CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Browns are 3-1 for the first time in 19 years.
A win Sunday over the Colts would match the longest win streak in the expansion era – four – and their best start to a season since 1994, but don’t go popping champagne and booking rooms in February for Tampa just yet.
“We have done a lot of great things,” receiver Jarvis Landry said. “Where we are in the turnover margin speaks for itself. Where we are in the run games speaks for itself. Points per game speaks for itself. All of these things are not by mistake. We go out here and we work hard each and every day, and we are understanding the pieces that we are trying to put together to make the run and win every week.”
The progress under first-year head coach Kevin Stefanski is undeniable and leaves many fans wishing Stefanski was hired a year ago, but what’s done is done.
Stefanski has his team focused on today. Not yesterday and not tomorrow.
That approach, while sounding like coach-speak, is working.
“It is still always a day at a time approach,” receiver Odell Beckham Jr. said. “The 3-1 record, I still look at it as we are 0-0 and the goal is to be 1-0 each and every day.”
Beckham, who is coming off his first three-touchdown game in five years, was asked Thursday why their start feels legitimate.
“I think because it is,” Beckham said. “You look at the games that we won, and it was not like it was a fluke. You look at the game we lost and you think about the situation and, like I said, toss it up to a first game mulligan. Also, that is an incredible team that we got beat by and we were not as prepared, and I think that was an awakening for us. Ever since then, the mistakes that we made during that game, we have been able to correct them and eliminate those in the games following that and just learned from it and keep continuing to grow.”
Left guard Joel Bitonio is the longest tenured Brown, and he’s suffered through it all – from a 7-4 start in 2014 as a rookie to the bottom falling out after that.
They’ve now won three straight for the third consecutive season and as a result the bar of expectations continues to rise.
So, what’s the next step the Browns must take?
“I think it is consistency and consistently winning,” Bitonio said. “We have not had a winning season yet since I have been here… Us taking the next step is we have won some of the games that we are supposed to win and we have lost some of the games that we are supposed to lose, and that is where we have to start turning some of those [into wins], where it is like, ‘Hey, this team might not be supposed to win this game, but they are going to come in and get a win in those situations.’
“Obviously, the end goal is making the playoffs. I think that is a huge step for our team, but that is so far in the future that we try not to think about it. We try to take it one step at a time, and right now, it is against the Colts and try and stack another win.”
Richardson returns – The defensive line got some good news Thursday with the return of Sheldon Richardson to practice after he sat out Wednesday due to a thigh injury.
Richardson, who has two sacks and three tackles for loss this season, was limited.
Fellow starting defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi missed practice for a second straight day with an abdominal injury.
Greedy grinding – Cornerback greedy Williams continues to be slowed by his shoulder injury and he may miss his fifth straight game to start the season.
Williams suffered the injury on Aug. 24 and the healing process hasn’t gone as quick as the Browns had hoped.
“It is just one of those injuries you can’t predict it,” Stefanski said. “He is disappointed. He wants to get out there. We are just trying to make sure that we are following the medical here. He is into it. He is engaged. Great to see him finally back on the practice field and around his teammates and all that, but I am hopeful that he is getting closer.”
Quote of the day – “He has some balls. He is a guy that nobody would think that a reverse is coming at the time that it came. Nobody would think that the first series of the game we would run a toss-reverse-pass.” – Landry on Stefanski as a play caller.
Injury Report – DNP: LB Tae Davis (Elbow), DT Larry Ogunjobi (Abdomen); LIMITED: DT Sheldon Richardson (thigh), S Karl Joseph (hamstring), WR Odell Beckham Jr. (toe), DE Adrian Clayborn (hip), RB Kareem Hunt (groin), LB Jordan Phillips (knee), C JC Tretter (knee), CB Greedy Williams (shoulder); FULL: TE Stephen Carlson (shoulder), DE Porter Gustin (finger), FB Andy Janovich (hip), WR Jarvis Landry (hip), LB Sione Takitaki (shoulder), LT Jedrick Wills Jr. (calf), DT Jordan Elliott (ankle)
