DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum The Annual Browns W/L Record Prediction Thread

I've never actually posted this thread myself. It's usually always been someone else. Last year I think it was Saint. But the opening to the season is drawing near and the thread isn't up, so it is now. It's been an annual tradition and I see no reason that it shouldn't be posted.

What this thread is looking for is what you think the Browns record will be this year and why you believe that. So here goes.....

4-12

While I believe our DL will be effective, I'm a little less confident in the LB'ers and a LOT less confident in our secondary. I believe that opposing QB's will burn us early and often. Pressuring the opposing QB can be a wonderful tool, it can also cause you to get burned. You live by the blitz and you die by the blitz. Hopefully the secondary will play much better than I'm expecting, but I'm not going to predict it.

On offense it's going to be a roller coaster of emotion. I expect Kizer to have moments where he wows me and have moments where I'll be saying, "What the hell were you thinking?" He certainly has the arm strength and the legs to make something happen but it's going to be a growing process. Patience will be needed.

The OL has one position that has real question marks. RT. And if we have an injury at RG, it will create a situation that will be a real cause for concern on the right side of our OL. I know the FO addressed the OL and that Rome wasn't built in a day, but I really worry about depth.

Rebuilding this team is going to take time. We have first and second year players galore. This is year one of Gregg Williams D. If Haslam sticks to the plan and Kizer develops, next year I could see 8-8. But it's not going to happen this year.

Okay folks, let's see your predictions for the season is upon us.

5-11

4-12

I said 5-11 in another thread, i see no reason to change that now.

5-11

I said 5-11 and I'm sticking. I want to be more aggressive with 6 wins, but I'm scared.

Squealers L
@Balt L
@Indy W
Cincy L
NYJ W
@Houst L
TN L
Vikes London W
Bye
@Detroit L
Jax W
LA Charg W
GBay L
Balt W
@Chic L
@squealers L

6 wins..

I think 6 - 10.

In other threads I said 4 - 12, but I do think the new receivers, and using Duke more in slot will help. We'll see .....

9-7, wildcard!!!

I've been saying 4 wins, with an upside of 6 if some breaks go our way. (We're due a few breaks.)

Pittsburgh LOSS
at Baltimore LOSS
at Indianapolis LOSS (if Luck plays)
Cincinnati WIN
NY Jets WIN
at Houston LOSS
Tennessee LOSS
Minnesota LOSS
at Detroit LOSS
Jacksonville WIN
at Cincinnati LOSS
at LA Chargers LOSS
Green Bay LOSS
Baltimore WIN
at Chicago LOSS
at Pittsburgh LOSS


4-12

4 12 wins vs the Jets Jaguars Ravens and Colts if Luck isn't back
3 13 if he plays that 4th week

16-0

Before Preseason I might not have been this optimistic, but I Really like out D way more than I thought I would. If I'm right, it's going to be tough to score on us. Guess we'll see.

Solely on that basis, I'm going with 8-8. Up from a 6 win projection I made earlier in the summer.

4-12

Too much youth and inexperience to win this year. However, it should be fun to watch them grow this year.

Wins coming against the Jets, Jaguars, Colts and Bears.

So far the common theme is between 4-5 games. Isn't that the Vegas Over/Under? 4.5?

I think I might bet the over. Again, 5 wins. Barely sneak by.

6-10

I just have a feeling that the corner will be turned.

Last year I predicted 1-15.... sorry about that..

I think we'll win between 3 and 5 games, depending on amount of injuries and how the breaks go during some games.

Positives:

--Hue is a good play caller.

--Williams should have the guys playing hard on D.

--DL looks good.

--Our LBers are pretty good.

--RBs look good.

Weaknesses/Concerns:

--Secondary is weak.

--WRs suck.

--TEs are inexperienced and unproven.

--Lack of depth on OL will probably bite us.

--Raw, inexperienced QBs that will probably doom us.

If you want an exact number of wins........I'll say 4.

So it wasn't the players fault, it was you.

My mind says 3-5 wins is a reasonable expectation. My inner homer says playoffs...

I'm going to be very optimistic and predict 7 wins. 7-9.

4-12. Defense carries us, offense struggles under Kizer,Hue's playcalling, and lack of playmakers

knew it

It'l never happen, but how awesome would it be to go from 1st pick in the draft, to undefeated Super Bowl Champs?

3-13

Using sound logic, I think we'll win 5 games. We're very young, the vast majority of our roster is unproven, rookie QB, need time to gel .

Using blind fandom-ness?

10-6, squeak in playoffs, get hot and win Super Bowl.

and have Houston go 0-16 and have the next year's 1st pick too

6-10

I think we end up 7-9 to 9-7 depending on how Kizer does.

I base my prediction every year on the 4 Cs: Choosing, Coaching, Cheating and Chance.

Choosing: This is effectively drafting + cuts/waiver pickups. I look at each player starting on our team and give them points based on if they were cut today, would they start on another team. 0 points for no, 1 point if they'd start on a bad team, 2 points if they'd start on an average team, and 3 points if they'd start on a playoff team.
So for instance Haden was a 3, now we have a 1.

I'll save the nitty gritty math details...
Choosing Score: 5 out of 8 wins

Coaching: Last year I gave us a 1 out of 3, this year I'm upping it to a 2. It would stand to reason coaching should improve year to year. Obviously that's not always the case, but I'm erring on the side of optimism.
Coaching Score: 2 out of 5 wins.

Cheating: Last year I gave us a zero for this, and we ended up losing a game because of it. This year with Greg Williams a proven cheater on the team, I'll give us a 1.
Cheating Score: 1 out of 3 wins.

Chance: Basically every year I just give us a -2 because the Browns just always get the short end of the stick for some reason. See: Redskins phantom fumble and Terrelle Pryor non-penalty vs Ravens.
Chance Score: -2 wins

Final Win/Loss Prediction: 7-9 (between 6-10 and 10-6, and rounding down)

I think we will go 5-11 with a few very close losses that show growth and hope for the future. I also predict we will end the season with the SAME QB as we start the season... what happens in the middle is still questionable.

I am going 6-10. If this group goes .500, then i would be ecstatic! We are going to need to surprise a few and get some dumb luck breaks to do that. I hope most of all that we get after it harder. One wild card was the number of injuries we saw in the preemie games. Once upon a time, you didn't want us because we were physical and played like going to war. That is a ways back, but we need to BRUTE UP! if we are Punishers or grow into that, we could cause some havoc.

Shock and awe, gentlemen. Shock. And. Awe.

Worst Case - 4-12
Best Case - 9-7

Best Guess? 7-9

I'm going in optimistic. And if I'm looking at it through an organizational/progression lens, I want to think our D will be dominant and our O effective. There will be struggles on offense, but I believe at this point we'll be fielding a solid running game, and if week to week progress continues Kizer should improve each game.

I think we upgraded our WR corp with Coates, Davis & Kasen Williams. They won't have a huge impact right away but as they become acclimated Coates will work his way into the #3 spot, and we'll begin to see production from Davis.

I also don't think we're done making roster moves, we need to cut down the O-line & D-Line, and we must add at least one corner and a linebacker. If we lose two each off the lines and keep 3 QBs, there will be five spots to fill, so they're definitely not done tinkering.

Beyond all of that, the primary starters are set. We live & die by Kizer & Co. We go with the corners & safeties we have, and the receiving corps will consist of Britt, Coleman, Louis, Duke, DeValve & Njoku. While this group may not play at a high level initially, I think, over time and depending on the situations they're in (i.e. 3rd & short -vs- 3rd & long), they'll begin to gel. I see Njoku as the weak link but I also see him as having the biggest upside. We may not see many first downs on first & second down, but I hope to see more 3rd down conversion and short yardage situations, with fewer 3 and outs as the season progresses.

So much depends on the health and performance of our O-line. An effective running game and good pass protection are critical. I do believe we're in decent shape but health always seems to be an issue.

On the defensive side, I believe the front seven will dramatically help the DB's. I think the DB's we have will surprise some. I think we may finally have a run stoping D and the pass rush should be good to great, so the way to beat us will be with short, quick passes. Particularly given the quick pass rush, and zone scheme. We'll see how that pans out. It could quickly tire out the D and expose weakness. On the positive side, we may have some standouts in Collins, Garret & Peppers that could help to curtail that strategy.

Penalties: NO!

Hopefully without seeming pie in the sky, I think the team is better than many think, and I believe there will be a few surprises this season. Of course I could be completely wrong and they could just plain suck, but that's not what I see right now.

I'm going with 7-9.

Going 5 and 11 on the strength of William's and the D ! Didn't think much of Hue as a play caller last season .

OK, here are my official predictions:

We will be a run heavy team. If the defense can keep games manageable, then we can win. When they cannot, we'll lose.

I think that the defense will be greatly improved. They were flat out awful last year. We were the 2nd worst defense in total defense. We were the 20th ranked pass defense, and allowed 36 pass TD against only 10 INT. We struggled to get pressure on the opposing QB, and had a pathetic 26 sacks. I believe that we will be improved in all aspects of pass defense. The sad thing last year is that we allowed the 2nd most rush yards in the NFL. Ughg. 2300 yards, 4.6 per run, 18 rush TDs allowed. That's a case of "want to", and our guys just didn't want to enough last year. I am encouraged by what I saw in the preseason .... but now it has to translate into the regular season. I think that it will, at least to an extent.

I am very hopeful that our defense will take a huge step forward. We have added talent, and our guys from last year have a year's off-season program and experience. I think that we'll check in somewhere in the 18-23 range on defense.

Offense ... well, the run game should be a major weapon. The pass game is largely unknown. QB: unknown. WRs: unknown. TEs: unknown. We know that our RBs will catch the ball, but we have major question marks everywhere else. My hope is that the offense develops as the year progresses, and they manage to get into the 22-24 range. I have no idea if they will though. It depends on so many factors that are unknown at present.

Put me down for 6-10. I don't know why. Maybe I'm just feeling optimistic, and I trust in Hue's ability as a coach. I am hopeful that we won't have to start 5 QBs again this year. I trust in Al Saunders ability as a WR coach. I'm taking a lot on faith here, but I think that we'll get enough on offense to win a few games.

6-10. Yeah, that sounds like a nice, hopeful, building block.

I will go with 3 wins but I hope it's way way more.

With a rookie QB will suffer.

It's not a knock on Kisher either it comes with a rookie QB, even ones with way more polish than Kiser.

We struggled thru pre season to score I think that will continue the D can only do so much. Hopefully it gets better as we go..

8 and 8

The stepping stone to greatness!

Well look who showed up in this forum! Come back again soon, 40'...

See you in next years prediction thread!