Break up the Cleveland Browns, who now could be 6-2 at midseason
It’s time to start thinking of the Cleveland Browns as frontrunners.
That’s what they are following a 31-10 thrashing of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and if you throw out the first half of the Week 1 loss to the Steelers, the Browns have outscored their opponents by a 131-88 count.
Most importantly, the Browns are 3-2 and very much in contention in the AFC North. Sunday’s victory was the Browns’ first as a favorite over the Steelers in nearly 25 years.
Looking forward, the Browns’ next three games — at winless Jacksonville, vs. winless (prior to Sunday’s game) Oakland Raiders and vs. one-win Tampa Bay — should put them in range of starting the season 6-2.
Feel free to vault Mike Pettine near the top of your Coach of the Year lists. The Browns are legit.
Sunday proved it. This was a thorough beatdown of a solid (though maddeningly inconsistent) Steelers team. The Browns were the composed team from start to finish Sunday, and they turned up the juice defensively — really the one big thing you could gripe about this Pettine-coached team.
After such a shaky start to the preseason, barely picking a winner between Brian Hoyer and Johnny Manziel (who?), Pettine has pulled all the right strings. The offense has been the bread and butter of this team, able to keep the Browns in every single game until the final moments, and the defense turned in by far its best game of the season on Sunday.
It was a Pyhrric victory, however. Center Alex Mack could be out for a while after suffering what reportedly appeared to be a broken leg.
That will hurt, but if there’s a stretch for him to miss, it’s this next three games. But in true Browns form — this season, anyway — John Greco moved from guard to Mack’s center spot after the injury, and Paul McQuistan slid into guard, and you hardly noticed the difference.
Hoyer led another solid attack and only needed eight completions (on 17 passes) to throw for 217 yards. Credit tight end Jordan Cameron for nearly half that yardage, as he caught a 42-yard pass to set up the Browns’ first score, then added 51 yards on a throwback pass that caught the Steelers napping. The rushing duo of Ben Tate and Isaiah Crowell combined for 36 carries, 155 yards and three scores.
But this one spoke as much about the defense as anything else. It forced Ben Roethlisberger into 21 incompletions (on 42 passes), hit him five times (with two sacks) and kept everything in front of it. The Steelers’ longest play from scrimmage was 26 yards; the Steelers had five plays longer than that in the first meeting.
The Browns are contenders. It would be hard to imagine that changing anytime soon.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
