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I can see a 3-0 start which will build confidence for this team ...

Yeah, that will happen.

I won't say much, but I don't have great feelings with that lineup of opponents. On paper, that's looking difficult.

You got to BELIEVE brother, change that negative attitude and you will be surprised how much brighter the world looks ...

Thank God we don't play on paper

And then what happens when reality strikes?

You are glum. You are angry. You feel the need to place blame on someone. And the entire process begins again.

Me, I try to be realistic. I don't get too down about the lows because I see them coming, and if the team exceeds my expectations, I am extremely happy.

Not saying my way of thinking is better than yours, but don't tell me "I got to believe" when this FO has given me absolutely nothing to make me confident in their abilities.

Vers, all I said was we "could" open 3-0 and that is very possible with the teams we are playing and 2 are at home ... that's all, and I don't get angry over football anymore, we went 3 years without a team so I am just glad to have our team to watch ...

I am shocked that we have a week 11 bye week. It seems like that could be a real advantage if we are still hanging in there by that point.

7 wins.

a few things I originally notice:

- can't ask for a better few games to start the year with

- I'm SHOCKED we have a MNF game ... AT HOME no less

- Lots and lots of divisional games at the end of the season

- we play some really, really tough defenses throughout the year

- we caught some "breaks" in terms of late bye, breaks between games, and home stretches


Overall, I like the schedule ... just not the team we'll be fielding

At San Diego, on my birthday....

I Looking at the schedule, we have a solid opening 5 games, and could win any or all of them if things fall into place.

At Chargers and Ravens could go our way with a little luck.

If we want to win our division, we are going to have to start beating our division foes. 4 of our last 6 at home could be huge.

And I was just gonna post that!

If anyone finds another schedule that is laid out nice (like the one above) that is a larger size - something I can print out, please post a link for it on this thread. Thanx!

See you there!

If my memory serves aren't we usually terrible in the game after the bye? I always think we should be all rested and prepared and it seems like we always lay an egg. No? Too lazy to look.

The first half of our schedule isnt bad at all and we could easily be leading the division by the end of that first half. The final half, we just have to nut up and win in the division. @ Seattle and @ KC is tough but we do have 4 of our last 6 at home.

I will say looks like a 7-10 win season. I think we just have to really run the hell out of the ball and play stout defense. We do have one stretch early on with 5 out of 7 on the road but its not that bad.

I also have to say it doesn't look like a terrible schedule to me. I don't think our first 7 opponents are going to be very good this year. There's always surprises. There's a very good chance San Fran and San Diego kinda stink this year to.

We will of course lose the opener. We will of course win in Cinci and they'll win in Cleve. And our Pitt games will be one narrow W or L and one horrible butt whooping, probably in that order. Both Ravens games will be ugly, they Ravens will look very flawed but probably still take both. I especially think we lay a fat juicy egg on that Monday night after the Bye. We will win one lop-sided game against a good team we don't often play... take your pick of Denver, San Diego or Seattle. And we'll get utterly humiliated by some nothing team that stinks this year that we also don't often play... take your pick of the Bucs, Raiders, or Rams.

I mean, if we had Hoyer I'd say maybe 9-7 with a bucket of luck and that early stretch with 4 or 5 wins in the first 7 games. With McCown... 6-10? Same bucket of luck of course.

Who has an elite defense?

We aren't that far off.

We were 1st in QB rating against last year, 9th in scoring defense, allowed the 9th fewest passing TD last year (tied with Baltimore and KC, both accepted as having very good defenses) and had the 2nd most INT with 21.

We did this without being able to get many sacks, and with injuries galore as the year went on.

We do have to shore up the run defense, and I have every expectation that we will. I also expect that our defense will be much better from day 1, as guys will understand their responsibilities from the word go, and guys come into the season healthy.

Deal

A lot of those stats are because we played some really bad teams last year. We aren't playing the NFC South again. Fact is we can't stop the run and we have no pass rush to speak of. Our ONLY strength on defense is our secondary. Period. We are weak at linebacker. Those guys scare no one. Our line is soild, though unspectacular. Would be nice if Pettine moved Taylor back to the nose where he belongs. A 340 pound defensive end? We have a LOT of holes on the D. We are a long way away from being an elite defense. A LONG way. The biggest need is a pass rusher(or three). I would kill for a 15 sack a year guy. A real beast that blows up quarterbacks. That's what Mingo was SUPPOSED to be. Alas, once again we missed. Just once it would be nice if we drafted a guy and he did what he was supposed to do....

Without an elite pass rusher you have to CREATE a pass rush. Yet our staff is content to have no pressure. They run the NPD. Like Romeo did....
No pass rush plus can't stop the run equals a long season with that schedule. Might be different if we had a quarterback on the team. Peace man

While true, it's not like the NFC West is loaded with great QB play and offenses. Seattle is about the only one who would scare me. Rams have the makings of a decent offense, the Cardinals are mediocre on offense, and the 49ers are a tire fire.

Our defense is still very good, no matter how you slice it. Most of the QB's we play, we can handle. Sure, there are a few more tough matchups this year, but hell, we beat up on Andrew Luck last year too and would have won if we got any bit of good QB play from Hoyer.

Oh well, I understand some people just want to be doom and gloom about the Browns. It won't bother me as long as those who want to be like that don't try to spread their thoughts as facts.

We played the NFCS last year. that's true .... and what's also true is for some of those teams, their problems were on defense, not offense.

Atlanta was 5th on offensive passing yardage last year, and threw 28 passing TD. (and 15 INT) New Orleans was 3rd in the NFL, and threw 33 passing TD. (and 17 INT) Carolina was 18th and threw 22 passing TD. (and 12 INT) Tampa Bay was the really weak passing team in the division, and they were 25th in passing yards, and 21 pass TD. (with 20 INT)

There were some really bad defenses in the NFCS, but the offenses were fairly decent, to very good.

Looking at total offense, New Orleans was 2nd in the NFL. Atlanta was 7th. Carolina was 15th. That is 3/4 of their teams in the top half of the league. Those offenses were pretty good. Only Tampa really dragged the division down in that regard.

The NFCS was a poor division, but it was a poor division because of the defenses on those teams. In total defense, Atlanta and New Orleans were the worst 2 teams in the NFL. Tampa Bay was 8th worst. Carolina was 10th in the NFL in total defense. In scoring defense, New Orleans was 28th worst in the NFL, Atlanta 27th worst, Tampa was 25th worst, and Carolina was 12th worst.

Defense dragged that division down, not offense. If we had been able to score at the level of Atlanta or New Orleans, (25.1 PPG, and 23.8 PPG respectively) we would have probably won 10 or 11 games last year. We wound up scoring only 18.7 PPG last year overall.

Our pass defense was very good last year, despite losing tons of players to injury along the way. We played the #1 offense in the NFL (Pittsburgh) twice last year. (#1 overall, and #4 passing) IN fact, we played 10 of our 16 games against teams in the top half of the NFL in total offense, and 11 games against teams in the top half of the NFL in pass offense.

Despite not generating much of a pass rush, our defense was very good last year.

Is it possible that the offenses were so good because they were playing bad defenses quite often within the division?

My guess is that Atlanta and New Orleans would have been good on offense no matter who they faced, Carolina would be average (because Cam Newton was injured for most of the season), and Tampa Bay would be bad.

And to piggy back on your point, we ALSO played 6 games against a division that sent 3 10+ win teams to the playoffs...

For some reason people act like we ONLY played the NFCS...

Stat post of the year.

4 straight divisional games late in the season. Hmmmm.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I can envision a 3-0 start heading into the Chargers game. Hopefully that's the case for ChargerDawg and cfrs.

We'll have to get competent QB play (not great) and a consistent running game to go alongside our stout D.

Hey, it could happen.

Yeah, if we can't pull out victories at the beginning there, it'll be rough thereafter to get them.

After soaking it in, going to say 6-7 win season ahead for us.

A very interesting stretch of games, I agree. I've been glued to that part of the schedule since it came out.

Outside of the first game in that stretch (just four day prep for Cincinnati) our spacing between the others is rather ideal in terms of preparation and rest. Even in regards to that Bengals Thursday night game, Cincinnati will be coming of an @Pittsburgh game before playing us and Daulton NEVER plays well in primetime.

Then we have 10 days between the Bengals and Steelers & then 15 days between the Steelers and Ravens.

Also, two of four games in primetime just adds another element entirely to the "division game gauntlet".

Finally, I'm really glad the NFL put CLE-PIT back on as the final game. It's been like that for awhile now (outside of last year) and happy to have it back on the right track.

A couple of things regarding the schedule that I like.

1 - We get Monday Night game at home against a division rival. I just hope come late November we're still playing meaningful football.

2 - We open the year with three, maybe four winnable games (depending on if San Diego has Rivers still or not). That's an opportunity to MAYBE get some confidence and momentum going early.

3 - I like that four of our last six games are at home, including a three game home stand at the end of November into December. That could be big if we're playing meaningful football.

I see a lot of good defensive teams on this schedule (basically the entire NFC West) but nobody has an offense that strikes fear into my heart, except maybe Denver if Manning is healthy, but at least we get them at home.

We can win 8 or 9 games if....

-Run the football and stop the run.
-Get production out of McCown or Manziel. (efficiency, low turnovers).
-Stay healthy. (Or healthy-ish).
-Start hot. Beat the teams we're better than. Can't dig ourselves into a big hole and expect to get out of it.

There are some "tough" teams that I think are beatable (49ers, Chiefs, Cardinals, Chargers and even the Broncos). I think we split the division and go 3-3, and obviously I won't predict a win in Seattle, so if we're healthy and playing good football I think a lot of these games COULD BE toss ups that are "winnable".

How many games do we look at right now and say that we have NO CHANCE to win?

I'd honestly say at Seattle is the only one

Denver at home is difficult, but that's assuming Manning is 100%

I'm sticking to my 2-14 and the top pick in next years draft if the QB situation stays as is which it more then likely will.

Come on McCown do for us what you did for the Bucs.

If we can manage to keep it together after a 2-14 outing and I hope we do then will really be ready to roll, I think????LOL

Looks like I will attend the games against the Titans, Raiders, Broncos, Cards, Bengals, and Steelers. I'll skip the Niners and Monday night game against the Ravens.

Well, that would account for 6 of their 16 games, but it certainly would not be the final say so.

I fear an abysmal season such as 2-14 will usher another reboot. 2-14 would be a huge step backwards, and I fear even all the talk of continuity would go out the window if that ends up being the case.

2-14 is the worst thing that can happen to this franchise right now.

We're going to have an even harder time making our current stars want to stick around, and it'll be damn near impossible to lure ANY free agents to Cleveland if we're 2-14 and starting over again in the front office....

Ugh. It's scary to think about because it's so possible

2-14,ouch... I don't think we'll be 'that' bad. I sure hope not anyway. Tough schedule or not, that's taking leaps backwards.