that some teams have taken advantage of that. Of course, I thought Baker Mayfield and the offense were going to feast on the Lions and run up the score, but they couldn’t sustain drives, and Baker threw a couple of interceptions. (And followed up a shitty performance with middle school behavior by skipping the post-game press conference.) On paper, the Browns ought to be able to move the ball against Baltimore, plus Kareem Hunt and Jack Conklin are back tonight and that could inject some much needed energy into the offense. On offense, Cleveland ought to be able to control the ball with its power running game, and keep Lamar off the field. I think if they can stay committed to the run, and spice it up just enough with deeper throws, the Browns have a chance at scoring on this Ravens defense. As far as slowing down Lamar Jackson, it sure seems like a ton of blitzing and pressure is the way to do that. Miami blitzed him 35 times and completely derailed the Baltimore offense a few weeks ago. However, the Browns are not a team that blitzes all that much, but I’m sure Joe Woods is aware of how crucial that could be in this pseudo-playoff game tonight.
When the dust settles, and the Browns leave that awful city, I think we will have seen an inspired Cleveland offense, and a defense that was just barely good enough to contain the Ravens . It’s probably a stretch, but I like the Browns to come out a winner by a score of 27-24 tonight, and then enjoy a much needed week off to heal up and get ready to play the Ravens again.
Go Browns.
No comments:
Post a Comment