Browns versus Bengals Preview as Cleveland looks towards the Playoffs

Photo via ESPN

The Score is 37-20 in Cleveland’s favor. Cleveland Browns stadium is hooting and hollering, similar to the New Year’s eve happenings a week early in Cleveland, as the stadium anxiously awaits for the clock to hit 0, and the celebration to begin. The Browns were in the driver’s seat for the majority of the game, thanks to dominating performances from Joe Flacco, as he threw for 309 yards and 3 touchdowns, and, helping him in almost half of his yards, tight end David Njoku, as he had 6 catches for 134 yards.

The Jets have the ball and are driving down the field. They try to turn what is a meaningless possession into points, trying to make themselves look better on the box score than they did on the field. On fourth and one with 8 seconds remaining, Trevor Sieman completes a pass to Jets wide receiver Kenny Yeboah for a 20-yard gain, but it is too little, too late, and as the clock expires, it ends a 3-year playoff drought for the Cleveland Browns. The Browns clinched a playoff spot at home in front of a full crowd, for the first time in over 20 years.

The city desperately needed this. It felt like a huge sigh of relief after it was not only a very dramatic and shaky season, but the past three seasons were dramatic and shaky. As they continually found themselves in headlines and drama, the Browns cut off the noise, focused on themselves, and got back to winning football. The Browns, for the first time in a long time, have put the league on notice, and have shown themselves to be a team that should be feared, and hope to be avoided. So, the Browns take their momentum and happiness to a city down south and visit a team that feels it should be in their shoes, as the projected outcome of their seasons has been completely flip-flopped. The Browns travel to Cincinnati, with a lot more of a relaxed and happy feeling than their opponent has.

The Cincinnati Bengals season ended last Sunday evening, as the Kansas City Chiefs beat them with a final score of 25-17 and eliminated them from the playoffs. This season is a season that the Bengals would love to have back. It was a season riddled with injuries from their star players and is a season that the best versions of themselves were not seen. Their Season began to have a dramatically different feel, months before week 1 would even kick off, as on July 27th, Joe burrow would suffer a calf injury in practice, an injury that saw him getting carted off the field, and was an injury that caused him to miss the majority of training camp and practices in the months of August and September.   Joe Burrow would be healthy enough to suit up week 1 against none other than the Browns, but it was obvious to fans and bystanders that his injury was still bothering him.

The Bengals offense to start the season was one of the worst offenses in football, through the first 4 games of the season, the Bengals scored just three touchdowns, and even after Burrow looked to be getting somewhat healthier, this team and offense still looked unfamiliar from their offense fans saw over the prior two seasons. Though somehow, through their whirlwind of a season, they found themselves at 5-4 going into a Thursday night game against the Ravens. On that Thursday night, tragedy struck once again for this Bengals team: midway through the second quarter, as the Bengals were in the red zone, Joe Burrow threw a ball and looked to have, what looked like, a throwing arm injury. Burrow tries to throw on the sidelines but can’t handle the pain. Burrow exits the game before half time and heads to the locker room, and during halftime, is ruled out for the rest of the game. This injury would be much more severe than just missing the game: it was ruled that Joe Burrow had a torn ligament in his right wrist, an injury that would require surgery, and put him out for the rest of the year.

After this point, the Bengals were 5-5, and even with some flashes of greatness from backup Quarterback Jake Browning, it was too little, too late. The rough start of the season caused them to have no room for error, and despite some heroic efforts from Jake Browning, he went 3-3 as a starter over the last 6 weeks. He and this Bengals squad were eliminated from playoff contention on Sunday evening.

So, the Bengals have nothing to play for, but pride, and a loss would probably benefit them more than a win at this point. It would help them secure a better pick in the draft. If they are playing to win, they will lean on their passing offense, which ironically turned out ok, even after having to turn to their backup quarterback Jake Browning for a little under half the season. The Bengals average the 11th most passing yards per game with 234.4 and look to feed one of the best receivers in football: Ja’Marr Chase and add to his totals of 1,197 yards (13th) and 7 receiving touchdowns (13th). On the defensive side of the ball, they hope to play better than they have this season. Their defense ranks bottom 10 overall:  against the pass (255.2 ypg, 4th most) and the rush defense allows the 7th most rushing yards (127.6). The majority of the Bengal’s starters look to play except for Bengals receiver Tee Higgins who is doubtful, and the Bengals will try to suit up, and give the Cincinnati faithful something to cheer about, one last time, before the off-season begins.

The game for the Browns, for the most part, is meaningless. They will travel to Cincinnati still smelling of cigars and champagne as they have clinched a playoff spot already, and a win or loss will not move their seeding. So, the Browns are sitting pretty much the majority of their key starters, as Myles Garrett, Amari Cooper, Greg Newsome, Joe Flacco, Dustin Hopkins, Juan Thornhill, are all ruled out. Quarterback Jeff Driskel will be the starter for the Browns on Sunday, and hope to prove to be a decent backup, going into the playoffs.

It is hard to tell how this Browns team will look, and it is safe to say it would be impressive if Driskell looks as good as Flacco has been, and Driskell will look to make it 5 straight games with over 300 passing yards, and try to top Flacco, who leads the league in passing yards and passing touchdowns, since his start in week 13. The backups will try to hold on for dear life, the mantle that the starters had built for them on the defensive side of the ball. as the Browns defense going into week 18 has allowed the fewest yards per game average (266.6) passing yards allowed (165.9) and the best third down conversion rate this year (29.4). Though for the most part, they are just hoping to see some things from backups trying to prove themselves, and look to have some hopeful reliable backups, for their next week opponent in the wild card game.

So, this game will be a game of pride, as two divisional opponents have nothing to play for but bragging rights. The game is beneficial to neither parties, and the only thing to gain is hopefully a higher draft spot for the Bengals. The Browns hope to have some good takeaways from backups going into playoff time, and the Bengals will hope to see some good takeaways from their backups as well: determining whether to extend them over the off-season or to move on.