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Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 11/2/26: A Bump in the Road
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- Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 11/2/26: A Bump in the Road
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CLEVELAND, OHIO ( TheOBR.com ) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
Yesterday morning I warned you that my weekend was at risk and that the human beings who had to see me on Monday should be concerned.
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That day has arrived.
It was an awful football weekend for your friendly neighborhood webdork, with both my Browns and Buckeyes losing and looking bad doing it.
That doesn't count the personal embarrassment. You may remember I did a rare prediction and picked the Browns, 23-20. Then I wrote that the world would acknowledge the Browns are for real.
Swing and a miss. There's a reason I don't gamble.
The only thing I was right about was in the Insider Watch Party thread , where I said Harold Fannin would be the Browns star. He certainly was.
Still, the line from yesterday that I keep coming back to is the one that Fred Greetham emphasized all last week - there are ten players on this roster who weren't born the last time the Browns won a regular-season game in Pittsburgh. I said they didn't know they were supposed to lose there. They have now been shown differently. Somebody explained it to them for about three hours on Sunday afternoon.
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So yes, this one stings. It was discouraging, and the reasons it was discouraging are real.
It's also one game. A good young team getting humbled on the road by a veteran team that had been waiting a month for it is about the most normal thing that happens in the NFL.
The Browns are 5-3. They're 2-1 in the division, and they split with Pittsburgh. On Sept. 13 they lost 34-10 in Jacksonville. They've gone 5-2 since. If you'd offered me 5-3 at the start of November back in August, I'd have certainly taken it.
The streak is now 23 straight regular-season losses at Pittsburgh, which ties the NFL record for consecutive road losses to one team (the Lions in Green Bay, 1992 to 2014). Fred Greetham points out the Browns are 6-48 in Pittsburgh since 1970.
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But change is coming.
The Browns are young, for the most part, and on a positive trajectory despite what you saw Sunday. Yes, they frantically need to adapt their defense to handle trap plays . The quarterback position, the most important on the field, needs help despite two consecutive 300-yard games for Watson. The offensive line needs some upgrades alongside the youth.
But we're talking about young team built around that youth with a ton of draft capital and a general manager who's been on a draft roll.
The Athletic's take was that this was a reality check, and they're right. All five wins came on final-minute drives that covered up real problems. The Browns have scored only 13 touchdowns. They've been outscored by 52 points in the first quarter. Sunday took the makeup off. Fine.
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Now look at the rest of it. This team lost by 24 in Week 1 and then won five of its next six. It lost to the Jets in Week 5 and came back the next week to beat Baltimore. T-Dog pointed out Sunday night that they got back on track after both of those, and it was the most sensible thing posted anywhere on the internet all day.
And look at who's doing the work. Fannin. Judkins. Schwesinger. Graham. KC Concepcion. Rookies on the offensive line. Ten guys who weren't born in 2003. It's how the young team learns what the building feels like. Monken called it "a good learning lesson for this young team," and he's right about that too. The Steelers are led by Aaron Rodgers, Cam Heyward, and T.J. Watt who are over 110 years old between them.
Schwesinger had the line I'd hang in the locker room: "Nobody's happy with the performance we put out today and we've shown how we respond when that happens. And that's fully what we expect to do this week."
Then there's the schedule. Five of the last nine are at home: Houston, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Kevin Stefanski's Falcons, and Indianapolis. Lamar Jackson is having surgery after getting hurt on the first play of his return, and the Browns still have to go to Baltimore. The Athletic, again, which spent the whole piece beating them up: "Even with Sunday's loss, they have plenty of winnable games on the schedule as they work through their flaws."
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Still 5-3. A bump. A big, ugly, Pittsburgh-shaped bump. I hate Pittsburgh.
But I'll take our future over theirs.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
Students in New Jersey covered Howell High School's entire football field , end zone to end zone, with yellow bags of groceries for the second annual 100-Yard Food Drive Challenge. More than a quarter million pounds of food, now spread across 30 food banks. The best part is who hauled it all to the trucks: the Howell football team. Somewhere in the country on Sunday, a football team moved the ball 100 yards with no turnovers and no taunting penalties. It just wasn't ours.
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WRAPPING UP
When not fighting like hell to forget another Sunday in Pittsburgh, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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