After two weeks of brutal AFC North contests, the battered Cleveland Browns climbed the NFL’s toughest division. For the first time in 15 tries, Cleveland beat their division rivals, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, in consecutive weeks. Those unprecedented wins significantly improved their playoff chances.
According to the New York Times playoff simulator, the Browns own an 89 percent chance of making the postseason. Despite losing their All-Pro running back Nick Chubb and a $230 million Deshaun Watson, the team keeps chugging. Myles Garrett heads a historic defense hell-bent on winning regardless of offensive production. Here are Cleveland’s chances in the AFC North and beyond.
Battered but not broken
For many, Chubb ranks as the best running back in football. Sports Illustrated polled coaches, players, and executives this summer, who voted the Browns’ workhorse over Christian McCaffrey as the NFL’s RB1. His unique combination of size, speed, and consistency earned him the top spot. Over his career, he’s averaged 1,210 yards a season on a crazy 5.3 yards per carry, which ranks third all-time for running backs.
Watson didn’t play particularly well all season. Of course, in true torturous Browns’ fashion, his season ended after going 14-for-14 in the second half against the Ravens. To make matters even worse, they also lost Pro Bowl tackle Jack Conklin for the year as well. Losing all of these vital players should sink any team’s chances. However, the Dawg Pound soldiers won, thanks to their all-century defense.
Historic defense rising to the challenge
To overcome the endless injuries in a cutthroat division, Cleveland turned to Garrett and their exceptional defense. Zac Jackson of The Athletic laid out just how special this unit has been. Here are some highlights:
Rightfully, their godly defensive end now stands as the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year at +100, with Micah Parsons (+230) and T.J. Watt (+340) struggling to keep up. With their offense running on spare parts, the defense will need to continue their game-wrecking ways. Garrett spoke to their unrelenting resilience:
We’re as tough as it gets. We’re going to be resilient down the stretch. We’re going to be consistent. We’re going to keep on fighting. Doesn’t matter what happens throughout the game. You’re going to get the very best out of us for 60 minutes or more depending on what happens.
AFC North bloodbath
Sadly, due to Joe Burrow’s season-ending injury, the AFC North looks only slightly less daunting. Even with the Cincinnati Bengals likely to drop out, the Steelers, Ravens, and Browns would all be vying for divisional leads if they could transfer to anywhere besides the AFC North.
According to Rahul Mukherjee of Axios, this gulag of a division owns a 67 composite win percentage, roughly 15 points higher than the next closest division (AFC South). To win the AFC North, the Browns must catch the 8-3 Ravens, who remain a half-game ahead.
ProFootballNetwork ranked the Baltimore Ravens with the second most challenging remaining schedule, behind only the Bengals. For context, the Browns came in 16th, thanks to games against the Denver Broncos and Chicago Bears.
If they end with the same record, it comes down to divisional wins and losses. For now, they are tied at 3-2, which means the end-of-season contests featuring the Browns in Cincinnati and the Ravens at home against the Steelers may ultimately decide who wins the division. The NYT simulator put Cleveland’s AFC North chances at just 29 percent, likely due to how well the Ravens have played. More worryingly for Browns fans, it set their Super Bowl chances at just 3 percent.
Can they go all the way?
Unfortunately, much of their hopes fall on the shoulders of fifth-round rookie QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson (DTR). They probably wish they hadn’t traded Josh Dobbs before the season, but in fairness, they traded Dobbs because they felt that good about DTR. Garrett, for one, believes in the rookie:
The guy loves the hell out of the game. He focuses on his craft. He’s very insightful and is always looking forward to listening to guys and his elders to get new information. He’s gathering information from all of us—defense, offense. He wants to be the very best he can be and he showed it.
After an understandably atrocious outing against the Ravens in his first start early in 2023, DTR looked better against the Steelers in Week 11 thanks to a full week of practice and preparation. His numbers against Pittsburgh don’t exactly inspire confidence: 24 of 43 passing for 165 yards and one interception to go with a 54.9 rating.
However, he was basically perfect (4-5 for 48 yards) on their game-winning drive, with his only incompletion coming on a spike. It’s difficult to imagine them making a serious run in the playoffs, but maybe they’ll dust off the old maxim, “defense wins championships.”
