While in Cleveland itself, nothing short of knocking off undefeated teams is acceptable, there has been a positive shift in the national view.
Frankly these NFL Power Rankings (Dawgs by Nature) shocked me. Screw the two rags that ranked the homies 26 and 27; the rest were pretty fair, and ranked the Browns where I would.
That's near the top of the bottom third. Oh, I'm sorry. Not good enough/buncha bums kill em all...
Thanks to Eric Sezczepinski (wow) I now know that more of McCown's crappy day was more his fault than I'd thought. Eric showed some bad decisions he made that were pivotal.
But rather than bailing on Josh after his first bad game, this tells me how close the Browns were to winning that game.
Eric showed two plays that would have been touchdowns if McCown had made the correct reads.
The national guys made the objective read here, and some upgraded the Browns on that basis.
You expect a quarterback to repeat what he's done three or more times recently; that outweighs one bad game.
Even with the dumbassitude he displayed against the best defense in the NFL, he still didn't totally suck.
At any rate, these power rankings tell me that the majority of the national guys are generally smarter than a lot of Browns fans.
I mean, the offensive line has underachieved. The wide receivers are Hartline, a bunch of microbes, and some guy they should have cut before the season started regardless of his downright stupid guaranteed salary (see? I can bash Farmer!).
The whole defense has also underachieved. Not just vs the run, but vs the pass too.
Despite all this, if you don't live in Cleveland, you have some respect for Mike's team.
Oh there I go again: Not even the top ten? After one whole season? Fire everybody!!!
The Brown's are 2-4, just barely. They "finished" vs the Ravens, then caved in in overtime vs Denver.
They're close, despite their limitations and underachievement.
The 30th or 31st percentile is nothing to celebrate, but in year two of the Farmer/Pettine regime, it's pretty much on-track, and represents progress.
Sorry I did it again: Who's got a rope!?!
But now, Eric's latest "film room" combined with the latest Manziel news, has me rethinking quarterback.
Vs Denver, Johnny might have done as well! Maybe better. And he deserves a reward for saving his insane girlfriend from committing suicide. (I heard the 911 call and saw the video now.)
Of course, King Roger has his nose in it now, and might well stick it to the kid. Locals like Bill Livingston don't help. Bill is a gifted wordsmith, but a poor football analyst.
For him, the Johnny incident represents domestic abuse, among other things, and will lead to the collapse of civilization. Thanks Bill. Wait til the King reads that. Off with his head!
And no, Johnny didn't "complain" after being replaced by McCown after his two games. He said he felt he should start, at worst. So would any honest player. It's an opinion.
For Bill to call that a complaint exposes his bias against the kid.
At any rate, if the Browns keep losing, it probably won't be McCown's fault. But Johnny should step in anyway. On those two film-room non-touchdowns, I have a feeling that Johnny would have done better.
According to Eric, who knows better than me, these weren't tough reads. I repeat that one game won't make me turn on Josh, but Eric implied they were rookie mistakes!
Johnny's (fortunately retired) "money" sign meant he came through in the clutch. And he did. People called it "magic", but it's just how he's built.
He would have taken those shots vs Denver. And he can be great. If King Roger doesn't rationalize his way to suspending him.
Roger Goodell. You know he's appealing the Brady suspension again? Wonder what Livingston said about that? Yay?
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