Tag: las vegas raiders

This Week Is A Good Time To Play At Their Best For Browns

With all the doom and gloom about the Cleveland Browns season in 2021, it is hard to remember they are still very much in a playoff race in the jumbled AFC standings.

Yes, they are a .500 football team, the currently the three wild cards in the conference belong to Buffalo (7-5), Cincinnati (7-5) and the Los Angeles Chargers (7-5).

The Browns lost to the Chargers, but beat the Bengals with another contest against them the last game of the season.

All in all, there are 13 teams in the AFC with six or more wins and only New England has nine, and they haven’t had their bye as of yet.

What this means, is despite all of the disappointments from Kevin Stefanski’s squad this season, if they can put together a good stretch of football to close out the season, they can definitely snag one of the seven playoffs spots in the AFC.

An 11-6 mark would certainly make it, but there will be teams with 10-7 records that will be playing on Wild Card Weekend.

Stefanski talks weekly about “one game seasons” and that is exactly how his team has to look at the balance of the schedule because getting tripped up, particularly this Sunday at home against Baltimore will put a huge dent into any post-season plans.

The coaching staff and players can’t talk about more than one game, but we can, and if the Browns can win Sunday and then beat a Las Vegas Raiders’ team that will be (hopefully) braving the cold elements along the lake the following Saturday, then Cleveland will be 8-6 and in much better shape, no?

That would give them three games remaining, at Green Bay on Christmas Day (good luck scheduling dinner around this one), at Pittsburgh on Monday night, January 3rd, and the finale at home vs. Cincinnati, which good have huge implications.

Actually, all five games feature two teams who have the playoffs on their mind, so it won’t be easy. And we never said it would be.

All of this is possible if the Browns solved the issues that have hampered their offense over the last nine games, in which they have scored 40 or more points twice, and less than 17 points in every other contest.

We have referred to the old football adage, “you can’t win unless you can run the ball and stop the run”, many times.

Since the loss to the Chargers, in which the Browns scored 42 points and ran for 230 yards, they have only run for 100 yards or more three times in the past seven contests, and have allowed opponents to exceed that figure in five of the last seven.

Not a good recipe for success.

Granted, Nick Chubb missed two of those games, but the signature of this football team is success on the ground. And although we think Stefanski has the makings of a fine coach, we are sure the analytics people are telling him he abandoned the run prematurely in a few of those games.

Still, if you remember the second half of last season, a number of those games started with success in the passing game, and then were salted away by ramming Chubb and Kareem Hunt down the throat of opponents.

Perhaps that is one thing that will be tweaked after the bye.

The defense against the run must be shored up though, and right away. The Browns’ defense has allowed 500 yards in the last three games in total. That simply cannot happen in the AFC North, and when the weather gets a little rougher.

We know this team has not played its best football to this point in the season. That has to start coming up this Sunday and continue as long as they are playing.

It sound simple and it really is.

The NFL Draft Is More Than Picking The Best Player

We feel that most Browns’ fans would rather not see the team trade down in the first round of Thursday night’s NFL Draft, and perhaps this is only because it makes for a shorter period of time before the team makes its first pick.

We see comments all the time from fans and media alike, akin to just take the guy you want when it’s your turn to pick and be done with it.  There is some validity to that, but you also have to remember that the draft is the game within the game.

Meaning, you have to be aware and open to what other teams are doing and how it affects both the draft, and what players you like the best.

For example, let’s say the Browns really love Boise State OT Ezra Cleveland, they think he’s the best tackle available.  Should they take him with the 10th overall pick?

Let’s also say they know most teams have a low first/high second round grade on this player.  Would you take him 10th then?

In our opinion, that would be silly.  In this scenario, why not trade down (if you can) to let’s say between 18-21 (we are avoiding the 22nd overall pick for bad karma reasons), and gain extra picks in either this year’s or next year’s selection process.

Or perhaps they don’t think there is much difference between the “big four” offensive tackles projected to be first rounders:  Andrew Thomas from Georgia, Mekhi Becton of Louisville, Jedrick Wills of Alabama, and Tristan Wirfs of Iowa, and two of them are still sitting there at #10.

Meanwhile, another team, let’s say Las Vegas, wants to move up to get the best wide receiver available.

Why not trade down to the Raiders’ spot (#12) and pick up another high pick (third round or better) in either 2020 or 2021?

Fans would freak out about trading down, but if you can still get the player you want and get additional draft capital, you have to do it, no?

That’s what we mean when we say it’s a game.  In every team’s war (this year virtual) room, there are discussions about not only what players the scouts love, but also what they believe other teams are going to do, and then try to make moves based on those thoughts.

If a player is projected to go high and doesn’t, assuming there are no red flags, the smart (read: winning) teams, try to jump up, seeing talent fall.

Bill Belichick has always said he loved to see teams reach for quarterbacks in drafts, because it pushes more talented players down to where the Patriots are normally picking.

We understand if you don’t have a quarterback you need one, but that should give you an idea of what happens if you draft one and miss.  The good teams get better.

The NFL Draft isn’t just a matter of taking “the best player available” or taking the player at the biggest position of need.  There definitely are other things at work.

It’s the game within the game.

And we apologize for all the cliches within this piece!

MW