Browns Beat Old Man In The Rain

 

Watching the game yesterday, I couldn't believe how shitty Pittsburgh looked.  This is a playoff team?  It's a shame that the Browns didn't have their shit together just a little bit because if they had, they'd have probably won the AFC North.  Pittsburgh sorta blows and so do the Ravens.  I think you could argue that the Browns defense is the single best unit in the division, so if you'd gotten anything from the offense, they'd have gone to the playoffs to get embarrassed in the first round.  However, this argument is essentially nonsensical as the Browns ARE the Browns, and thus will always fuck it up.  There is a very thin line between the talent level of the Steelers and Browns right now, but because of organizational dysfunction in Cleveland the Browns are playing meaningless games after Halloween and the Steelers are playing a winner take all game for the division.  Fucking Browns.

It was settling in nicely that the Browns could lose right at the end, but fortunately for the Browns, Pittsburgh decided to throw low percentage corner fade routes at Ward instead of tossing it to the tight ends like how they went right down the field.  Schwesinger was gimping around like a pirate from the second quarter on, so I have no idea why they didn't try to isolate a tight end route on him.  Pittsburgh's current receiving corps has got to be the worst in football right now without DK Metcalf in the lineup, but that's where they decided to go.  Very odd.  Thanks for the win.

The Browns being the Browns, this pointless victory basically insures one of two futures.  Scenario 1 is what I think they should do which is draft a new offensive line and worry about the QB later.  Scenario 2 is the one where they were going to take a QB at #2, but now are sitting so far back they will have to package up a bunch of picks to move up and presumably take a guy that is just a slightly different version of who they have right now.  I can 100% see the Browns doing that.  The franchise seems stuck in this idea that one player is going to be their messiah, and all they have to do is get into position to select him.  Once they soured on Baker (something Tampa seems to be flirting with now), they became fixated on getting Watson to solve all their problems.  It seems like now they have decided that all they need to do is wait out the Watson contract, and do the same thing all over again.  In the Browns thinking, Watson was the problem, not the plan.  That's the way it is when you are the dumbest guy in the room but think you are the smartest.  Remember, these people owned truckstops.  They aren't scientists.

Sanders isn't great.  He makes some really good throws but he's good for a couple of those "Jesus Christ what is he doing????" plays every week.  I loved that shot of Deion trying to hide in his stupid cowboy hat after that pick.  Bro, you're from Florida.  You're not a rancher.  That 4th quarter interception was a high school football level play that some kid would have to run laps for making.  Sanders might learn from his mistakes and move forward like Caleb Williams did.  Or he might not.  Who the hell knows?  It feels like the Browns think they can just keep swapping out guys at QB until someone just magically becomes The Guy and all their problems will be solved.  They have not and likely will not develop a QB here as the only success this front office has had was catching lightning in the bottle with Flacco for six games.  There is a big question if they can develop Sanders into a legit NFL starter, but they can draft whoever they want to put behind that piece of shit offensive line and that person will fail.  Denver essentially had the same team as the Browns last year with a shaky Bo Nix + good defense and almost made the playoffs.  They built up his offensive line, didn't ask Nix to do too much, and now look like they'll be the #1 seed in the playoffs.  THAT is who the Browns should emulate, not the Bengals who drafted The Guy and then get him killed behind a shit o-line every year.

Only the Raiders scored less points than the Browns this year.  The Jets scored more points.  So did the Titans.  That's bleak.  Of course that is understandable when the Browns front office went with this plan.  "Guys, we are going to draft two rookies, bring in three veteran QBs.  Now follow me on this... Let's give the veteran QBs all the reps in practice.  Then what we are going to do is trade the one veteran after preseason, cut Snoop Hundley, and keep Flacco.  We will start him for a month, and then trade him in division so we can toss out one of those two rookie kids who haven't had enough practice into a live game in Week 5.  That ought to work.  Whatyya say?".  If you look back on it and they had said "We are going to get killed early because of the schedule, but if we stay the course we might be able to compete with Flacco because this division sucks so bad." they might have won the North.  They decided they were going to suck in 2025 and 2026 because the idea is "We are going to be really good when we get rid of Watson and the Grift Palace opens up in 2027".  This inability to pivot when the situation demands it or sense an opportunity at all is why the Browns are total fucking losers and always will be.  

Hats off to the guys on the field that got a win over a team that has a 50/50 shot of going to the Playoffs.  Who were most of those guys playing offense?  I had no idea who was playing on the line.  At one point there was a discussion going on in the room where half of us thought there was a guy named "Viper" playing center but it turns out it was "Wypler".  That was obviously a great disappointment.  The defense got the win as usual.  Once Fannin left the game with what appeared to be an injured penis, they couldn't do much.  I know that's hard to believe when you have household names like Cannella, Bates, and Raheim Sanders out there, but that's the way it went.  The one good thing about the win was it will probably force their hand into playing Sanders for a year while they fix the offensive side of the ball.  But the Browns being the Browns, who knows what kind of stupid idea they can conjure up in Berea.  It's not that the Browns are going to suck next year, it's wondering how they are going to suck.  

Go Browns.