Next Week or Next Year: Your Choice Romeo

I wrote a column this morning about what I think is wrong with the Browns. How what’s really wrong with the Browns is that they were playing like “the winners” instead of playing like “the upsets”. To make a long story short, I wanted to write something that was serious, heartfelt and moving. Instead it ended up resembling a Dick Vermeil postgame speech on meth. It was allover the place and to be honest—in the end—it didn’t even make sense to me. So I’m not posting it and going to leave the good writing to Terry Pluto for now on. But I will explain what’s really wrong with the Browns and what I meant by how they are playing like “the winners” when they should be playing like “the upsets”. Before I get to the Bad News Browns, I’m going to talk about the Good News Browns.

The Good News Browns

The defense? Yes…the defense! Looking back to week 1, I think it is fair to say that the Browns defense wasn’t that bad; the Cowboys offense was just that good. This is the second week in a row the Cowboys have destroyed a good defense.

Last week, you could have said the Browns defense didn’t look so bad because of the weather. But this week, the Browns held two solid running backs to only 3.4 yards. They picked off Flacco twice and didn’t allow a passing touchdown. These past two weeks the defense has come up huge. Unfortunately, their play has been overshadowed by…

The Bad News Browns

Okay so here is what I meant by the Browns playing like “the winners” instead of playing like “the upsets”. They are playing like they expect to win the game and they expect to be winning the entire game. Some teams, like the Patriots and Cowboys, can—but more importantly—are built to play like this. They go into each game knowing that the plan is to start out running the football to control the clock early, then start passing towards the end of the first quarter and most of the second. Then run the ball some more and control the ball with short slants and outs to the tight end. The problem is that even though the Browns defense is better; it is far from lights out. And you can’t play this style of “winner” football without a highly dependable defense.

Instead the Browns should be playing like they did last year; playing like “the upset”. Remember the creativity in the Browns offense last year? You want to know why it was so creative last year and so predictable this year? Well last year the Browns weren’t supposed to do a damn thing so they had nothing to lose calling play action passes to a streaking Braylon Edwards, 60 yards downfield on first down. So far this year, they have been playing conservative because Romeo doesn’t want to take chances on loosing the game. But by doing so, he has handcuffed himself from taking chances on winning the game.

Bottom line, the Browns can play Johnny Utah at QB and it won’t make a difference. Until they stop planning for a win and start playing like they have nothing to lose; it’s never going to get better. Because the only thing we ever “plan on” in Cleveland is another long season.