CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Losers of four of their last five games, the Browns aren’t giving up hope that the playoffs – and AFC North for that matter – remain in their grasp.
“I believe in the people we have in that locker room. I have seen us play winning football,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said Monday. “Offense, defense and special teams, we have had growth. Jacoby’s message, he is a leader. He has been through a lot in his career, so I think it is always good when he wants to impart those type of messages to the guys.”
Cleveland is coming off an embarrassing 38-15 loss to the Patriots that saw them fail miserably in all three phases of the game.
Giving games away has been commonplace in 2022 and Sunday the Browns literally gave another away in the form of four turnovers that New England turned into 24 points.
“We have to build each other up and we have to get through this together,” receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones said.
At 2-4 the Browns aren’t out of it by any means thanks in part to the rest of the AFC North sputtering out of the gate and two divisional games up next on the schedule – a trip to Baltimore and then back home on Halloween to host the Bengals.
The Ravens are 3-3 and have had issues of their own, including hanging on to double digit leads in the second half.
So what’s it going to take for the Browns to turn things around?
“I think really just sticking together,” right tackle Jack Conklin said. “I was talking the guys about it, my last year in Tennessee, we were 2-4 and we ended up finishing 9-7 and making the AFC Championship Game.
“It is about just catching some fire and getting on a roll. It all starts this week in Baltimore. We just have to start making good plays, playing well as complementary ball as a team and then it will start rolling along together.”
The problem for the Browns is that according to ESPN, Cleveland has played the second-easiest schedule in the league to date and face the toughest reaming schedule.
Following the latest debacle, quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who committed three of those turnovers in the Patriots loss, delivered quite the rah rah speech to his teammates in the locker room after the game.
“I think that really just shows the leader that he is,” Conklin said. “It was a tough game. He had a tough game, we had a tough game and everybody around. We didn’t play complementary ball. When the defense gets a turnover, we need to go score, and we didn’t do that. Then to be able to have him come up and address that in front of the team when frankly we are struggling a little bit, I think that is big time. Now, it is our job to respond and take what he said, move forward and fight our way back into position.”
Unfortunately, what’s done is done.
There’s nothing the Browns can do about it now, but it’s mid-October and the season is already hanging in the balance with must wins.
“I think it really comes down to a playoff mindset for us,” Conklin said. “It’s about winning. We still have the division ahead of us and if we win those games, they can't keep us out of the playoffs. So, I think we’ve got to go into that mindset now a lot earlier in the year than then you'd like to, but we still have that chance, our destiny’s in front of us. We control it still and it comes down to Baltimore this week.”
