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The Browns haven’t won on opening day in 11 straight years, posting a 1-16 record since the return in 1999, including 13 losses at home. With Sam Bradford shipped off to Minneapolis, and rookie Carson Wentz at the helm, is this the season the Browns finally exercise their demons and deliver a W on opening day?
Go on record and make your prediction here!
My prediction?
This is a must win game. Welcome to Cleveland Hue Jackson. Former Ravens Super Bowl winning head coach Brian Billick says he doesn’t see a “W” on the Browns schedule. Not one. The culture can’t change if the outcome of the games don’t. I believe that Hue and the brain trust in the front office know this. If you want to change the attitudes of the players and the fans, nothing does it better than winning, and in light of all the heart break on opening day mentioned above, nothing would do it faster than winning the first game of the season on the road (which would also be the first road win on opening day since the return).
Wentz missed the last 3 weeks of the preseason and playing QB, even against a green squad like the Browns, is the most difficult position in the NFL. We’re going to give up some big plays. Young guys do that. But we’re going to make some big plays on offense as well. But this game has less to do with the QB (where, as strange as it sounds to say this, Cleveland has the edge) than it does with the defenses.
The Eagles were barely better than the Browns in scoring defense last season, allowing 26.9 points per game compared to the Browns 27.0 points per game. But the Eagles gave up more yards (401.6 vs 379.2), were worse on 3rd down (43% vs 40%) and committed more penalties (123 vs 108).
Looking at the abysmal defenses in light of both offenses, I truly believe that Cleveland has the upper hand in this match up. While we don’t know for certain what we have on the defense (how can you with so many rookies, 9 to be exact), it’s hard for me to believe Nassib, Ogbah, and Schobert have not made this unit better than it was in 2015 (I saw the preseason, but I believe our scoring defense will be better than 28th in 2016 despite a tougher schedule. I suspect we’ll allow closer to 23 ppg in 2016 – not necessarily due to an improvement in defense, but in offense where we were ranked 28th at -9 in the turnovers column). Life is easier when you’re not defending a short field.
But back to the matter at hand. It’s a winnable game. We’ve cut a lot of dead weight (Bowe, Kruger, Gilbert, Mingo, Manziel, Hartline, etc.) and are playing a lot of very young talent (17 rookies on a 53 man roster – 32% of the roster) with another 9 players in their second year. 49% of the roster has yet to play in a second season for the Browns. Does one rookie quarterback outweigh that kind of inexperience?
Yes it does.
My prediction:
Browns 24
Eagles 20What’s your take?
818 mph. 13,723 feet. 3 second burn.
https://youtu.be/hy-3bb1Nqy0Browns 27 Eagles 10.
Is our defense good? Probably not, but they are playing a guy who is a rookie coming from a garbage division in the NCAA who has limited practice and only part of 1 game (several weeks ago) under his belt. I don’t care how young we are. We should smack them around. While we are highly touted as the “worst team in the NFL” for this year – look at the Eagles roster. They have 1 threat on offense. Darren Sproles. That’s it. Screens to him are the only scary thing about the offense. Their D is garbage.
RG3 to Pryor should yield big results.
Crowell and Johnson should slash their defense all day long.
We have Barnidge as well.
By all logic – the Eagles are the worst team in the NFL and we should have the #1 overall pick next year.
Freedom!!!
@Ice, you can’t call it 12-6. It has to be 14-6. Not because Philly will score 2 touchdowns, but because RG3 and McCown would both be knocked out of the game and Kessler would run out of the back of the end zone resulting in a safety and an additional 2 points for Philly.
818 mph. 13,723 feet. 3 second burn.
https://youtu.be/hy-3bb1Nqy0I see the Browns breaking tradition and actually picking up the win today by taking advantage of prime situation. I don’t care how highly touted Wentz is (or isn’t), he’s a rookie who has missed almost all of training camp. Anyway you look at that situation, it’s a recipe for disaster. If the browns defense, suspect and undermanned as it may be, cannot contain a rookie QB that has played in 1 quarter of a preseason game, we all need to jump on the 0-16 train because there’s going to be no other way to look at it.
I don’t see that happening at all though, and I think Horton is going to have a solid plan to confuse and pound the rook. On offense, Philly’s D is just as shitty as ours is, so scoring, while not at-will or in waves, should come fairly easy.
Browns 24 Iggles 10
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