The Browns will win Super Bowl 50.
That’s right, it’s hours before the opening day kickoff, and I’m putting it on the line, a 150-to-1 underdawg. Mark it down, lay your bets, laugh your head off, whatever.
Sorry, but I’m sick of dilly-dallying through a wilderness of trepidation. Oh, the division’s too tough! Oh, but we’re still short a key piece or two (or thirty). The schedule is brutal. We just don’t know how the youngsters will respond. And, of course, woe is me, we’re the Browns, so something especially sucky, while unforeseen in its particulars, is a metaphysical certainty.
Nope, we’ve been through all that, over and over and over. I’m not gonna hem and haw and hope. I just can’t do it any more. You won’t find me figuring us for 4-12 with a meek insinuation that if all goes according to plan, which it never does, the Browns may inch forward a game or two and avoid their eighth losing season in a row.
This is the year. Book it, boys.
And on the night of next February 7, don’t forget who told ya.
Go ahead, call me delusional. But I prefer to connect with reality as it occurs, not before.
Think I’m a lock to be disappointed? Right. I’m a lifelong Browns fan. Ain’t nothin’ you can tell me about disappointment. Protect your own tender heart if you must. I’m all in.
Look at the first three teams on our plate: Jets, Titans, Raiders. The perfect launching pad to destiny. We’ll be 3-0, in first place with at most one other division rival. More importantly, the players will believe. The players will perceive that they can achieve.
Don’t worry about this year being our turn to face the strong NFC West. The Bungles, Stools and Ratbirds must match up with them too. We’re gonna win the division outright, not hope for some “help” on the last night of the regular season so we squeak in as a wildcard.
Instead of romping past the Jets and Titans, Pittsburgh will face Indy the week they return from Seattle and has already lost to the Patriots. Cincinnati gets Houston and goes to Buffalo. Baltimore’s unique inter-division opponents are Jacksonville and Miami. Fine by me.
But how, you may ask? McCown, you may ask? Let’s put it this way. You’ll see. Enjoy what he can manage behind an elite offensive line. It won’t be Marino’s Dolphins or anything, but my prediction doesn’t hinge on fantasy points.
Four Pro Bowlers in the secondary. A beefed up run defense to complement the unit that forced the lowest opponents’ QB rating in the league last year.
It’s no raw roster in search of its professional footing. Thomas and Mack. Dansby and Kruger. Bryant and Starks. Haden and Whitner. Even Hawkins and Hartline. Veterans. Leaders. Proven producers.
Most of the divas are gone. We have hungry youngsters like Danny Shelton and Taylor Gabriel and Chris Kirksey and Isaiah Crowell and Joel Bitonio. Come October, check out the headlines about the suddenly resurgent Browns, the great leap on the Great Lake, patsies no more, Pettine for president, a dominant defense perfect for this division and this city.
Injuries are inevitable, but this is the deepest roster in 20 years by any reasonable measure. We’re not built upon a single set of knees.
And we’ve got Andy Lee! We’ll consistently win the field position battle and probably lead the league in safeties scored. Two points at a time, baby.
Travis Benjamin will burn ’em on so many punt returns, we’ll just laugh when a few get called back for blocks in the back.
We’ll get a few lucky bounces and favorable calls. Cleveland will be the feel-good, eye-opening surprise team that everyone in the echo chamber expects to fall back to earth, but down in the trenches, the other teams will know we’re for real. For real, man.
Really. I swear.
One way or another, I swear.
