Cleveland Browns - Week 7

Browns beat the Steelers!! What a great win for this team to show everyone that the Browns are legit. Hoyer played well, the defense played really well, and Cameron finally had his great game this year. Last year he had several, and my fantasy team has been waiting for him to step up.

The lone black spot from this past week will be the loss of center Alex Mack. The Browns have a talented offensive line, so John Greco will likely take his place while Paul McQuistan will jump in for Greco. Paul served as a valuable starter for Seattle last season when their left tackle went down for a while. It will still be a very talented line, just missing a big piece. If Greco and McQuistan can handle their new roles, the Browns will be just fine up front.

The next three games on the Browns schedule, two of which are at home, are against teams with a combined record of 1-16. They need to win all three of these games to compete in the division. These are all very winnable games. They start out at Jacksonville then return home for Oakland and Tampa Bay. The Browns have a propensity to play down to their opponents. They can't do that for the next three weeks.

After that, the remaining eight teams have a combined record of 25-18-2 (they play Cincinnati twice) with only one team under .500: Atlanta. The Falcons are better than what their record shows. If they can win the three games before this stretch, they'll come into it at 6-2. They also have five road games of these eight games. Here's the rundown:

@ Cincinnati
vs. Houston
@ Atlanta
@ Buffalo
vs. Indianapolis
vs. Cincinnati
@ Carolina
@ Baltimore

At the beginning of the season, I guessed that right now the Browns would be 3-2. They beat the Saints, which I didn't think they'd do, but lost to the Ravens which I had pegged as a win. Last year the Browns beat the Bengals at home despite their 2-1 record. They can beat the Bengals, and they're the best team remaining on their schedule. All of these games are winnable, and starting at the Houston game, Josh Gordon comes back. That changes things a lot. Brian Hoyer has the 7th best QBR (heading into week 7) in the NFL without his best target. While that may not be entirely indicative of his success at QB, he has the least amount of turnovers as well: one.

Originally I had the Browns beating Buffalo and Carolina. I still think Carolina will fade a little bit down the stretch. Their next four games are at Green Bay, vs. Seattle, vs. New Orleans, and at Philly. I think they come out of there with one win and I think by the time the Browns see them in week 16, they won't really care anymore. I really like the Browns against Buffalo because (1) they have Kyle Orton as their quarterback and (2) Mike Pettine will know what they're gonna bring having coached their defense last year. Side note: I think Pettine is the perfect fit for Cleveland, even if he was winless to this point. He's changed some things around and the players are buying in. The Bills have an even record of 3-3, but as teams get more tape on them, their weaknesses will come out. Plus the worse Buffalo does, the better draft pick the Browns get. That adds a little incentive, especially for the coaching staff.

Atlanta is a sneaky tough team, and they have a lot of talent. They just haven't been able to put teams away. They always throw for a ton of yards. Reading Matt Ryan's games this year, he's thrown for 448 (and nearly lost), 231, 286, 298, 316, and 271. But they needed OT to beat New Orleans and have lost 24-10, 41-28, 30-20. and 27-13. The most yards they've gained on the ground is 62 by Antone Smith mostly because of a big 48 yard run that Minnesota gave up. So while I'm in awe at some of their offensive weapons, they just don't beat teams. I'm switching this one to a win.

They can beat the Texans. Houston is a tough team to gauge right now. Everyone focuses on what they did last year, which wasn't much. However, they have a really good defense and talent on offense. So far this year they've beaten bad teams and lost to good teams. This one is a toss up, so I won't be surprised either way. The game is at home, though, so that should help. Also, Josh Gordon will be back (hopefully) so the Texans may have to game plan a little differently than teams up to that point have been able to do. This is what the end of the year could look like:


Up to this point, Browns are 3-2:

@ Jags - Win
Raiders - Win
Bucs - Win
@ Bengals - Loss
Texans - Loss
@ Falcons - Win
@ Bills - Win
Colts - Loss
Bengals - Win
@ Panthers - Win
@ Ravens - Loss

If this holds true, the Browns go 10-6 this year overall and 2-4 in the division. There's always reason to doubt, and they'll probably slip up and lose a game or two they should win, so maybe 8-8 is where they'll land. Winning the next 3 games against bad teams and then going 4-4 down the stretch isn't inconceivable. If they make it to 10-6, that's been good enough to make the playoffs the last three years in the AFC. It's possible for the Browns to make the playoffs this year, but it won't be easy. It'll be a lot of fun to see them actually have a shot at it though.