Guaranteeing my two schedule predictions

Guaranteeing my two schedule predictions

Posted By: County Sports Network May 8, 2020

Guaranteeing my two schedule predictions

New 2020 Cleveland Browns Jerseys

By STEVE KING

When the NFL schedule is released, the predictions start.

Whether it’s in Cleveland or Cincinnati, Dallas or Detroit, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, New York or New England, Miami or Minnesota or any other cities in the league, fans and media members start trying to figure out what will happen to their teams.

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Your team will win this one, lose that one, win that game three weeks later.

It’s fun to make predictions. That’s what sports are all about and why I’m guaranteeing my two schedule predictions.

But to hold onto those predictions for any length of time and think that any of it, let alone most of it, has a great chance to come true, is an exercise in futility. It’s May whatever and you think your team will win a certain game in October. It looks good until the team’s best player gets food poisoning the night before the game and doesn’t play, causing the club to lose by 30 points.

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Ugh.

What’s that about the best-laid plans? Or that man plans and God laughs?

But, in a painting-with-a-broad-brush kind of way, there are two predictions about the Browns schedule, and their 2020 season and beyond, that I can absolutely guarantee will come true.

First of all, until the Browns beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh with some consistency, they have no chance to be a serious contender for the playoffs. They’ve beaten both the Ravens in Baltimore and the Bengals in Cincinnati, but beating the Steelers in Pittsburgh is a different animal.

Yes, the Browns have to play well in the AFC North in order to get to where they want to go. That’s obvious. But you can say that about every hopeful team in every division that is trying to shed its image and make an upward progression.

Specifically, though, for the Browns, it is winning in Pittsburgh, again not just once in a blue moon but more often than not.

It’s a huge weight on the Browns’ shoulders for a long, long time. They have to get it off there.

Now for the second sure-to-come-true prediction, and it is intertwined with the first. They are indelibly linked.

It is that the Browns will go as quarterback Baker Mayfield goes. If he plays well, then the Browns will play well, too. And if he plays poorly, then the Browns will play poorly. That’s because quarterback is the most important position in team sports.

And where he most needs to play well is at Pittsburgh. The Browns won’t win there if he fails to do so.

Now, let’s be clear in stating that “playing well” is not necessarily throwing for 300 yards and three touchdowns, especially in this offense of new head coach Kevin Stefanski in which the Browns will run the ball a lot and throw often to their tight ends. “Playing well” is simply making plays at key, defining points in the game. The quarterback’s main job is to win the game, period, no matter what he has to do to get it done, and that’s particularly true in the biggest game of the season, each season.

Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar lost 10-9 at Pittsburgh in his rookie season of 1985. The Browns won the AFC Central that year, but with just an 8-8 record. It was an anomaly.

In 1986, the Browns won 27-24 at Pittsburgh and the Browns took off, going 12-4, winning the division, earning home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and coming within a whisker of making it to the Super Bowl.

Pretty much the same thing happened in 1987 when the Browns won 19-13 at Pittsburgh in the regular-season finale.

The 1988 Browns won 23-9 at Pittsburgh and made the playoffs as a wild card, but Kosar didn’t play in that game – or many games that year – because of a shoulder injury.

In 1989, when the Browns captured the division and went back to the AFC Championship Game in what would be the final season of their impressive five-year run, they won 51-0 at Pittsburgh, handing the Steelers what is still their most lopsided loss ever.

So, yes, it’s the B and B for the Browns, the 2020 schedule and going forward, Baker playing well and Beating the Steelers at Pittsburgh.

I’m guaranteeing my two schedule predictions.

Cleveland Browns:

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