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

I’m assuming these teams are IN the playoffs:

Pittsburgh
Kansas City
Buffalo
Tennessee
Baltimore

That leaves TWO spots for these teams: Miami, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Indianapolis

MIAMI SCHEDULE
LA Chargers
@ Denver
@ NY Jets
Cincinnati
Kansas City
New England
@ Las Vegas
@ Buffalo

INDIANAPOLIS SCHEDULE
@ Tennessee
Green Bay
Tennessee
@ Houston
@ Las Vegas
Houston
@ Pittsburgh
Jacksonville

LAS VEGAS SCHEDULE
Denver
Kansas City
@ Atlanta
@ NY Jets
Indianapolis
LA Chargers
Miami
@ Denver



We have the easiest schedule left IMO. Good news is Las Vegas/Miami/Indy all have games against each other and games against KC/Pitt/GB ... some of the better teams.

Houston/Phill games are toss ups for us ... gotta win both IMO

My 2 cents. I see possibly 3 more wins on our schedule. The 2 NY teams and the Jags and I'm not sure we will win all 3 of those games. I don't see us beating the Titans, Steelers or Ravens. The Texans will give us all kinds of trouble with Watson and I think the Eagles will beat us too. I see what I predicted at the beginning of season. 8-8 at best and I hope I'm wrong.

If someone had a gun to my head, I’d guess this:

Houston - LOSS
Philadelphia - WIN
at Jacksonville - WIN
at Tennessee - LOSS
Baltimore - LOSS
at NY Giants - WIN
at NY Jets - WIN
Pittsburgh - LOSS

That’s 9-7 ... and not in the playoffs

Dawgs we pretty much agree. I wasn't sure about Philly because we have them at home but they are physical and for that reason I give them a win over us. I just don't have much faith in out team probably because of our history. Again , I hope they prove me wrong.

Won't argue that we *should*.

I know nothing is a given. In my mind we beat NYJ and Jax.

I think we lose to Balt, Tenn, and Pitt. Tenn does lay an egg from time to time, like against Cincy. Do they have another one in them? We may be fortunate that Pitt is resting their starters when we play them the last game. Of course, last year their 3rd string QB sliced us up with lobs. Lamar seems to be quite human anymore. The game plan to beating them has been established. Do we have the LBs and safeties to pull it off? I don't think so. So, out of these 3 games, IMO, we may pull off a win. But I feel 0-3. This year. I have not yet seen the capability to play against this caliber of team, for even a half.

The remaining three games are the toss-ups in my mind. We never play well against Houston. It's easy to write off NYG and Philly, though both of them played Pitt for 4 quarters while we couldn't hang for 2. Injuries have hit Philly since, so they are not the same team as earlier in the season. Which was not very good. We should be able to win these 3 games, but if any of them can get close to the physicality that we saw from Pitt or LV, then we can lose any of these as well.

I may be soured by the LV game. Our D didn't get burned by the big play, and did not let the TEs rip us a new one (which was a pleasant surprise). But they did not get off the field, either. LV methodically went up and down the field in 4, 5 yard chunks.

I see other teams loading the box against us. Which they should. Any DC who does not should lose the title. I think even with Chubb and Teller back, running will be tough with an 8 man box. We need Baker to exploit that to loosen up the D, so we can do what we do best and run the ball. Defenses will load the box until that happens.

I will feel better about our chances if I can see a few things. Putting away the bad teams, which means not needing a TD w 11 seconds left to win by 3. Beating the middle tier teams, more often than not. And at least making the good teams work for a win.

The Raiders game was played in miserable conditions, or they might have thrown for 400 as well. Instead, neither team threw the ball well at all.

I doubt we'll be able to stop Derrick Henry. We couldn't the last time we played them and we're not any better on D now.

j/c:

This is an audio about the Browns w/Ken Karmen interviewing Zac Jackson. Here is the text highlights. I'll post a link to the entire interview. It's about 19 minutes long.

We do get shoved around some. It will say a bundle if half of the NFL makes the playoffs and we are not able to win in. Just not confident in what we are bringing to the field. This defense needs to be carried by an offense that can't put up enough.
Hopefully we get some real help with the players returning. Replace Njoku? Secondary?
I wish I could be realistically and emphatically convinced of our ability to win games left, but easy schedule is not a gimme for us.

Thanks Grateful for sharing

He's easily replaced.

And Berry and Co. are hopefully working on a plan to do just that.

For some reason I'm not picking up Gratefuls posts. Who can be easily replaced?

Apparently Baker Mayfield.

It's hard to keep up with this place at times.

Rish was being sarcastic. He thinks it would be impossible to replace Baker's stellar play.

Yes... I work part time for the Texans so see every home game and end up watching several away games... they are trash... I understand they have had stiff competition... but the team is a dumpster fire...

Never let a good emotion interfere with fact

So, by golly, be the dad burned BEST dumpster fire you can be. Inspiring words to live with, er, by.

Seriously think we can achieve more now to polish this lame season.

Our next three opponents have a combined record of 6-17-1. We should win all three; if we don't, it would seem our playoff hopes become much weaker.

Along those lines, facing the NFC (L)East is actually a curse. There aren't many tie-breakers that reward non-conference play. An NFC sweep with a 10-6 record means a 6-6 conference record. If that comes to pass, 10-6 will NOT (IMO) get us into the playoffs.

Bottom line, aside from record, we MUST win at least one of the tough match-ups remaining: Titans, Ravens or Pittsburgh. We would be better off losing to a crap team from the NFC and beating one of the above three AFC opponents as we would have a better chance in most tie-breaker scenarios.

Also, any three team (or more) tie-breaker, with both the Browns and Ravens involved means that we would have to win the tie-breaker with the Ravens first. That would mean beating them, and likely having a better record against common opponents. They've already beaten the Texans and Eagles, so those games become must-wins.

"10-6" would seem to be the bench mark for a playoff berth, especially with an extra Wild Card team added. It would be in the NFC, it may not be in the AFC. There are nine teams in our conference with at least a 5-3 record.

So if we go in to week 17 at 10-5 and Pittsburgh is sitting at say 14-2 with the division and the 1 seed wrapped up, do they sit their starters even though it is the Browns? I am wondering if I should start rooting for Pittsburgh just a little bit.

We had the tie-breaker with one team (IND) that was in the bunch that is sniffing around the wild card (IND, BAL, LV, MIA), and now they are no longer in the wild card chase. They are leading the AFCS as of now, and TEN is fighting for the wild card.

We need to beat TEN, as well as BAL. If we finish with a better record than BAL then that early season trip to the wood shed is a non-factor. No need for tie breakers.

Yeah, it appears like we are on the wrong end of a lot of tie breakers ... the Las Vegas game was a killer.

Couple that with Indy beating Tennessee and the Dolphins ON FIRE ... we are gonna have to beat Philly, Jacksonville, NY Giants, NY Jets and either Baltimore or Tennessee

I don't really see that happening unless they are banged up or have lost the #1 seed. With the expanded playoffs, only one team gets a first round bye.

So let's look at the options... If they have the #1 seed locked up, there's more of a reason to play starters since they're already getting a week off... don't want anyone getting rusty. If they don't have it, but still have a chance to get it (or need to win to protect it), starters won't be resting... they'll be playing to win. If they don't have the bye and a win won't help (or make any difference in upcoming opponent), they may rest some starters. I would think they would be starting the game though.

I don't think it's likely they rest any starters regardless of record or standing. We're a division rival, I don't see the Steelers throwing us a bone. I could see a scenario where they state that some starters will get rest... maybe only play the first half... in that case I could also see them coming out and trying to boat race us lol.

Moral of the story ~ NO. You never root for the Steelers.

Hopefully things become a lot clearer over the next two weeks. We need to take care of business against weaker teams, here's the picture with some of the tough match-ups for our playoff competition:


Next week:
Tennessee @ Baltimore
Green Bay @ Indianapolis
Kansas City @ Las Vegas

Week 12:
Baltimore @ Pittsburgh (Thanksgiving ~ Ravens have three days off between Titans and Steelers)
Los Angeles @ Buffalo
Tennessee @ Indianapolis

Tennessee, Baltimore and Indy all have two tough games. The only contender with none is Miami. I looked at their schedule... they finish the season with Chiefs, Patriots, Raiders and Bills.

Take care of our opponents, the rest will take care of itself.

GC.
The Eagles, are a 3-5-1 team, that is 2 and 2 in its' last four,
Fighting for a Division lead among 4 divisional teams in a Year, Effectively with NO WILDCARD SPOTS, circumstancualy; and they Hold the Playoff spot at the moment.

The Browns are a 6-3 team, that is 2 and 2 in its' last four, and currently out of a playoff slot (and about equal to its' best record at this point of the season for any time since 2007, and 2001, and 1994.)
Fighting for a wildcard spot or two among 4 remaining, rotating, clubs that'll shake out of the top 10 afc teams, if you include the Browns; Effectively with the division almost out of reach.(Circumstancualy)

Next weeks game, is as much like a playoff game as any interconference foes can have in a regular season matchup.

At years end looking back to next weeks game,
The loser may well be out!
and the Winner may well be in! because of it.

Myles Garrett for M.V.P.

I think it’s pretty clear in my mind. We must win these games:

Philadelphia
At Jacksonville
At NY Giants
At NY Jets

We must split these games:

At Tennessee
Baltimore


If we fail to do any of those, we won’t make it

But we're two years away!

One game at a time...

our defense IS.
The weather played defense more than we did yesterday. It helps when Mother Nature covers your biggest weakness by taking the passing game down a few notches.

I think Miami and LV and BAL will be the wildcards...I think Miami and LV are better than us and I think the spot we need to shoot for is BAL.. They have looked pretty beatable lately

j/c here is what I said in the other thread:

we are still on pace to get into the playoffs from what I expected

We should win 6/8 of these games (4 more to go)

Houston/won
Philly
NYG
Jacksonville
Jets
Cin/won
Las Vegas/lost
Pitt

We will need to win 1 game against these teams to get in the playoffs. *accomplished

Indy/won
Pitt/lost
Baltimore


I would expect that 10-6 gets us in the playoffs as the 7 seed.

Raiders still have the Chiefs, Dolphins, Colts and even the Falcons are playing better ...

Dolphins still have Chiefs, Raiders and the Patriots are playing better ...

Ravens Still Have Titans, Steelers and Browns ...

Titans Still Have Ravens, Browns, and Colts ...

Colts still have Titans, Raiders, Packers, Steelers ...

Browns still Have Titans, Ravens and Steelers ...

It's hard to say who those 3 playoff teams will be at point although it looks really tough for the Colts ...

Went to NFL.com and there was an article about Balt losing to the Patriots. Buried deep in the article was a little stat that the Lamar-led Ravens are 0-6 when trailing by 10 or more at any point in the game.

I said a while back that Jackson is not good when he trailing, because he has to pass more than use his legs ...

Their overall offense is really built around their ground game. Their RBs are excellent, but once they go 1-dimensional, their weaknesses really become amplified.

Dolphins also have the Bills.
Titans also have the Packers.

So, to summarize, we need to win. Let each week play out, but we need to win.

The AFC is crazy this year. The closest team to "500" is the 4-5 Patriots.

9 teams are 6-3 or better.

6 teams are 3-6 or worse (and only one of them is 3-6).

Parity is dead in 2020.