DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum AFC Playoff Chase Today (Discussion)

AFC PLAYOFF CHASE TODAY

DIVISION LEADERS

AFC NORTH - PITTSBURGH 8-0
AFC EAST - BUFFALO 7-2
AFC SOUTH - TENNESEE 6-2
AFC WEST - KASAS CITY 8-1

WILD CARD CHASE

RAVENS - 6-2 Hold Tie Breaker over us (Head to Head)
BROWNS - 5-3
RAIDERS - 5-3 Hold Tie Breaker over us (Head to Head)
COLTS - 5-3 we Hold Tie Breaker over them (Head to Head)
DOLPHINS - 5-3

Man, Dolphins are really coming on strong ... and Raiders/Colts will be tough to beat as well.

We gotta take care of games we should win (Houston, NYJ, NYG, JAX)

Don't forget Philly at home if we win these games that's 10 wins with Tennessee away and the Stillers and the Rats at home ...

Houston is as good as us, they’ve just had horrible luck.

Browns aren't making the playoffs.

Probably not, but this is better than talking about next years draft.

Give it a few weeks. In three weeks the draft talk will be front and center.

Browns peaked with the second Cincy game.

Terrible defense and mentally weak across the board.

Zero chance they make the playoffs.

They will lose to the Texans.

No... they are trash this year... not saying they couldn't beat us... but they are a dumpster fire... have some talent on offense... their defense is awful...

Have you seen who they played?

Haha Rish you’re always dogging on me for being too negative!

I do tend to agree w/you in some ways, but I think we have a decent chance at the playoffs. My hope is Chubb’s return and our health will make a big difference for the next few weeks.

IMO the Houston game is massive for this team

I honestly thought of you when I was typing all that.

Here's the bottom line. The Raiders game showed us that nothing has really changed. Same old Browns. Give them something to play for and they wilt all the time.

Not making any trades was the second dagger. Sent a message to the team that we don't think we are ready. The team will respond in kind.

After starting 5-3 Stefanski will be fighting for his coaching life by the end of the year after the collapse. After this extended honeymoon he won't know what hit him.

Get ready for for the collapse. It's coming. Starting next week.

Not sure after what happened yesterday, but as of Nov. 5th, the Browns had the easiest remaining schedule in the entire NFL. Verify it at https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2020/11/05/easiest-hardest-remaining-strength-of-schedule-nfl/

The league is expanding the playoff format, our schedule is weak, and we have a ton of talent.

The Browns should absolutely make the playoffs.

I agree that the Raiders (and Steelers/Ravens) games were alarming because they are “for sure” playoff teams. They basically manhandled us.

We have to do a good job of self scouting over the bye and break tendencies (whatever they are) to keep the next few teams off balance.

IF we do collapse, that’ll be unfortunate. I was hoping this year would be different. IMO making the playoffs is a huge accomplishment for this franchise

I think Stefanski has showed MORE than enough to everyone to break out of the regular Browns coaching churn. IMO, he'd have to regress some on Sundays in order for the people to start to turn on him. I know we Browns fans are a fickle bunch (when it comes to coaches and the like), but he's already started building up some goodwill.

Yeah for me not making a single move when your defense has forced 1 punt in almost 3 games was pretty much telling me and everyone else this is a throwaway season. Players normally will respond in kind. Really depends on KS, He has to get them up every sunday now. Look at Flores in Miami, they got rid of alot of high pick players and jettisoned alot of players yet still got his team up last year and they were a hard out, now they are playing lights out and have a ton of picks, Miami is going to be a team to watch for awhile. I believe LV and Miami and BAL will get the wildcards this year. Next offseason we fix defense and hopefully get a full offseason install and I expect better next season.

Week 9 action nudges Browns from final AFC playoff spot

https://brownswire.usatoday.com/2020/11/...olphins-week-9/

The Browns didn’t play on Sunday, but the action around the rest of the AFC still pushed the team down, at least temporarily. Cleveland entered Sunday holding the No. 7 seed in the AFC, good for the final Wild Card spot in the conference.

Cleveland now wakes up on Monday looking up at the postseason. The Browns sit at No. 8 now, getting leapfrogged by the Miami Dolphins. Miami squeaked out a victory in Arizona over the Cardinals when ex-Browns kicker Zane Gonzalez came up short on a 49-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the game.

The Dolphins have won four in a row to improve their record to 5-3, tying the Browns. But the Dolphins win the tiebreaker for having a better strength of schedule to this point.

The Las Vegas Raiders also jumped the Browns in the standings. Las Vegas beat the Los Angeles Chargers a week after besting the Browns to also improve to 5-3. They surged up and also passed the Indianapolis Colts, who fell at home against Baltimore and also fell below the Browns in the playoff chase.

There’s still a lot of football to be played, but the tightly packed playoff race shows how little margin for error there is for Kevin Stefanski and the Browns over the second half of the season.

Berry should insist on it. The playoff revision should get us there. Pretty sure this defense won't help the cause much. Our part time offense is unreliable. Turn the page after bye; it's a new day!

This defense isn't getting any help at Safety. Our *ONLY* hope to improve defensively would be for Greedy to come back and be able to play, but I wouldn't bank on that happening. Philips might help, but not enough to really matter, I'd expect.

Basically, the defense is what it is: a rusty sieve with no hope for repair this year.

Having the players get more comfortable in the scheme will help but it won’t make up for the massive talent deficit at safety and linebacker.

I’ll be interested to see if the coaching staff will throw out any new wrinkles after the bye week.

Two wrinkles I'd like to see are tackling and defending the pass.

j/c:

I think the issues on defense are real and that they are a factor. However, that seems to be all everyone talks about on here when it comes to the success or failure of the team.

Again, I think they are a significant factor, but the play of our qb is a bigger factor in my opinion. Seattle, Green Bay, Tennessee, LV, and Buffalo all have defenses who have struggled. A lot of defenses struggle in today's NFL.

I think the most important thing for the Browns is that Baker needs to play better. He is too inconsistent. He does okay to good against some bad teams, but lays eggs against good teams. It's not a new trend. The biggest issues are how he doesn't read the blitz pre-snap and exploit it and how he panics when pressured. His eyes go down and he doesn't see down the field. He was the first overall choice and has great weapons and protection. I don't think he has to be great, but he can't continue playing so poorly in meaningful games.

At first, I was wondering if there might be some more interchange at safety and linebacker, e.g. possibly moving to a dime, or hell, even a quarter defense, but that's not really a solution because we'd be substituting a position we're weak at with a position that we're also weak at.

I think the return of Chubb makes this Offense and Baker a LOT better, and it gets even better with the return of Hooper and hopefully Teller ...

Baker needs to play great consistently. No arguments there.

However were you aware the defense has forced I think 3 punts combined in the last 3 games?

You say you watch the games. You had to have noticed this.

The defense is what it is this season. I don't think we're going to see any sort of revelation in terms of their performance.

The offense, otoh, has the potential to be unstoppable. When good Baker is executing, that makes the whole team click. This defense does have some bright spots, and those are really allowed to shine when playing with a lead.

I am aware that the D has been bad and even said so twice in the post you quoted. I am also aware that the majority of posters concentrate on the D and ignore Baker's issues.

I am simply bringing some balance to the conversation. Also, I have not said Baker needs to be "great." I am just hoping he carries his weight.

He absolutely needs to play better with more consistency, but I'd say you're smoking crack if you are seriously suggesting that the guy who is part of the unit scoring 30+ per game is a bigger problem than the unit giving up 30+ per game.

It is absurdity like this right here that has people saying that you post with an agenda because you are absolutely of a one-track mind. At times, it seems like if someone claimed that Global Warming was the single largest issue facing mankind, you'd find a segue to suggest that Baker Mayfield is actually a larger threat... and then, you'd still expect to be taken seriously with it.

I don't smoke crack and I could care less if you take me seriously or not. For what it's worth, all this talk from some of you screams agenda to me. You guys make excuse after excuse for Baker and blame everyone else.

Folks around the country who aren't emotionally invested like you are see things the way I do. Your harsh criticism of me won't change that.

I don't think you would enjoy a Browns super bowl win if Baker was the QB.

Chubb, Teller and Hooper set to return. I'll feel better about judging our playoff chances after seeing an actual NFL roster vs the Texans.

If we get whomped I'll start to worry, if we lose a close one I'll wait one more week, if we win, then full steam ahead!

Offense will perform, better than our last game.

I think any "chase" we imagine ourselves to be part of, has its bar set by the defense's level of play. I do not believe the underperformance there is all explained (away) by injury. I would love to see Greedy contribute. They will dictate whether we go somewhere or no.

I have a bad feeling that raiders game will cone back to haunt us. If we miss the playoffs because we end the season with the same record as them but they own the head to head then one play, which will be the seasons biggest play will come to mind. It was the 3rd and 18 play that we gave up 17 on a screen and then the raiders converted on 4th and 1. After that they had the momentum for most of the game.

You could say the same for Njoku's drop or the dropped interception. I'll give Landry a pass on the TD drop. The 2 I mentioned were easy, "you gotta catch that" effups.

Even though our D was brutal to watch, the Njoku drop vs. Vegas still irritates me.

I have a feeling too. It was a big loss for our playoff chances. I mean, we still SHOULD get in ... but we all know our franchise haha

Bryant's fumble was a big shift in momentum. We were driving well.

No doubt losing to LV is a big hit to our playoff chances. The teams we are competing with for the wild card are (right now) Baltimore, Indy, LV, and Miami. We have lost to two of them, beat one. Another game left vs Balt but I do not see us winning that game. We do not play Miami but I read that they hold the tie breaker over us. Actually, they obviously do because today they are in and we are not. End of story, to get in we need to have better records than two of them, at least. I think 10-6 is our ceiling.

All true, Cap. But again, we have the easiest schedule. We should make the playoffs.

We’re also probably the worst team. Prior to last week Football Outsiders’ DVOA had us as the 22nd beat team in the league. Baltimore was 2nd, Indy 6th, and Miami 15th. Oakland (25th) was worse than us but will get a boost from winning last week.

It’s going to be an uphill climb. We can do it but the team has to improve in several areas.