DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2020 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 48 Steelers 37 Browns will only win this next playoff game If

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COVID really was just a hoax.

I know, it just disappeared. It was like magic!

Just thinking about this more. Man, the Steelers play opportunistic football. That is plain as day. We all saw it when they picked on Jackson over and over again last Sunday.

You know like hell that they will blitz the crap out of that A and B gap on the left side on Sunday.

Our chances of winning just went out the window. Bitonio being out will be devastating. Hayward will be in the backfield all game. Joel gets beat by him a lot, who knows what he will do to a back up. Who will be the back up? Harris?

Missing Kevin would be huge. This team responds to him. It is his coaching that brought us here.

Steelers are getting a gimme. They have got to be the luckiest team ever.I hope whoever they play next, demolishes them. A complete beat down. Man this just depressed me.

The curse lives.

I thought Harris is out with an injury, so Bitonio's replacement is the 3rd sub (not Hubbard, not Harris, but whoever the next guy is).

Also, Hodge was our speedster. Without DPJ (concussion) and Hodge, I'm not sure who we have to stretch the field vertically.

Steelers defense doesn't normally need any obvious holes to attack, but they're getting 2 freebies.

The Steelers are forced to play the game with as many players and coaches missing as we have.

Considering that he is our play caller.. yea, I would think this will change things a fair amount.

Everyone does. If you don't, your tactics suck.

NEVERMIND...

Yeah, but some more than others to varying degrees. Some teams stick with game plans or designs or mix things up to keep the offense/defenses guessing. Some schemes - like Belichick's - prioritize nullifying a strength as opposed to exploiting a weakness.

The Steelers are very much toward the side of the spectrum where they will just repeatedly do the exact same thing over and over and over again toward your weakness until it stops working.

Browns will only win this game If:

Tomlin calls them the 11th best team in the playoffs.

If we lose on Sunday, we lost to covid and not the steelers.

Huh... Weird... So basically anyone who plays the Steelers, for years on end, experiences some otherworldly, Vulcan mind-meld type voodoo $h*t that makes them commit more penalties.

Pretty cool! How do we get that cheat code??

Up up down down left right left right B A B A START

Beat PIT 4-2 over the next 2 seasons.
Make the playoffs in both those years.
Make 2 of those wins epic, double-digit beat-downs.

Pittsb- who?

That's how CLE changes the culture of the NFL.

It's how NEP ran a 20-year dynasty... and got they butts licked for more than 15 of those years.

Stefanski gotta make himself the next Bill.
After that, everything will take care of itself.


More work to do.

^ And how do you do that?? ^

It all starts with paving the road to stability, which I think we have done... then the race to "plug 'n play".

That's the "how" in the road to Dynasty. Look at all the no-name players on NE, the unlikely replacements every time a star leaves Pittsburgh. Each role and position is well-defined, the players around them bear the onus of knocking off the rough edges and keeping them on the straight and narrow. The bulk of the scheme is set in stone, yet can be carved to fit the talent available. It looks almost easy.

I guess then you can be a darling in this league... or so damned good that you don't need to be.

I generally hate the media, but I don't see anything to get riled about here. Especially if that was supposed to be the "gotcha" minute and a half of a 17min interview. I thought he was being honest and objective. If they were to speak with any of us Browns fans we would have said something similar. He basically said that the team has been gutted due to the corona virus and we won't win because of that....and I think it's very fitting to compare it to the drive and the fumble.

Honest and objective would've been laying out what needs to happen for a Browns win, however far-fetched.

I agree with the other posters, the Steelers hosts laughing says it all. I hope Ruiter gets the Grossi treatment from the Browns. That was embarrassing.

Only one thing needs to happen. We need to smack them in the mouth like the Bengals did. If we have the fire and intensity the Cinncinati brought to their game, the Browns can win.

It's gonna be tough, but hey, it was gonna be tough anyway.

Losing Bitonio and Vernon are huge losses. Obviously losing your head coach is rough, but I think offensively, they will be ok with AVP calling plays, I assume he will be doing that since Preifer got booted up to HC.

If the Browns can run the ball, they can shorten the game, and that might be what they have to do. It may just come down to them being able to keep this thing close going into the 4th quarter. Then maybe Baker can make just enough plays to get the win. I don't think he should be slinging it around all game.

I'm not that conservative football guy who lives in the stone age and thinks passing is lame, but in this situation, I really hope they keep it simple.

In my eyes, the Browns maxed out this year. At this point they are playing with house money. I hope to see a good effort, and then maybe this fall, we don't have to worry about all this covid stuff. It sucks, but we knew this stuff could happen when we found out there would be football this year.

Also, it will be funny that Steeler fans will get their excuses shoved right back in their face if they win. Because, boy were they rolling them out after sunday. Either way, it'll be funny to watch them get boat raced by Buffalo Or Kansas city.

Haha i agree w/everything you just said Sperg ... we have nothing to lose. Maybe we’ll play looser than ever, almost like at Tennessee.

Steelers fans were ALL OVER us about playing a JV team ... well, now they face a JV coach too

And the Bengals beat the Steelers with their third string QB and their top running back on IR. If they can do so can the Browns.

Ruiter should be excommunicated from this team. To go on Pittsburgh radio and down your own team is blasphemy. Fans need to cause some backlash for him. Stupid move.

not a secret that Cleveland has the worst media in professional sports.

Lookup David Njoku's TD catch they ruled out of bounds.

When was the last time - if ever - that a given city had not one, but two professional teams go into the post season without their Head Coach or Manager? Because that's what happened to both the Browns and the Indians in this ridiculous year. Maybe the Cavs can make it a trifecta - I'm kidding - I wouldn't wish that on Coach Bickerstaff.

I HOPE THE TEAM PLAYS THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUOUSLY AT THE FACILITY ASSUMING WE CAN EVER PRACTICE!!!!

Ruiter is horrible. Like I get that the Browns have been so bad for basically his entire tenure as a beat reporter, but it's still gotta be awesome to cover an NFL team. He acts like it's some burden. Go work in factory or some mill, and see what it's like.

Him, Grossi, Tom Withers, etc.. are the reason i don't listen to sports talk radio that much anymore. Grossi and Ruiter are just doom and gloom. Withers chooses to bring everyone down by preaching how fans should think and act.

I think:
The Browns will only win this playoff game against the Steelers, if!


If Baker Mayfield doesn't have 5 pass attempts, deeper than the deepest safety, that the Browns won't win,
And at least some of them need to be completed.

Agreed. Why does it always seem like the games where we need to be fired up the most, we come out listless?

Not saying we will this time but this year has been like that.

I fully expect them to come out and smack us right in the chops; to try to pick up where they left off with that last beat down they gave us.... it's on us to respond and smack back even bigger.

Until we prove otherwise, this year's record be damned, we ARE just the little brother in the division that is pretending to be grown up. We have the opportunity Sunday to prove otherwise.

I agree. I don't know what it is. Maybe one area of coaching KS needs to improve upon?

That's why we need a kid like Zane Collins out of Tulsa at MLB !

Your all right about that. No matter how bad the Bengals might be they usually are physical when they have to be. Sort of like the Bears of the late 60's and the Steelers of the 60's. They had bad teams but when other teams played them they knew it was going to be tough and physical. We were like that in the mid to late 80's.

he’s someone I’ve thought about as well. We need a dude who can play the middle of the field ... who’s athletic and disruptive and can be versatile.

If he's as good as you say he is and you pair him with Phillips that's the start of quite a D.