DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns open with Cowboys, Steelers

As one poster said earlier. If we win our divison games.. Go 4-2 or 5-1.. I prefer 5-1. Then your down to .500 outside the divison you finish 10-6 and by all rights should win the divison.
Tough schedule but if we beat the teams in our own div. we win it.

nordawg

You are really very right Purp..

Had we gotten to the playoffs last year, it would have been terrific.. no question about it, we'd have all loved it. But we did have a weaker schedule..

Even if we went 10-6 again and got to the playoffs this year,, with this schedule, no way we can't be taken seriously. We are REAL contenders then..

The Steelers also got 5 Primetime games....and I am with those of you who prefer the 1pm time slot for the games.....The Steelers only have 5 1pm games scheduled at this time.

Sept 7 HOUSTON
Oct 19 at Cinnci
Dec 14 at Ravens
Dec 21 at Titans
Dec 28 CLEVELAND

The Steelers seem to do well in Primetime and at 1pm...but 4:15 games seem to be their Kryptonite.....Combine that with what is currently the toughest schedule in the league...and this could be a tough year for Pitt....

HACK

Glad to see you Hack.....hope all has been well.

To be the best, you have to beat the best. That's my mentality with this schedule.

I wish Ohio State would adopt that mentality...

You should still get to see the game if you live in Ohio, Penn, or eastern Indiana. Any area where Browns broadcasts are occasionally shown have the option to carry the NFL network game. The NFL forces NFL network to allow those stations to simulcast the game.

Plus by then then NFL may force NFL network to sign on with most cable companies to stop all the complaits.

Either way I think most Browns fans in the area and abroad will catch the game. If you live in Ohio its almost a lock some local station in your area will air the game.

j/c

Savage: Schedule will be challenging
Jeff Walcoff, Staff Writer
04.16.2008
Browns general manager Phil Savage took time out of his pre-draft press conference Wednesday to talk about the club's 2008 schedule.

The slate pits the Browns against 2007 playoff teams in seven of their 16 games.

Each team in the AFC North will play the Super Bowl champion Giants, the Cowboys, Colts, Jaguars and Titans. The Ravens and Bengals both play the Giants, Cowboys and Colts on the road. The Browns and Steelers are fortunate to have all three top-notch opponents at home.

"The AFC North winner is going to earn it," Savage said.

The Browns also will appear on national television in primetime on five occasions -- three times on Monday Night Football, once on Sunday night and once on a Thursday night game broadcast on NFL Network.

"I think it's great for our fans. It gives them something to look forward to," Savage said. "The excitement of game-to-game will generate a buzz in the city that hasn't been here in quite a while."

But Savage did acknowledge that it is a challenge to go from operating on a predictable weekly schedule and playing each Sunday at 1 p.m. to playing on different days of the week at different times.

In addition to the five night games, the Browns also will play four Sunday games in the 4:00 hour, including three road contests. The club has just one Sunday 1 p.m. game before Halloween and only three before Thanksgiving.

The adjusted schedule can cause issues for teams traveling who are used to more of a routine. The New England Patriots played just one primetime game during 2001 when they won their first Super Bowl. In 2002, they played four national TV games and went just 1-3 in those contests.

It wasn't until 2003 when the Patriots got things together and improved to 3-0 in primetime games.

Things grow a bit more predictable for the Browns after Thanksgiving with five of the team's final six games being played at 1 p.m. on Sunday, provided none of the games are picked up by the NFL's flex scheduling and are moved to primetime.

"We're going to have to be flexible and adjust and know how to manipulate our schedule and really analyze what it takes to get ready for a Sunday night, Monday night or Thursday night game," Savage said. "We've put some time into it this offseason."

Fortunately for the Browns, they'll get a chance to practice the abnormal schedule during the preseason. The Browns' first preseason game is on Thursday, Aug. 7 against the Jets. The club then has 11 days until their next contest on Monday night against the Giants. The club then has their third preseason game just five days later Saturday, Aug. 23 in Detroit, then plays their final preseason contest only five days after that on Thursday, Aug. 28 against the Bears.

"If it doesn't work in preseason maybe we adjust for the regular season," Savage said.

Overall, Savage said, while a challenge, the national TV games are a reason to celebrate. By the end of the season, NFL fans around the country will have seen plenty of the Browns.

"We went from zero pro bowlers to six and zero primetime games to five so I think we're on the right track and hopefully it will continue," Savage said.

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Gotta ask you, what do you think about the Steelers' offseason losses/gains?

Also, what do you think will happen in the draft?

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Santonio is the deep threat right now

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Holmes is no where near as good as I am and should be replaced immediately. He gives me a bad name.

Nice to see you back Hack. I missed your posts. About how good of a record do you think the Steelers can have?

Without knowing the draft....I would say 10 wins is definately possible...8-8 at worst...probably no better than 10-6

Anything more than 10...and I would be in heaven...as that would seem to say the pieces fell into place.....The Steelers usually play some of there best ball against better opponents...so I figure they will probably win a few they should lose...but then lose a few they should have won.

HACK

It's a shame they only play the Jags once.

The flag that will hang above the eventual winner of the AFC North will be tattered and torn.



Now that the 2008 NFL schedule is released, it looks worse on paper for AFC North teams than it did at the end of the regular season when opponents weren't attached to dates. The AFC North faces the perfect storm of nondivision opponents, a storm that hits as hard as an F5 tornado.

The AFC North faces the AFC South and the NFC East, divisions coming off seasons in which each of their teams was 8-8 or better. Since the NFL went to eight four-team divisions, the only other time divisions went 8-8 or better was 2002, when the AFC East and AFC West didn't have losing teams. But no division was scheduled to face the eight winning teams in those two divisions the following season.

Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has to read the schedule and weep. The only time he faces a team with a losing record is when he plays four games against division rivals the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers' opponents' .598 combined winning percentage is the toughest in recent memory and one of the toughest in NFL history. Overall, the Steelers play 12 games against teams that didn't have losing records in 2007.


2008 Strength Of Schedule
• The toughest, easiest slates
• Does strength of schedule matter?


What makes it worse is that the games against the Bengals and Ravens are spread out one every month. There are no breaks. Nearly each week is like a playoff game for the Steelers.

Let's put those numbers in perspective.

• Since 1997, the toughest schedule belonged to the 2004 Cleveland Browns. They played 11 teams with .500 records or better, teams that had a combined winning percentage of .590. The Browns went 4-12 and Butch Davis was fired as head coach.

• The impact of playing 11 .500-or-better teams is hard enough. Playing 12 is almost unprecedented. The 2004 Miami Dolphins did it and went 4-12. The 2006 Oakland Raiders went 2-14 playing a dozen .500-or-better teams. Longtime NFL coach Dick Vermeil believed the attrition of playing too many tough games took its toll. More players get injured playing tougher opponents because every week is a playoff game. The mental fatigue of playing so many intense games wears on a team. Of the 16 teams that played 11 games against .500 teams or better, only two had winning records in those games.

• Compounding the Steelers' problem is how the games are scheduled. Two weeks after an Oct. 26 meeting with the Super Bowl champion Giants, the Steelers face an unenviable task. From Nov. 9 through Dec. 7, they play the Indianapolis Colts, the San Diego Chargers, the Bengals, the New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys in succession. The good news is only the New England game is on the road, but that's tempered by the fact that four days after playing the Chargers, the Steelers play the Bengals on a Thursday night.



• Naturally, teams with winning records might not repeat that accomplishment the following season, so the Steelers' schedule might not end up being as hard as the .598 opponents' mark suggests. Still, the NFC East and AFC South have very few holes, so the drop-off might not be much. Since 1997, the best anyone has done against a schedule .530 or tougher was 10 wins and that happened only twice: The 1998 Dolphins went 10-6 against a .531 schedule and the 2005 Redskins went 10-6 against a .539 schedule.

Expect the winner of the AFC North to be an eight-, nine- or 10-win team at best.

The Browns face the second-toughest turnaround schedule in football behind the Steelers. In 2007, they rode the strong arm of Derek Anderson and the hard running of Jamal Lewis to a 10-6 record and were a tiebreaker away from the playoffs. Their .430 schedule was one of the easiest in football. They faced only six teams with .500 records or better and won only two of those games. In 2008, they play a .547 schedule and play 10 games against teams with .500 records or better.


As theöVermeil scheduling theory goes, it's not how you do against winning teams, it's how many times you play them that is the problem. In any given season, only five to eight teams are going to have winning records against teams .500 or better. Normally, a playoff team plays eight games against teams .500 or better and loses three. Play 10 games against those .500-or-better teams and usually the best a team can hope for is a 6-4 record against them.



The way the 2008 schedule breaks down in the AFC, it's easy to see why very few owners raised their hands when the idea of reseeding the playoffs to accommodate good wild-card teams was presented. The schedule breaks easy for the AFC East and the AFC West, which would have doomed winners of the AFC South and AFC North to being road teams in the first round of the playoffs.



The Patriots, for example, play one of the 10 easiest schedules in NFL history, a .387 magic-carpet ride that should allow them to win at least 14 games in 2008. Only five times do they face a team that finished 2007 with a .500-or-better record. The Patriots and teams in the AFC East play the NFC West and the AFC West, divisions that produced only two winning teams and six other teams with combined records of 31-65.



The difference in schedule difficulty between the Patriots and the Steelers would make it almost impossible for the Steelers to keep up with the Patriots in a battle for home-field advantage. If the best the Steelers could hope for is a .600 record against winning teams, which is no easy feat, the Steelers would have three more losses than the Patriots just because of the schedule.



Imagine spotting Bill Belichick and the Patriots three games in a 16-game race.



The schedule for the Patriots is incredibly easy. They start the season with four games against losing teams and have a bye week. They should go into an Oct. 12 Sunday night game against the Chargers with a 4-0 record. Their next game against a winning team is Nov. 2 on Sunday night against the Colts.



The Chargers also have a big advantage because of the schedule. They play a .422 schedule and face only four games against teams with .500 records or better. The AFC West drew the AFC East and the NFC South. The Chargers play six games in their division against losing teams. October is the only tough part of their first-half schedule. They play host to the Patriots and have to go to London to play the Saints two weeks later. They should be 5-0 going into the Patriots game.



After enduring back-to-back November slugfests against the Steelers (Nov. 16) and the Colts (Nov. 23), the Chargers have a relatively easy slate. Of their last five games, only one comes against a team with a winning 2007 record (Dec. 21 at Tampa Bay).




All in all, the AFC race should be easy to figure as long as the Colts, Patriots and Chargers win their divisions. The Patriots and Chargers will be among the top two teams. The Colts will be the third seed.



The winner of the AFC North will be tattered and torn.

John Clayton, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame writers' wing, is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

ESPN

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The winner of the AFC North will be tattered and torn.

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and thus the reason we are keeping both QB's for '08.

and thus the reason we are keeping both QB's for '08.

Yep. Couldn't agree more. And even if we don't make the playoffs, if we finish above .500 this is a helluva good team.

Can't wait for September.

Two words: Bring it!