Johnny Highball: A Browns Post-Bye Week

So the Browns, despite being a consensus bottom-two team in the NFL this season, are back in the headlines. Sure, a few impressive McCown performances brought positive press to the team early in the season but, by the time they took their Week 11 bye, the 2-8 Factory had all but punched their timecard in one of the overall saddest NFL seasons to date.

As a team, the Browns have wins over Tennessee and lowly Baltimore and sit in dead last in the AFC North (and AFC conference, and NFL league). Though not technically mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet, the only way the Browns meet their current 3.7 ELO projection is if they win at home against the Flacco-less Ratbirds and the Flow-led 49ers. The rest of their schedule is unwinnable (CIN, @SEA, @KC, PIT) and, depending on however DraftKings actually works, the wise man parlays these games against Josh McCown — and his backup Austin Davis — and his Browns.

One other thing, the Browns defense started the season as a pretty respectable force but they are now 30th in team defense. In short, they’ve fallen a long way from preseason predictions.

Now, on to the juicy gossip…

So, IT SEEMS, that before going on bye, the Browns named Johnny Manziel (aka: JFF, Johnny Bench, Johnny Moneyfingers, Johnny Eightball) the starting quarterback. Officially, Browns Coach Mike Pettine announced JFF as the starter, not because of McCown’s injury issues; not because of the team is battling for the top draft pick; not because Manziel is a first round pick and, you know, first rounders are expected to contribute early these days. No, OFFICIALLY Manziel had earned the starting position with his play in a 30-9 loss to Pittsburgh.

So Manziel is handed the proverbial keys with one simple rule – do nothing during the bye weeks to embarrass the team or the organization. In true Browns form, TMZ released video of Manziel partying in Austin during the bye week. Admittedly, I saw the video and thought, “so what?” but, considering the fact that the team just looked past the incident of him smacking around his girlfriend after daydrinking earlier in the season, there must have been something about Manziel in Austin that specifically irked Pettine & Co. I tried to read some ESPN comments to get a better point of view but the consensus seems to be one of either; (a) Manziel is a spoiled bitch who isn’t getting it done on the field and now he’s relapsing on his addiction so the Browns don’t “trust him”, or; (b) The Browns are too inept to see the gold they have sitting on their bench and JFF is getting a Tebow-like shaft from a jealous coaching staff.

Verdict: Manziel doesn’t see the field again as a Brown. One would think Pettine would be fired, considering the Brown’s history in that department, but I’ll gamble that they keep Blue Collar Mike on the sideline until next season’s bye. Meanwhile, teams will collude in the offseason to drive down the price of Manziel and Colin Kaeper7ick in a pre-election warm up of “the useless motherfucker you know or the useless motherfucker you don’t know.” Manziel will end up with the Cowboys (obvi – duh). The Browns will draft first overall and take a quarterback. It will not matter because that franchise is a fucking natural disaster if natural disasters left behind radiation that continues to destroy all people who dare its path, even years after it made landfall.

So, as much of a shock as this season has been for so many teams, it’s nice to see that Cleveland isn’t suffering much of an anomaly in 2015.