Whether or not you are a Browns fan, wouldn’t you love to see a team go from 0-16 to being in the Super Bowl? Maybe that is getting a little ahead of ourselves, but that would be the greatest turnaround in sports history. These were the words out of Hue Jackson’s mouth on this week’s episode of Hard Knocks. While Jackson did not go so far as to mention the Super Bowl, he did tell Dez Bryant, “It’ll be unbelievable. This will be the greatest turnaround in sports history.”
Watching Episode 3 of Hard Knocks gave us encouragement that this could be a turnaround season. The Browns run game came to life during the last preseason game and finally we will be getting Josh Gordan back. Tempers are raging, which is a side effect of passion, something that has been missing from the Cleveland Browns.
The Browns defense looked really good in the first half, but penalties came back to haunt them, causing them to lose against the Buffalo Bills. We expected mention of Corey Coleman who had just been traded to the Bills, but Hard Knocks passed on any of that drama. Coleman was quickly traded after not participating up to par early in training camp. Example made.
If they can clean up the penalties and play smart, they will definitely be in contention this year. While we don’t know offhand the number of penalties against the Browns last year, it does seem they could have won at least one game if not for dumb mistakes. Time after time, we and all other Browns fans were completely frustrated with a loss after leading in the first half. We are ready for “next year” and this seems to be it.
Vegas has the Browns’ 2018 over-under season win total at 5.5 games. Mike Clay of ESPN thinks they will win seven or eight games and this seems to be the common opinion. The Browns are even trending with people picking them to win the AFC North. Some people are even betting on them to win the AFC title and the Super Bowl!
Bob Wylie was the star of this week’s Hard Knocks. Wylie is funny and tough. His now-famous quote from this episode is “World War I and World War II …they did push-ups, jumping jacks and situps…they won two World Wars! You think they were worried when they were running across Normandy about …. stretching? Are you kidding me, huh?” Joe Thomas That We Love tweeted, “Mistake by HBO to wait this long to feature Bob Wylie.”
We love the inside view of our team, the behind-the-scenes action that we would never see without the Browns being on Hard Knocks. Cleveland is Hard Land and we are fans no matter what. Truth is, though, it is time for Cleveland to have a winning football team, and this is next year!
