As the Browns season is basically over and we wait during the bye week, some thoughts and jots around football
There are odd circumstances that occur in the universe of professional football. My opinion needs to come and mention and/or discuss some of these things. Hopefully you will be entertained.
1. The Washington Commanders are having a really good year. Their head coach Dan Quinn is an excellent defensive mind. This Sunday they host the Pittsburgh Steelers. Both clubs are leading their respective divisions so it should be a marquee game. There is a problem looming for the home stadium though. A lot of Steelers fans live in close proximity of the stadium and the Commanders are concerned that with all the yellow Terrible Towels that it will look like a Steelers home game. How the Washington brass decided to remedy this is a simple idea: issue maroon towels to the home crowd. The idea came from a fan.
The team is set to give away 50,000 maroon towels this Sunday that are imprinted, “Fight for old DC” with the Commanders “W” logo and their sponsor name. The thought process is that the television audience will view a sea of yellow and maroon towels throughout the stadium, which just happens to be Washington’s team colors. By the way, “Fight for old DC” was part of their “Hail to the Redskins” song, but the original words were “Hail to old Dixie” which would later be deemed racist and changed. The story is in the link below in a story I did years ago.
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2. Still think the 2-7-0 Cleveland Browns have a shot at this year’s playoffs? Their post-season hopes in the AFC are now at .05%. Only the New England Patriots, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Las Vegas Raiders have the worst probabilities. The loss to the Los Angeles Chargers decimated any chance of a playoff berth.
3. The Kansas City Chiefs remain undefeated at 8-0-0. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are known for being the only NFL club to go unbeaten and untied. There are several reasons to think about this. There have been two handfuls of NFL teams that ended their season unbeaten but had ties. Back in the day, a tie game wasn’t worth any points in the standings and the league did not count them. The first NFL champion was the Akron Pros which went 8-0-3.
The Canton Bulldogs put in two consecutive undefeated years from 1922-1923 going 10-0-2 and 11-0-1, respectively. Again, the tie games are the hang-up with the Dolphins’ claim to being the only undefeated/untied team in the NFL. The portion “in the NFL” is also part of their claim. Many pro football clubs have finished a season unbeaten and untied, just in other leagues and not in the NFL. The first team ever was the Los Angeles Bulldogs of the Pacific Coast Professional Football League in 1937 with a record of 16-0-0. The 1948 Cleveland Browns went 15-0-0 in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Several indoor football squads have gone undefeated/untied. The Kansas Koyotes of the American Professional Football League (APFL) never lost a game in 2003, 2004, or the 2005 seasons. The Sioux City Bandits went 12-0-0 in 2012.
4. Another claim for the Chiefs is that they have the chance to become the first NFL team to capture three straight Super Bowls. Which is true. But the club acts like they have the opportunity to become the first team to win three consecutive league championships. Which is not true.
The Browns won four AAFC titles, entered the NFL and won their first year in the established league making five straight championships won. The Koyotes captured six consecutive APFL championships, the most in pro football history. The Green Bay Packers won the NFL crown in 1929, 1930, and 1931, and also from 1965-1967 so this franchise has accomplished this feat twice in the NFL. What is the Super Bowl? The championship game to determine the NFL champion, right? The NFL has had a champion named since its inception in 1920. A league championship game was started in 1933. Before the Super Bowl, the name of that game was the “NFL Championship Game.” The “Super Bowl” is simply the new moniker for the same game. So, if the Chiefs do indeed take this year’s Super Bowl, they would tie the Packers for the most successive NFL championships, and be two games behind the Browns and three in arrears to the Koyotes for the most consecutive titles in pro football history.
5. What will the Browns do with Deshaun Watson? Sorry, but he is not the same player he was while he played at Clemson or the Houston Texans. He has played really well in just two games since becoming a Brown and hasn’t hit the 300-yard passing mark yet since his Texans’ days. However, after he heals, he will be the starting QB in 2025.
Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images
They have to play him. They are paying DW $46 million next year and also in 2026. Cleveland cannot bring in another guy to replace him either because any good player would cost around $30 million a season. There is no way any franchise can dedicate that much capital to one position. It’s like paying cash for a Hummer SUV as your only mode of transportation and then realizing it gets seven miles to the gallon. You can’t sell it because everyone but you knows about the bad gas mileage. So, you are forced to use it. The Browns have to bring in a new mediocre experienced backup every year because DW’s backup wants to become a starter somewhere else after getting a taste of playing full-time again. Jacoby Brissett and Joe Flacco fall into that category. So will Jameis Winston. Most likely they will draft a young quarterback and save him until the 2027 season.
The Browns have now become the first team in 10 years to score under 20 points in each of its first 6 games of the season.
Cleveland has now scored once in its last 29 drives.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 13, 2024
It is apparent Dorian Thompson-Robinson isn’t the answer since all of his starts have been disasters. Against a bad Cincinnati Bengals defensive backfield, DTR engineered five possessions which resulted in three punts and two interceptions. Even with Watson, the Browns offense was horrible. My thoughts are GM Andrew Berry will look for a QB to be taken in this year’s draft in the second round.
Photo by Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives
6. Donald Trump in the White House again. Only Grover Cleveland has been elected the President in non-consecutive terms as he was this nation’s 22nd and 24th President. Trump has a history in pro football. He was the owner of the New Jersey Generals of the first United States Football League (USFL) from 1982-1986. Despite being a spring format, the USFL was an NFL-rival league which had individual team owners and readily signed NFL players, coaches, and executives. The league was very successful with high attendance for many of their clubs. So why did it fold? Donald Trump. Most of the USFL franchises played in NFL stadiums, but their contracts would not allow teams to rent their venues in competition with NFL teams. Trump lobbied for the USFL owners to switch to a fall format and go head-to-head with the NFL. This forced all of the clubs that were in NFL cities to lose their stadium lease and find alternate playing venues such as colleges. The problem arose that many college stadiums said no thank you to the USFL. In the end, most USFL teams folded and Trump’s Generals had nobody to play. Many speculate that if the USFL had kept its spring format that the league would be operating today.
7. The NFL draft is an important part of the landscape of the league. Its purpose is to provide parity to all teams with the worst team picking first in every round. The NFL does not want any team to dominate the league which would then cause fans, the media, and sponsors to lose interest. This occurred in the AAFC as the Browns dominated each year and won all four championships. Even their own fans quit showing up because they knew who would win.
Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
This also happened in the APFL where the Koyotes won the first six titles. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and their player’s union ratified a new Collective Bargaining Agreement this past summer and eliminated their league college draft. This marks the first in the league’s history that college and youth players are free to sign directly with teams of their choice. The NFL invented the college draft way back in 1936, and then every major sports league followed suit eventually. The NWSL became the first American league to voluntarily remove the draft mechanism. Now, the San Diego Wave has announced that University of Texas forward Trinity Byars has signed a contract despite still being in college. Byars is considered one of the Top-3 offensive strikers in women’s college soccer. The question remains: What if the Wave signs the other two top players? And the fourth? Or seven of the Top-10? The league came out with a statement about them dumping their draft: “The draft is an antiquated model that treats people as property to be bought and sold. The new terms will empower players to decide which team environment is the best fit for their needs and their development.” “Antiquated? Excuse me, but what the draft does is make everybody’s roster begin to even out talent-wise.
What if the Chiefs signed all of the best college players every year? Of course, they would win and dominate. And then fans would stop going to games, the media would not cover the lesser games, and sponsors would pull out knowing that the set of eyes just aren’t at NFL stadiums anymore.
8. The New Orleans Saints WR Chris Olave is out with his second concussion this year. He is set to consult with a specialist about him possibly being susceptible to this injury. Against the Carolina Panthers, he was hit pretty hard by safety Xavier Woods while trying to snag a pass. Olave was knocked to the ground after the hit and was taken out of the stadium on a backboard to be evaluated at a local hospital in Charlotte. He was released before the end of Sunday’s game and flew home with the team. Interim head coach Darren Rizzi wants Olave to do what is best for him. Um, why isn’t Olave being fitted for a Guardian Cap? The data shows that it cuts down on head and neck trauma by 55%.
Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
It would seem that Olave’s first step would be to head to the equipment room and get one installed on his helmet. Because all NFL players were mandated to wear them in this year’s training camps, it is not something new for Olave. He now had four confirmed concussions in his NFL career. Olave changed his helmet this year to a model considered to be safer after sustaining his first concussion this season, but he elected not to wear a Guardian Cap during games. Why? Here he has the ability to cut down head trauma, but instead goes to a new doctor? His family is already talking to him about whether it is worth it to keep playing. The data is real and not just from the company that manufactures the Caps.
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9. Before last week’s game against the Chargers, I wrote an article about how QB Jameis Winston is interception-prone. Then he tossed three picks and the Chargers defense dropped another three. If this jinxed the Browns or Winston, my apologies. Personally, I don’t believe in a jinx, or stepping on cracks, or aliens, or ghosts, or karma. Things are what they are. In the article, I gave facts to back up why the story was being written in the first place. Yes, Winston orchestrated a great win over the division-leading Baltimore Ravens who I believe is the best team in the league. But in that game, the Ravens dropped three picks. Any one of them would have helped Baltimore pull out a win. In my opinion, the Chargers output just solidified the article.
10. If the Browns do indeed draft a young quarterback in the 2025 NFL draft, good luck. A lot of high-round signal callers from the past few years just aren’t getting it done. The 2023 draft saw Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, and Anthony Richardson go in the top four picks. Stroud looks great, but Young has struggled and been benched while Richardson cannot remain healthy and has also been benched for the 39-year-old Flacco.
Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The 2022 draft saw only one QB taken in Round 1 with Kenny Pickett who has been long gone from the Steelers. The next quarterback taken in this draft was Desmond Ridder in Round 3 by the Atlanta Falcons who have also moved on from the young field general. With the 2021 draft, Trevor Lawrence is still with his same team, but that can’t be said about Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields, and Mac Jones who were taken second, third, 11th, and 15th respectively.
Besides the debacle with our Browns, what other thoughts have you had about the NFL season? Share your thoughts and jots with us in the comment section below