I Don't Want To Overreact...

 

I'm sorry this column is a little late but I have been busy standing in line at the Browns Team Shop buying my Joe Flacco jersey watching the team affix his name and number on the stadium's Ring Of Honor.  I don't want to overreact here, but Flacco might be the best QB of all time and I fully expect the Browns to win the Super Bowl.  I, like all male Browns fans, will ejaculate glitter into the cold winter air as the Super Bowl trophy is hoisted in the air by our new favorite son, Joe Flacco.  I will commit right now to a 85% tax hike so we can assemble a 600 foot gold statue of Flacco stoically facing the oncoming winds holding two mammoth turbines which will be used to power all homes in NE Ohio.  The word "electricity" will be outlawed locally to be replaced with the term "Flacco Juice".  Again, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this is the direction we are headed.  It's an exciting time.

It does give me some pause that maybe all of the teams in the AFC just sorta suck.  Everyone but the Jets are 7-6 and the line of separation between these teams is razor thin.  What's the difference between Buffalo/Cleveland/Kansas City/Baltimore/Cincinnati/Jacksonville/Denver/Colts/Steelers/Houston/Miami?  In any of these potential playoff matchups it's all going to come down to circumstance.  I can walk you through a narrative for any of these teams to win the AFC, except Pittsburgh because Mitch Trubisky sucks so fucking badly it's impossible to string a couple wins together with that guy.  A couple months ago did you think it was possible to be seriously debating who was the quarterback that gives you the best chance to win in the Playoffs between Jake Browning, Mitch Trubisky, C.J. Beathard, Gardiner Minshew, Davis Mills and Joe Flacco?  It's pure Browns that they are paying Watson $60M a year to sit sullenly in his designer pajama outfits as Joe Flacco gets up off his couch to completely outplay him.  Next season the second Watson tosses an incomplete pass in Game 1, fans will boo their lungs out.  It's hard to blame them as they will all be sitting there in glitter stained pants looking at a 600 foot gold Joe Flacco statue powering the stadium as that incompletion gets tossed.  Joe will literally and figuratively cast a mighty long shadow for years to come.

If the Browns can go 2-2 through a manageable Bears/Texans/Jets/Bengals, they are not only going to make the Playoffs, they will be considered a "dangerous" team.  Again, there really isn't much difference between the Browns and the Bears/Texans/Bengals, so this thing could get very Brownsy very quickly.  Let's all be honest here... If Joe tosses three interceptions a game down the stretch and the team misses the playoffs, that statue project is going to get cancelled and instead angry fans will be pulling Flacco's corpse behind some guy's walleye fishing boat out in front of the Rock Hall.  Public opinion can turn swiftly.  However, thus far, Flacco is easily providing the best QB play the team has seen since before Mayfield had his arm ripped out of his socket in 2021.  This statue project has a green light baby!

The defense is starting to seem a little shaky, but that makes sense because Myles probably shouldn't be out there and Ward is still out.  This time of year all of these guys are held together by tape and well timed shots of goo-goo juice.  One armed Myles is running after a one legged Trevor Lawrence and we all watch it pretending these guys are totally healthy.  Lawrence had three trainers hobbling him off the field in Jacksonville six days earlier and he "taped it up" to play.  If that had been me, I'd be on crutches for a month, not running away from angry dog linebackers.  It's hard to know what the real health status is of these players.  They picked off Lawrence three times.  Is that because it's a bunch of "ball hawks" in the defensive backfield or is it because Lawrence played on one leg and couldn't push off to make his normal throws?  Hell if I know...  It just seems that it is time to retire the idea of "The Legendary Browns Defense" and move into a "The Defense Is Usually Pretty Decent" phase.

It's all about timing and health now.  The Browns got lucky because they got to play Jacksonville on a short week after the Jags had to play an extra quarter of OT.  A healthy rested Jacksonville probably beats the Browns, but thems the breaks kid!  This week's game versus Chicago, what appeared to be a gimme a month ago, is now a tossup.  The Browns are -3 at home, which means the market is saying the Browns are slightly better than Chicago on a neutral field.  The Browns are a dead lock playoff team and the Bears are sitting on the #7 pick in the draft.  The margins between all of these teams in the league are razor thin.  Anything can happen.

The season at this point is about guarded optimism.  The team that will win the AFC and go to the Super Bowl (to lose to the 49ers or Cowboys) is the one that is going to get lucky with injuries and get the right playoff seeding.  If the chips fall correctly, a team could get a path to the AFC Championship playing Colts/Steelers/Texans.  Or you could be looking at Buffalo/Kansas City/Baltimore.  The Browns could beat any of those teams.  However, the Browns could also lose to anyone in the NFL (except the Panthers... and maybe Patriots).  As we head into the stretch run a wise Browns fan must ask themselves, "Are we setting up for the greatest rags-to-riches Playoff run of all time?" OR "Are the Browns going to lose to a Jake Browning led Bengals in the last week to miss the Playoffs entirely and my Dad hangs himself in the shower?".  It could go either way.  You know what history says the most logical answer is, but for now let's get that Flacco lakefront statue designed just in case it works out.

Go Browns.