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.