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Thomas Moore

2012 09 browns week 2The winless Cleveland Browns travel to Cincinnati today to take on the winless Bengals in the 78th meeting of the so-called Battle of Ohio.

The Opposition

Cincinnati record: 0-1
Offensive rank: 19th overall/26th passing/9th rushing
Defensive rank: 29th overall/29th passing/22nd rushing
All-time record: Bengals lead 41-36, including a 25-14 mark at home and 13-5 with Marvin Lewis as coach, who has faced four Browns coaches during his time as Bengals coach
Last meeting: Bengals won , 22-23, last November
The line: Browns (+7)

What to Watch For

How each quarterback – Brandon Weeden for the Browns and Andy Dalton for the Bengals – bounces back from a poor Week 1 performance. That’s right, Dalton was almost as bad as Weeden last week (more on that in a moment).

It’s hard to envision a scenario where Weeden performs as poorly this week as he did against the Eagles (or maybe we just don’t want to think about it). The first step will be for him to take better care of the ball – the Browns simply cannot overcome four interceptions and two fumbles.

“It can’t be any worse than it was the first week and I mean that jokingly,” Weeden said when asked about his Week 1 performance. “We’re all going to have rough stretches. I think obviously mine was the first week. I look at the mistakes I made, and you guys saw them. Guys were wide open and I missed them. That’s not my character. That’s not the way I usually throw the football. I’m just really harping on the mistakes I made and trying to correct those going into this week.

“It’s one bad game. You put it all in perspective. If I continue to do bad things, that’s on me. But I got to continue to build. I think they have a lot of confidence in me and my abilities, and they wouldn’t have named me the starter if they didn’t.”

“I just got to prove to them that I’m the guy, continue to prove I can get better, not make the same mistake twice and go forward. I appreciate all the confidence they have in me, and I have the same confidence in myself. I just got to play better.”

The good news is Weeden will be facing a Bengals defense that gave up 430 yards of offense and 37 points to the Ravens in Week 1.

On the flip side is Dalton, whose numbers look better on the surface – 22-of-47 for 221 yards and an interception – but digging a little deeper reveals a different story. The Roadhouse completed just four passes of more than 10 yards, loss the ball on a fumble and threw a pick-six to Ravens safety Ed Reed.

Browns running back Trent Richardson is also looking to bounce back from a disappointing opening game. Richardson ran for only 39 yards against the Eagles in his first action since knee surgery in early August, but he also did not receive much help from the offensive line.

According to ESPN Stats & Information, Richardson was hit in the backfield on seven of his 19 carries against the Eagles, gaining just four yards. On his other 12 carries he gained 43 yards, a 3.6 yards per carry average (not great, but certainly better).

“(The offensive line have) just got to play better,” Browns coach Pat Shurmur said. “I think that’s safe to say. I anticipate that we’ll be improved from week one.”

Then there’s the little matter of Cincinnati linebacker Rey Maualuga, who earlier this week said Richardson’s performance was “nothing spectacular.”

“He can run you over and you can miss a tackle,” Maualuga said in an interview with CBSSports.com. “At the same time, from what we’ve seen, he didn’t do nothing spectacular. From running screens, missing passes, trying to find a hole when he’s running the ball, he just didn’t do anything spectacular from what I’ve seen. I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to get after it once he plays us.”

While it is hard to argue with what Maualuga said, it’s kind of funny to hear him talk about Richardson after the Bengals just gave up 5.3 yards per carry against the Ravens.

“I laugh at stuff like that,” Richardson told The Beacon Journal. “I ain’t got to have a debate about my game. I’ll just show him on Sunday. I think it’s funny. Somebody can try to talk about my game. I give all the glory to him. I believe in what he says – I’ve still got stuff to prove. And so Sunday we’re gonna see what’s happening.”

On defense, the Browns will have their hands full trying to figure out what to do about wide receiver A.J. Green – especially with cornerback Joe Haden starting his four-game suspension this week for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy.

Last season Green hurt the Browns despite only catching four passes in two games between the teams. But among those catches was a 41-yard touchdown in the opener off a quick snap, as well as a 51-yard reception in the final minute of the game in Cincinnati that led to a game-winning field goal by the Bengals.

“Anybody that plays on A.J. Green is going to have a challenge, on any team I think in the league,” Browns defensive coordinator Dick Jauron said. “He’s really good so I can talk about Buster (Skrine) and Dimitri (Patterson) and their skills, but whoever plays on that guy is going to struggle. But both of those guys, they’re extremely competitive guys, they’re tenacious players, they’ll battle you on every down. It’s going to be a challenge for them.”

While a lot of the focus will be on Green, the Browns need to remember to pay attention to tight end Jermaine Gresham, who caught 11 passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns against Cleveland last season. (Sometimes it seems as if the Browns haven’t effectively covered an opposing tight end since Mike Ditka was still in the league).

“Whoever we have out there, they’re going to have their hands full,” Jauron said. “Sometimes we put a safety on him, sometimes we have the coverage linebacker on him and particularly in nickel situations. Whoever is on him, he’s a handful. He’s a very, very talented football player, he’s got speed down the field, he’s got really good hands, he’s a big target so he can screen you with his body and catch the ball, that’s tough. And an accurate quarterback it’s a good combination for them, a bad combination for defenses.”

Finally, until they prove otherwise, there Browns rush defense is always going to be a question mark. The team gave up 5.0 yards per carry against the Eagles, while the Bengals ran for 4.6 yards per carry against the Ravens rush defense. If the Browns can’t keep someone like BenJarvus Green-Ellis under control, it will be a very long day indeed.

Browns vs. Bengals Fact That You Need to Know

The Browns and the Bengals have been playing each other twice a year since the AFL-NFL merger created the current NFL in 1970. This is the first time in the series that each team will start a red-headed quarterback.

The Prediction

While much has been made of the fact that the Browns are 1-12 in opening games since 1999, they have actually been respectable in Week 2, going 6-7 in the same span – with four of those six wins coming against the Bengals.

The Browns broke a three-year Week 2 losing streak last season when they beat the Colts to give Shurmur his first win as a head coach. Win this week and Shurmur will be on the same pace as “super coach” Eric Mangini was after 18 games.

The Bengals have won three in a row in the series and six of the last seven meetings, thanks in large part to their play in the second half. The Browns led at halftime of both games last year before the Bengals rallied to win, outscoring the Browns 30-6 in the second half. In fact, according to ESPN the last time the Browns scored a second-half touchdown against the Bengals was on Dec. 29, 2010, when Colt McCoy hit Brian Robiskie with a 46-yard pass (ah, memories).

Both defenses struggled last week, but the Browns found a way to keep the Eagles out of the end zone, something the Bengals were not able to do against Baltimore.

If Weeden can protect the ball and play like even an average NFL quarterback, the Browns have a very real chance to walk out of the game with their first win of the season. If not, it could be a long day as it’s not realistic to expect the defense to force five turnovers again this week and/or put points on the board.

The game should stay close, so we’ll take the Browns and the points.

Record with the point spread this season: 0-1

(Photo courtesy of ClevelandBrowns.com)

Jason Askew

browns-bengals-picsIn week 2 of the 2012 NFL season the Cleveland Browns go on the road to face division rival Cincinnati. The Bengals beat Cleveland twice last year and both games were games in which Cleveland had leads late only to have rookie WR A.J. Green make big plays and Cincinnati wins.

This year both teams are entering week 2 after losing on the opening weekend of the NFL season, so both teams will be eager to gain their first victories of the year. For Cleveland they are coming off of a week 1 performance that was about extremes. The defense played about as well as a defense can play against the explosive offense of the Philadelphia Eagles. They held big plays in check, created turnovers, and even found a way to score a TD.

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Chris Hutchison

Goodbye MoneyWell, the "Experts" took a beating last week, which is par for the course Opening Weekend.  Too many previous year assumptions.  BT and I scraped together an 8-8 records, whilst DJC - our Vegas Connection - showed that even The Winds can take a beating with a 5-11 record.

I'm sure we'll do much better this week.  At least I will.

At least BT hit on his "Executive Lock of the Week", which must be some kind of major award.

All odds are from VegasInsider.com:

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Jonathan Knight

Browns-Bengals 2007As we struggle to survive another season with the new-era Browns, one way we can try to get through it (besides alcohol and heavy medication) is to look back at the best individual weeks of the Browns’ new era to remember times in recent memory when this particular week didn’t suck.

Basically nobody was surprised when the Browns laid down a steaming turd on opening day 2007, getting emasculated by Pittsburgh at home in a game highlighted by the Browns committing four penalties on a single play. This is just what the Browns tended to do, and even at that point, we’d seen worse.

While unexpected, their subsequent trading of starting quarterback Charlie Frye 48 hours later still fit in with the holy-crap-the-building’s-on-fire strategy they’d taken toward everything over the previous several seasons.

Let’s pause the DVR for a second and reflect on the absurdity of that situation. No matter how bad a quarterback looks in the first game of the season, how often does he get automatically benched? Basically never. (See Brandon Weeden.) 

So to instantly trade him? And adding insult to injury, to then only get a sixth-round draft pick? Even by the Browns’ standards, this was patently ridiculous and completely humiliating. 

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Jeff Rich

T RICH“Only three things can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad.”

It’s an old adage from a coach that has long since left this world, and it shouldn’t literally mean that passing is only successful on one out of every three tries, but the OSU coach’s words were horrifically fitting for the quarterback from a different OSU last Sunday.  Brandon Weeden flung the rock 35 times last Saturday; 12 of those throws ended up in his teammates hands, 4 went to the Eagles, and the other 19 fell harmlessly to the ground.  What it means is that the Cleveland Browns can’t pass the football in a passing league, not right now anyways.

Warning: The following may contain some blatant sarcasm, proceed at your own risk.

To be fair, the 28 year-old rookie from Oklahoma State wasn’t Plan A.  Depending how far back you want to go, you might consider him to be Plan C, D, E, or F, but in the absence of Robert Griffin III, and in wake of the decision not to progress forward with Colt McCoy, Weeden is the quarterback.  If only there were another way of playing offense, one that doesn’t put the weight of the world on a quarterback that’s not ready for prime time…or even Sunday afternoon, maybe the Browns would have a chance against Cincinnati this Sunday.  I understand that many believe an offense built around a rushing attack has no place in today’s game, but why not explore the idea of getting something out of that obviously wasted first-round pick?

I’m sure it’s probably already time that we start penning Ki-Jana 2.0’s football obituary, especially after he missed all of those practice games with medical issues.  We’ve already seen enough to know that this guy’s a bum, right?  Let’s get the label maker ready to brand this guy in that “Draft Bust” class with Ryan Leaf and Courtney Brown.  39 yards on 19 carries, are you kidding me?  With his 2.05 yards per attempt, it’s going to take almost 6,000 carries to catch Jim Brown, or 4,000 just to catch Earnest Byner in Browns lore.  Even Travis Prentice stumbled to 2.8 per carry; so, maybe it’s time the Browns cut their losses with this guy, and figure out how to move forward with Brandon Jackson in the featured role.

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