It’s rare for a Week 5 National Football League game to be must-win for any team.
It’s also rare that the Cleveland Browns could in the hunt for a playoff spot.
Wait.
Playoffs? PLAYOFFS?!?
Sure. Maybe.
The Browns could, looking ahead at the team’s schedule, be at 6-6 or even better at the start of December if they manage to secure victories in over 50 percent of the games that they, on paper, “should” win. That journey begins this coming Sunday when Cleveland is away to the Tennessee Titans.
A fork in the road moment awaits the 2014 Browns. One route takes the team to yet another losing season, the franchise’s seventh in a row. The other, however, could find Cleveland playing meaningful December football and erasing that familiar “same old Browns” label for at least a few weeks.
Browns at Titans must win for Cleveland: Opposing quarterback
Cleveland’s defense has been lackluster, at best, in the team’s first three games. The Browns are responsible for the fourth-worst pass defense in the NFL, and Cleveland is ranked 27th against the run.
This Sunday is the perfect time for that unit to right the ship.
All indications are that Jake Locker will get the start at quarterback for the Titans against the Browns. Locker has been dealing with a wrist injury that kept him sidelined last weekend, and it is believed that will play at under 100 percent against Cleveland.
That’s good news for the Browns, as Locker hasn’t been all that great when healthy.
Locker paired 4 interceptions with 3 touchdowns in September. He had an average completion percentage of under 52 over his past two games. Granted, one of those contests was against a Cincinnati Bengals team responsible for maybe the best defense in the AFC, but that one game is not why Locker is playing for his job this fall.
Locker has a 57.1 career completion percentage. Injuries have caused him to appear in only 26 games over the past four years. Add in that the Browns have had an extra week to plan a defensive scheme, and there are no excuses for the Cleveland defense to have its best game of the campaign.
Browns at Titans must win for Cleveland: Because a loss...
could be disastrous for the 2014 Browns.
Cleveland hosts AFC North rivals the Pittsburgh Steelers on October 12. Browns diehards may hate everything Steelers, but they aren’t in denial about how little of a “rivalry” there has been between the two teams since Cleveland returned to the NFL in 1999.
Fans of the Browns remember the team choking away that playoff game at Pittsburgh over a decade ago. That Week 1 loss to the Steelers last month, a game that could have been a win for the Browns, still stings.
They know Ben Roethlisberger has thoroughly owned the Browns over the years.
Regardless of how well Cleveland plays at Tennessee, logic suggests Week 6 will be a loss for the Browns. That could leave the team at 1-4 with 11 games left on the schedule. The 1-4 Browns would have to consider giving rookie phenom Johnny Manziel a start, if only to see what the team has in the first-year pro.
At that point, Cleveland would have nothing to lose by making the quarterback switch.
Browns at Titans must win for Cleveland: Because a win...
offers optimism for the Browns. Here is the team’s schedule up through the end of November:
Vs. Pittsburgh
At Jacksonville
Vs. Oakland
Vs. Tampa Bay
At Cincinnati
Vs. Houston
At Atlanta
At Buffalo
Cleveland beating Tennessee combined with big-name contributors on the roster remaining healthy sets the Browns up nicely for that stretch of games. The Jacksonville, Oakland, Tampa Bay, Houston and Buffalo contests are all theoretically winnable, but nobody could complain about the Browns being at 6-6 following that run of play.
Cleveland’s December schedule is brutal. It includes home games against Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and away contests at Carolina and at Baltimore.
Win over these next two months, Browns, and worry about December when it comes.
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Zac has been covering the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants and National Football League for a variety of websites since 2006. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
