A season prediction, and here come the J-E-T-S

Everybody calm down. Yes, it's true that the Browns won a game in the first week of the season for the first time in literally decades. I guess that’s worth celebrating, but let’s at least acknowledge it was against a terrible team, and that the Browns needed a last second field goal to win. For Pete’s* sake, this is not a win that will propel the Browns to the superbowl, so let’s curb our enthusiasm a bit. But for whatever reason, the schedule makers gifted Cleveland some terrible teams to start the season; Panthers, Jets, Steelers, and Falcons. So if you think you’re excited now, save a little something if the Browns start 4-0. After that, the next seven games are a gauntlet of playoff teams, and it isn’t inconceivable that the Browns lose all seven. So people of Cleveland, maybe go ahead and celebrate a little right now, because wins will be much harder to come by in October and November.

Usually I write a little season preview on the Browns, but I didn’t really get around to doing it this year. That’s partly due to the fact that organizationally, the Browns are sort of “ewwww… gross”. I wish I was surprised that Browns fans can overlook the Watson trade so quickly, but this is a fan base that is so desperate for a winner that I guess no cost is too high. Enough about that, let’s make some broad generalizations about this team in bullet point form.

• The defense is great. Myles Garrett is like a superhero coming around the end, and the secondary is very difficult to throw against. Team will try to run on Cleveland, but without a ton of success. This unit is good enough to hold teams to 16-20 points a lot of the time.

• The offense only needs to be ordinary to win games. That might be possible with Chubb and Hunt smashing teams in the teeth when they carry the ball. The passing game won’t be great, and lots of weeks won’t even be good. It’s just a very average group of guys actually catching the ball.

• Here’s the problem: Today’s NFL is all about passing and scoring, so there are likely to be a lot of weeks when the Browns need 27-30 points to win, and I think Cleveland could have a tough time doing that, even when their billion dollar predator quarterback returns in week 12.

To me, this all adds up to a very underwhelming year for the Cleveland Browns. At worst, I think they go 3-1 to start the season and the brutal seven game stretch in the middle likely could be 2-5. Then Watson comes back for the last six games of the season. He hasn’t played football in two years, so surely he’ll scuffle a little, I think they’ll be very lucky to go 3-3 in that stretch. That adds up to 8-9, and missing the playoffs and once again fans are talking about next year in Cleveland.

Here are a few quick notes about today’s game. Starting QB for the Jets is geriatric Joe Flacco who threw the ball last week 59 times at the age of 37. He’s likely to have a very long day in Cleveland because the pass rush is going to be better than what the Jets saw last week, and the Ravens managed to pressure him 14 times. The Jets are a little better on defense than most people think, and remember that Jacoby Brissett can barely throw a football. I do think the Browns are going to win this game 23-16, but I think it will be a tied game at some point in the fourth quarter.

* Who is this "Pete"? Why does only his first name live in infamy? Poor guy.

What a difference a year makes...

A year ago, the excitement across northern Ohio was palpable. The Browns were coming off their first playoff win in literally a lifetime, and the mood across Cleveland was superbowl or bust. At the time, it wasn’t wildly optimistic to suppose that Cleveland would not only make the playoffs, but go on a run and earn a chance at history. In week one, Baker Mayfield gave the Browns a chance to win a huge game against the defending champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, and we were all talking about locking him up for 5 years with a big contract. Of course, everything unwound (as it tends to in Cleveland) and the Browns limped their way to a 8-9 finish, missing the playoffs and leaving the fans with more questions than answers.

After a turbulent off season, the Browns made a run at Deshaun Watson, only to be initially rebuffed. Owner Jimmy Haslam dug a little more money out of his couch cushions, and offered Watson 230 million dollars, fully guaranteed. This offer, of course, was way too much to turn down and low and behold, a serial sexual predator became the face of the franchise. (You can read here my full opinion on the signing, how I think it will cripple the Browns in the near future, and why I don’t care if this signing somehow results in a superbowl victory.) This of course meant that Baker had to go and finally the Browns convinced the Carolina Panthers to take him, even going to the great lengths of agreeing to pay 10.5 million of Baker’s salary. So in a way the Browns are paying Baker mayfield to beat the Browns in week one later today. Such a Cleveland scenario.

Which brings us to today’s game. Since the aforementioned criminal quarterback is suspended for 11 games, it will be journeyman Jacoby Brisset under center for the Browns today. He is now playing for his fourth team in seven years, and by all accounts isn’t that terrible. He seems like the perfect guy to be a backup quarterback, his claim to fame is his incredibly low number of interceptions compared to pass attempts. That’s great and all, but one has to wonder why he has bounced around for so long in the league. Since the new broke about Watson a couple of months ago, I have moved the Browns way down the list of things to read about, so I can’t really say much about how Brissett and the offense looked in preseason. I listened to a little of the Orange & Brown report today, and my sense is that the passing game is terrible in Cleveland right now, despite having acquired pro-bowl receiver Amari Cooper. The number 2 receiver for the Browns is Anthony Schwarz, who did nothing but drop passes throughout the entire preseason. I think it could be a long afternoon for Jacoby Brissett throwing the ball.

Of course, the Browns have a very good offensive line, and Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt can go the distance every time they touch the ball. But I think we’ll see Carolina do what some teams did last year against the Browns and stack the line of scrimmage to slow down the run game. Theoretically, the Browns pass catchers should have some single coverage opportunities, but then you’ve got to count on Brissett getting rid of the ball quickly and accurately. I’m not very optimistic that the Browns will have much going in the air today.

Fortunately for the Browns, the defense ought to be awesome this year and definitely should be able to overwhelm the Carolina Panthers when they have the ball. Rookie left tackle Ikem Ekwonu will be lining up against Myles Garrett much of the day, and I think we count on a couple of sacks resulting from that match up. The wild card in this game is none other than Baker Mayfield, who has major beef with every aspect of the Cleveland Browns. (He probably would try to fight the peanut vendor in section 236 given the opportunity.) Baker in his career at times has been brilliant (2018 and 2020) and at times has been terrible. (the rest of the years) My opinion is that we can largely disregard last year because of the nature of that shoulder injury, but nonetheless it is hard to predict how his year will go this year. His supporting cast (outside of Christian MacCaffery) is very “meh” and Baker's task is going to be to make those guys look good. Without a doubt, nobody wants to win this game more than Baker Mayfield, but I’m not sure that will be enough.


Predicting NFL in week one is really more like throwing darts, it’s not as if the preseason is any indicator of what we might see happen. The Browns are historically bad to start a season losing 17 straight games in week one. I for one think that’s relevant, whereas most pundits do not agree. I think this game is going to be low scoring, and I bet dollars to doughnuts it will be tight midway through the fourth quarter. Despite my disappointment with the front office, I am not going to actively root for this team to lose, I’m just indifferent. The Browns are the team I know the most about, and I am going to continue to write about them, but with a much different tone this season. Anyway, I think Baker Mayfield is going to come out on fire today, and lead the Panthers to a win, something like 20-19. The city of Cleveland will promptly implode, and it will be a very difficult week in Berea for everybody in the organization. Including the peanut vendor in section 236.