Red Right 88

Browns at the bye: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

While the rest of the AFC North spends the weekend getting beat up, the Cleveland Browns are enjoying their bye week while gearing up for what have unexpectedly turned into an important final seven games of the season.

The Browns find themselves at 4-5 and just on the outside of the final playoff position in the AFC. While a 4-5 record is generally not something that should get fans overly excited, it’s different with this year’s Browns team.

“This bye week gives us a chance to look at our personnel, take a good look,” Browns coach Rob Chudzinski said earlier in the week. “Are we doing the right things with them? Are there some things that we can do better and put them in better position? Because as coach, I believe that we always want to put our guys and try to put our guys in the best position for them to succeed, which will give us the best chance of succeeding.”

Chudzinski is on to something with using the bye week to evaluate where the Browns currently stand and how they got here, so let’s do the same with a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down take in our latest at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of ClevelandBrowns.com)

Can the defense carry the Browns to the playoffs?

A week after Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton proclaimed that the defense had turned a corner, it appears that he may be right.

And if he is, it could mean a final seven-game stretch that could push the Browns into the playoffs.

If the Browns can bring the type of defensive pressure on Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton that they did against Kansas City’s Alex Smith and Baltimore’s Joe Flacco, they stand a chance of beating the Bengals in Cincinnati for the first time since 2008.

Pull out a win against the Bengals and suddenly things could get very interesting for the Browns.

We take a look at what the defense has been up to plus a few other nuggets from the Browns Week 9 win against Baltimore in our latest at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of The Associated Press)

Editor’s note: This is the 1,000th post since we started Red Right 88, so hooray for us!

Defense carries the Browns past the Ravens

The Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, 24-18, the Browns first win over the Ravens in 12 tries.

And they have Ray Horton and the defense to thank for it.

The game turned into one that showcased why the Browns brought Horton to town to oversee the defense, which deserves a lot of credit for making sure the Browns walked off the field late on Sunday with an actual victory rather than yet another moral victory.

We have some quick thoughts in our game summary at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of The Associated Press)

New quarterback, same results for the Browns

The Cleveland Browns lost to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday by the score of 23-17.

It was the Browns third consecutive defeat, dropping them to 3-5 as the 2013 NFL season hits the halfway mark. Meanwhile, the Chiefs remained the league’s lone unbeaten team as they climbed to 8-0.

More importantly, it was the sixth time this season that the Browns scored 20 points or less on offense.

Apparently the Jason Campbell-led offensive revolution will have to wait at least one more week before it commences.

We break down all the fun in our latest post at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of The Associated Press)

Will the Browns win another game this season?

Taking a look at the Cleveland Browns 3-4 record  we realized that, as bad as things are right now, it is very likely that they are going to get a lot worse before we reach the end of the season.

Worse, as in, is there a game left on the schedule that the Browns can actually win?

Worse, as in, it’s not even Halloween yet and the season, like so many before it, already feels like it is over.

Worse, as in, the Browns may have already won too many games this season to have a realistic chance at improving the most important position on the team in next spring’s NFL Draft.

We take a look at the depressing reality of the Browns after seven games, the futility of the quarterback situation, and the ongoing concerns over the running game as we close the books on Week 7 of the NFL season at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo by The Associated Press)

Browns look listless in loss to Packers

The Cleveland Browns lost to Green Bay on Sunday by the score of 31-13.

It was the Browns second consecutive loss after energizing the city with a three-game winning streak.

The game was effectively over with 3:48 left in the first quarter after an Eddie Lacy one-yard run gave the Packers a 14-0 lead.

And it left us, just seven games into the 2013 NFL season, wondering if the Browns are going to win a game again this season.

We have the ugly details in our latest at The Cleveland Fan.

(Photo courtesy of The Associated Press)