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Mike Pettine enters his first year as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns with a host of challenges facing him. The team has a starting quarterback in Brian Hoyer who failed to convincingly stake his claim for the starting job during the preseason. Behind him sits one of the NFL’s most exciting rookies in Johnny Manziel and every time that Hoyer makes a mistake, the calls for Manziel are likely to grow.
More importantly for the offense, the team will be without incredibly talented wide receiver Josh Gordon, who will be serving a year-long suspension. An uneasy quarterback situation and an offense without its best player will make it difficult for Pettine to get the Browns to the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
The Browns offense will be limited this year for numerous reasons. Without Josh Gordon, the Browns’ options at wide receiver are fairly limited. The team signed Miles Austin but Austin has a history of hamstring injuries which plagued him for much of his career in Dallas and there’s no reason to believe that that’ll change in Cleveland. Aside from Austin, the best remaining wide receiver on the Browns may be Nate Burleson. Tight end Jordan Cameron may end up being the Browns’ favored weapon in the passing game. In the run game, the Browns did sign Ben Tate. Tate is a solid runner and it’ll be intriguing to see how he handles a full workload compared to what he was asked to do in Houston.
The Browns will have to rely on their defense to win games. And aside from the critical loss of T.J. Ward, the Browns look to have a fairly good defense this season. The team has Joe Haden and they took Justin Gilbert in the first round of the NFL draft. The Browns were able to replace Ward with Donte Whitner, who should have a couple more effective seasons left in him. And while losing D’Qwell Jackson is a blow to the Browns, they were able to get Karlos Dansby. In all, the Browns defense got a little older and more experienced. Oddly, it’s built like a unit that’s designed to win now, while the offense is still trying to find its identity. The NFC North should be more competitive this season and it’s difficult to see how the Browns claw their way past the Bengals, Ravens and Steelers.
The Browns odds of winning the Super Bowl are 70-1.
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[BetDSI]
