WILL THE BROWNS FALL FOR THE TRAP?

By STEVE KING

The Miami Dolphins’ visit to FirstEnergy Stadium on Sunday to face the Browns is a trap game if there ever was one.

The Browns – well, more on them in a bit.

As for the Dolphins, they’re awful. They’re 2-8, and they deserve to be that. They lost their first two games by 59-10 and 43-0, and their first three contests by a combined score of 133-16.

But it should be noted that the teams that dished out that punishment – the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys – are a combined 23-7 and lead their respective divisions.

The Dolphins lost by 30-10 to the 4-7 Los Angeles Chargers in their next game, and then, the following week, became the only team to lose to the 1-9 Washington Redskins.

But the Dolphins have been getting better since then. Yes, they fell to 0-7, but the more recent scores weren’t nearly as one-sided, and then there’s the fact that they’ve won two of their last three, including a 16-12 decision over the Indianapolis Colts, another first-place team.

Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens will preach all this improvement, but his players won’t really grasp what he’s saying. They’ll just look at 2-8 and those early blowout scores.

That’s not good. Neither is the fact that the Browns, at just 4-6 and with only one win in their last five games, are far from being good enough to just show up and expect to win. They have to approach every play as if it were going to decide their whole season, and given the razor-sharp margin of error the Browns have, that is really the case.

In addition, who knows what the psyche of the Browns is going to be? Are they going to be buoyed by their dominating 21-7 victory over Pittsburgh, marking the first time they’ve beaten the Steelers in five years? Or are they going to doubt themselves after the embarrassing and ugly fight at the end of the game?

A win would put the Browns right back into serious playoff consideration heading into the following Sunday’s rematch in Pittsburgh. A loss would end their season for all intents and purposes.

If only the Browns could understand all this, and that the Pittsburgh game doesn’t mean anything if they stumble against the Dolphins.