Victory Monday, at least I think it’s victory Monday. Before I talk about the drama that is the Cleveland Browns lets talk about the game. Offensively, it only took Freddie a half of football to figure out the Bengals rushing defense is the worst in the NFL. Nick Chubb had three rushes and Kareem Hunt had two rushes in the first half. To add to that, you have a quarterback with a bad hand and you come out passing. And your so called best receiver is injured. It looked like to me that Mayfield’s hand was bothering him, because a lot of his passes were high and both interceptions were on high passes that were tipped. The offense just seemed to be disjointed. Njoku seemed a little rusty, but Ricky Seals-Jones made a great catch and run. Nick Chubb is a workhorse and he’s the only player in the NFL with at least 75 yards or more from the line of scrimmage in each game. Chubb and Hunt, who showed his speed on his touchdown run, should have been running from the beginning of the game. More play action please. Jarvis Landry is a stud. The offensive line held their own and didn’t lose the game for the Browns allowing one sack. The Browns only had eight possessions all game and scored on four of those, however two possessions ended in a turnover.
On defense, you could say they didn’t play well because the Bengals rolled up 451 yards of total offense, but they stopped Cincinnati when they had to. The red zone defense was great. I’ll take field goals over touchdowns any day of the week. Richardson, Thomas, Ogunjobi and Cox played very well on the defensive line. Wilson and Schobert are becoming a really good linebacker combo. Extend Schobert now. In the secondary, Ward and Redwine are playing extremely well. Greedy Wilson settled down later in the game, but he needs to just react and not overthink things. As for the special teams Seibert hit all his kicks and even though one punt was affected by the wind, Gilan punted well. Could we please stop running the kickoffs out of the end zone? What surprised we the most, adjustments were made at halftime both on offense and defense, that’s progress.
Now for the drama. Reports that Beckham wants out of Cleveland started to surface last week by a guy on twitter named “Incarcerated Bob.” Beckham was asked about it on Friday and said he wanted to be in Cleveland and loves playing with his best friend Jarvis Landry. On Sunday Jay Glazer of CBS, confirmed this story and now there are reports Beckham during an October game told opposing players to “come get him” in the off season. The opponents in October were the 49ers, the Seahawks and the Patriots. If Beckham wants out of Cleveland then this would be the off season to deal him. All his up front guarantees were paid by the Giants and although he’s signed through 2023, his cap hit this off season would only be 2.7 million. If he’s really hurt that bad, tell him you want to sit him for the Cardinals game and that you really need him for the Ravens game. I would love to see what this offense can do without Mayfield trying to force the ball to Beckham. If he really wanted out of Cleveland, Beckham would shut it down and have the surgery. As for Mayfield’s comments about the medical staff not dealing with Beckham injury properly, I love Baker Mayfield, but sometimes he needs to just shut up.
The Browns playoff hopes are still slight, but there is a way. First the Browns need to win their last three games. That would put them at 9-7, 5-1 in the AFC North and 8-4 in the AFC. The steelers need to lose two games, they still have to play the Bills and the Ravens. The Browns would win the tie breaker because of a better AFC North record. The Colts and the Raiders need to lose at least one game and after seeing them this past Sunday, that’s very possible. Here’s the shocker, the Titans need to sweep the Texans and win the AFC South. The Titans hold the tie breaker with Browns because of the egg the Browns laid week one, but would have the tie breaker with the Texans because of a better AFC conference record. First the Browns need to beat the Cardinals. Against the steelers, the Cardinals either turned the ball over or gave up touchdown killing sacks in the red zone. Time for the Browns to go out west and win a game. Are the Browns a playoff team? Well they have won 4 out of the last 5 and have a 4 game winning streak at home. If Freddie could just get over his obsession about passing the ball when you have two premier running backs on the roster, then maybe the Browns can be a play off team.
Finally as for The Ohio State football team. Based on their resume, they should be the number one team in the country. While LSU was playing Texas A & M and Arkansas, the Buckeye’s were playing Penn State and that team up north. And of their opponents in the championship games, Wisconsin would crush Georgia. This gives Ryan Day a ton of motivation before the bowl game. Bring on Clemson and GO BROWNS.