Quick: without looking at their record, are the Cleveland Browns a good team or a bad team?

Got an answer?

You’re wrong.  Whichever way you answered, you’re wrong.

Cleveland is a Limited Heisenberg Uncertainty Team: at any given time, you can know where they are, but you can’t know where they are going. Yes, it’s a terrible and almost misleading oversimplification, but quantum physics is #Hardland.

The Browns are 5-3 and in position to grab the final wildcard spot in the expanded AFC Playoffs!

The Browns are 1-3 against teams with a winning record and are 3rd in the AFC North.

The Browns beat the division rival Bengals twice!

The Browns don’t get to play the Bengals again.

The Browns offense is second in the league in rushing yards, even after lead back Nick Chubb went down in Week 4!

The Browns rushing yardage is down 50% in the weeks since Chubb went down.

The Browns may get Chubb back after the bye!

The Browns will still be the Browns after the bye.

Ok, enough of that shtick.

The reality is that Cleveland has been maddeningly unpredictable the entire season.  They got housed on both sides of the ball in all three of their losses (Ravens, Steelers and Raiders).

Their defense has looked fairly terrible in every game except against the Former Redacteds, where they forced 4 Dwayne Haskins turnovers.  They still gave up 20 points in that game- the fewest they’ve given up so far this season, other than in the loss to Las Vegas (16).  Their run defense has been particularly putrid, where they hover in the bottom-5 of the league in basically every category.  Myles Garrett is a pass-rush beast (9 sacks, 4 forced fumbles– both leading the league).  But he’s not playing the run terribly well, and no one is picking up the slack.

All of this has had some interesting effects on the offense.  You would expect Baker Mayfield and the passing game to have to shoulder the load of scoring enough to keep up, and they just…haven’t.  Despite the hiring of Quarterback Guru Kevin Stefanski as head coach and High Risk Taker former quarterback Alex Van Pelt as offensive coordinator, Mayfield sits at 1500ish yards on only 223 attempts at a 61.8% completion percentage, all ranking in the mid-20s among qualifying quarterbacks.  He’s thrown 15 touchdown passes (tied for 7th most) but 7 interceptions (tied for 4th most).

These are really strange numbers when combined with the rushing stats, suggesting that they are largely protecting him because he’s crumbling when put under any pressure (h/t to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert).  He’s been sacked a relatively paltry 11 times (second-fewest among players with 8 games this season ahead of Brady, Mahomes and Jared Goff), and according to the arcane dark arts employed by Pro Football Reference, Cleveland is giving their quarterbacks the longest time in the pocket of any team, and their quarterbacks are being pressured only 18.7% of the time on pass plays, in the lower third of the league.  He was yanked from the Steelers game after throwing 2 INTs and getting sacked 4 times, ostensibly due to a rib injury and the desire to keep him from taking more punishment in a lost cause.  However, he was deeply pissed about it, giving Van Pelt the dreaded Silent Treatment.  Now, compared with Baker’s previous outbursts, resort to the Silent Treatment as opposed to the Shouting Crotch Grab is a sign of great emotional maturation.  It’ll be interesting to see whether Stefanski (presuming he survives Jimmy Haslam’s random dice throw to determine if he gets fired at the end of the season) and GM Andrew Berry bring in Nick Foles-style Competition in the offseason, because it sure looks from the outside like they’ve got no trust in their young franchise quarterback. Not a great way to go into the second half of a season.

Odell Beckham Jr. brokered a historic peace agreement with COVID-19, only to be immediately felled by his own traitorous ACL.  He will be remembered in the same breath as Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin.  Kareem Hunt hasn’t had any videos of him kicking women come out.  Yet.

The offensive line has been doing yeomen’s work, but has sustained only one significant injury.  The likelihood of that continuing is slim and fucking none; the league-wide trend says at least two more are dead men walking, and that’s assuming that COVID doesn’t break the cease-fire.

As noted above, the Browns no longer have the opportunity to beat up on the Bungles this season for cheap wins.  However, they have the weakest strength of schedule of any team remaining, thanks to a tour of the NFC Least and “contests” against the tanking Jests, Texans and Jaguaras.  The (seemingly) best team they’ll face is the Steelers- in Week 17, when Mike Tomlin very well might be sitting his starters if they don’t have a shot at the single bye.  If they show the least sign of life, they should end up AT LEAST 9-7 and make the playoffs.

PREDICTION:

Soooooo…I’m predicting 7-8-1. Because fuck Cleveland.