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‘Tis the season for Old Takes, with the end of the NFL season upon us and the memories of outlandishly incorrect preseason predictions surfacing on social media. Part of this job is being wrong — a big enough part, in fact, we did a whole segment on the Pick Six Podcast making fun of our predictions — and when it came to the Browns this season, I was absolutely wrong.
My preseason prediction for Cleveland had the Browns going 7-10. And Browns fans are letting me know about it.
That’s their prerogative and I won’t stop them. But I do find the 2023 Cleveland Browns team one of the most fascinating cases of an “old take exposed” situation.
A large portion of my prediction for the Browns involved Deshaun Watson struggling and possibly being an injury risk. Both those things came true! In fact, if you told Browns fans, Watson would struggle, get injured, be replaced by P.J. Walker, who would then be replaced by Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who would then be replaced by elderly street free agent Joe Flacco, Browns fans would likely be thrilled at the concept of going 7-10!
However, things worked out differently, as they often do in the NFL. Football is weird and it was especially weird in 2023 with the slew of backup quarterbacks pervading NFL rosters. Football games often come down to the littlest things, a bounce here or a bounce there and those bounces end up producing an end-of-year outcome in one-score games that can completely flip the standings.
The Browns, JUST AS AN EXAMPLE, have gone 6-2 in one-score games this year. Make that 2-6 and they’re a 7-9 team. This is not to say they’re lucky, because I do believe this is a very good football team that deserves to be in the playoffs — not to mention a bunch of postseason NFL award recognition — but they have been fortunate this season.
Look at the Vikings on that graphic: just last year they went 13-3 thanks to an…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-18-best-bets-picks-apologizing-to-browns-no-fading-bill-belichick-and-other-motivational-spots/
Author : Will Brinson
Publish date : 2024-01-04 17:00:55
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