Go a mere 3-3 with the rest of the schedule and we are in the playoffs.
Dare to dream- like a Brown.
Just messin' with you a little...
Based upon what this team has shown me this year, I actually am starting to
expect better numbers than those. I no longer count them out for any NFL game- not before kickoff, and not during the game, no matter how "poo-poo" we might look (Thank you, Nancy Pelosi) in the first 15 minutes.
It ain't been pretty, but Dawg- there's just been something...
different about this bunch. From Day One.
This team has been dealt a weekly "situational s# show" of a season, since Game Two, and they taken the 'no excuses' approach all along. They have taken the kind of punches that have knocked out
every CLE team since The Return (with the exception of the 2020 season, which still gets an * from me, because of how weird it was). And now, they sit 1/2 game out of 1st place in the most hard-knocks division in pro football.
_______________________
For those Browns fans still working their way through their recovery steps of "Battered Dawg Syndrome," I get it. I totally get it. It's been long and hard, that relentless shaft you've taken.
Please let me be the emergency sponsor for your recovery program:
CLE just beat Baltimore and Pittsburgh in back-to-back games. Real-life NFL games. Elves even provided the game that broke a divisional team's camel's back- prompting it to fire its OC, mid-season.*
If this injury-riddled, cobbled-together team can accomplish 7-3 at this point in the schedule, they have empowered themselves to write the second half of this season
in their own words.No excuses.
Dawgs: I can't get enough of this Browns season. It has everything a sportsdramajunkie could want: Last-second wins, Come-from-behind wins. Improbable wins. Heartbreaking losses. But always with a team that goes all-out, every play, every game.
Ladies & gentlemen... this season is visual evidence of the "culture change" that I've been waiting for. It has been my mantra since we came back. I believe it's finally here.
Browns teams are now winning hard-fought, last-second divisional games that they used to routinely lose. They show no quit. They lift each other up on the sideline after a setback, and they celebrate each others' successes. I believe we saw it solidify with the hiring of Jim Schwartz, but the building blocks were already being set in place before his arrival. The Cleveland Browns finally have a legit FO/Coaching structure that can compete in the NFL. And these games are our evidence.
This team gets its persona/energy from the Defense. It all flows from there. Best D in the league, by all important metrics. Cleveland Browns are now a team that routinely puts divisional rivals in rehab. And this past game, they placed an OL rookie on PIT's best edge rusher... and gave said rookie permission to shut him (tf)
down, all game long.
This team is changing. Right before our eyes.
*#95isThanos.
