Written by Thomas Moore

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The Cleveland Browns are currently enjoying their bye week, sitting in last place of the AFC North with a 2-7 record.

Through the first half of the season the Browns have missed numerous opportunities to improve on their record. Missed plays against Cincinnati and Indianapolis, a blown lead against the Giants, and mistakes at the wrong time have all helped contribute to the current situation.

Of course, in the NFL you are what your record says you are and the reason teams are 2-7 is because they make the kind of mistake the Browns have made through the first nine weeks of the season.

“What’s nice about the bye week is, it’s about the Browns,” Browns coach Pat Shurmur said. “It’s about whoever your team is. You focus on, ‘what can we do better as we move forward?’ We’re just getting ourselves ready to go as we move forward.”

With a Sunday free of everyone’s anxiety-producing favorite team, let’s take a look at the Browns with a glass half-full/half-empty take.

Half-full: The Browns actually have something resembling an NFL offense, primarily in the passing game. Behind rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden, the Browns are 19th in the NFL, averaging 223 passing yards per game – almost 100 yards more per game than the prehistoric numbers put up in 2009. The Browns have also rushed for six touchdowns after only having four all of last year.

Half-empty: Other than the touchdowns, the running game, which is 27th in the league, averaging just 89 yards per game and 3.9 yards per rush. That’s actually on par with last year’s totals – 95 yards per game and a 3.7 average per rush – when the Browns employed a mess of a backfield.

Notable quote: “You’d like to have some more explosive plays,” offensive coordinator Brad Childress said. “If you don’t look for them, if you don’t swing the bat you can’t get a hit. I would say that particularly in relation to the passing game because the running game the guy has got to break the line of scrimmage to get 12 and then wide receivers have got to be doing their business down the field.”

Half-full: Running back Trent Richardson, who is third in the NFL among rookies with 575 yards rushing, tied for third with five rushing touchdowns (with quarterback Andrew Luck, of all people). We’ve seen glimpses of the type of running back Richardson can be, most notably in the first Cincinnati game (109 yards rushing, two touchdowns), the San Diego game (122 yards rushing, one touchdown) and against Baltimore (105 yards rushing), but a preseason knee injury and then an in-season rib injury has left him at less than 100 percent for large parts of the season.

Half-empty: Montario Hardesty (87 yards rushing), Chris Ogbonnaya (20 yards rushing), Brandon Jackson (inexplicably inactive since Week 1 vs. Philadelphia) and Owen Marecic, who has taken over Brian Robiskie’s role as the Browns’ Blutarsky. Despite being active for the first seven games of the season, Marecic has zero rushing yards and zero receptions.  

Notable quote: “This bye week’s going to be big for me, as far as having the rib injury,” Richardson said. “It hasn’t been where I could be at 100 percent yet, so, I’m waiting for that moment. Whenever my ribs do heal, it’s going to make a big difference. Whenever it does, there will be a whole other Trent out there.”

Half-full: Weeden has thrown for 2,088 yards and nine touchdowns so far, putting him on pace to 3,712 yards and 16 touchdowns. That would easily be the best year for a Browns quarterback since Derek Anderson in 2007 (what, you thought it was going to be Brady Quinn’s 1,339 yards in 2009?). Weeden has had his rookie moments, like his four interception game in the opener against Philadelphia and last week’s game vs. Baltimore, but for the most part he hasn’t looked too overwhelmed.

Half-empty: Weeden is last in completion percentage (55.1), average yards per attempt (6.2), interceptions (12) and quarterback rating (67.9) among the five rookie quarterbacks playing this season. Weeden throws a nice long ball but in recent weeks he has been struggling to see the whole field and seems to willing to check down for painfully short gains. He’s only been sacked 14 times so the problem is not a lack of protection. Browns fans have to hope it is either the play calling or just the bumps of being a rookie, because every time that Anderson’s name is used in the same sentence as Weeden’s, we get severe agita.

Notable quote: “At this position when things are going great you’re getting too much praise, when things are going bad you’re getting too much negativity,” Weeden said. “On the flipside, if we’re able to do the things we’re able to do to get our team in position to win games that’s all we care about. In the long run it’s about winning games and I feel like we’ve been in games where we’ve had a chance to win a couple and we’ve come up short. This bye week if perfect, I’ll go back and look through those games and see where we came up short and hopefully we can fix it. We have a lot of season left.”

Half-full: Wide receivers Josh Gordon and Greg Little. After slow starts, Gordon and Little are giving the Browns something they have not had in years – NFL quality wide receivers. Gordon may only have 19 receptions (fourth best among NFL wide receivers), but he is first in receiving yards with 417, second in yards per catch at 21.9, and first in touchdown receptions with four. That’s better than first-round draft picks Kendall Wright and Justin Blackmon, in case you were wondering.

As for Little, he has been able to find a comfort level as Gordon starts to carry an equal load in the passing game. In the past four games, Little has 16 receptions for 150 yards and a touchdown; compared to just 11 catches (along with six drops) in the first five games. According to Pro Football Focus, Little still leads the league in drop rate, but he’s trending in the right direction. Little has also stopped Tweeting (something that never bothered us) after games and posing (something we were neutral on) during games.

Half-empty: The rest of the wide receiving group, starting with third-year receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. It looked like Weeden was finally turning MoMass into an NFL wide receiver, as the pair hooked up for eight receptions in the first two games of the season. But then Massaquoi hurt his hamstring, missed five games, and only has two receptions for 20 yards. As for everyone else, it’s a grab bag of mediocrity among Jordan Norwood, Travis Benjamin (although he has shown flashes of potential), Josh Cooper and Josh Cribbs.

Notable quote: “I’ve seen a difference in (Little) since he stopped Tweeting,” corner back Sheldon Brown said. “When you do that kind of stuff, people start focusing on you more. You make small mistakes and they become magnified. (Fan reaction) probably shocked him. You are a grown-up now. This is not college.”

Half-full: Kicker Phil Dawson is perfect on extra points (16-for-16) and on field goals (17-for-17). He is also four-for-four on field goals of more than 50 yards – after making eight of those kicks last year. Dawson has converted 23 consecutive field goals, the longest active streak in the NFL and the second-longest of his career.

Half-empty: Wasn’t this supposed to finally be the year the Browns thought touchdowns, not field goals? As good as he is, knowing that Dawson is so reliable is sometimes the worst thing to happen to the Browns, as it takes away any sense of urgency from the coaches to actually score touchdowns. At an average of 18.8 points a game, the Browns are on pace to score 300 points this season – light years ahead of where they were just a few years ago – but still not good enough, especially when you consider that over the past three games they have averaged just 11.6 points per game.

Notable quote: “I think there’s a fine line between being aggressive and of course, being very careful with the football,” Shurmur said. “You try to make your decisions based on what’s best. I think it’s important that you’re aggressive. I think it’s important you’re smart and I think you think through all the situations.

Half-full: The play of the defensive line has, for the most part, been pretty good. Injuries to starting defensive tackles Phil Taylor and Ahtyba Rubin have provided an opportunity for rookies Billy Winn, John Hughes and Ishmaa’ily Kitchen (sorry, had to get him in there) to major game action, accelerating their learning curves. While defensive end Jabaal Sheard’s sack numbers are down from a year ago, he’s still playing solid football, especially as he has been lining up next to a revolving door of players at the tackle spot.

Half-empty: The Browns still can’t stop the run at anything close to a consistent level. The run defense is ranked 26th in the league, giving up 132 yards a game and 4.3 yards per carry. That is a trend that has continued through the years and all the coaching changes – it was 147 yards per game in 2011 (30th in the NFL), 129 yards in 2010 (27th), 145 yards in 2009 (28th), 152 yards in 2008 (28th), and 129 yards in 2007 (27th). Just as the Browns can’t cover tight ends, no matter who is calling the defensive plays, they just can’t stop the run.

Notable quote: “I have no problems with Jabaal Sheard and the way he plays the game,” defensive coordinator Dick Jauron said. “He’s a special player. Sometimes you get the (sack) numbers, sometimes you don’t. (Sacks) aren’t as indicative of his play as one might think.”

Half-full: Despite being 2-7 and struggling on offense, the Browns have only been outscored by 4.6 points per game. A one-point loss to Philadelphia, a four-point loss to the Colts, seven-point losses to the Bengals and Ravens; maybe the Browns just need to learn how to win these close games.

Half-empty. The defense is on pace to give up 375 points – the highest total since 2009 (funny, a lot of the bad stats this year’s team is approaching all came in the 2009 or 2010 seasons, there must be something to that). The Browns are also struggling in the red zone, ranking 31st in the league, as the Browns have only scored a touchdown on 33 percent of their trips inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. In the past three games, that number is even worse at 16 percent. So, close or not, 2-7 is still 2-7.

Notable quote: “We’re in every game and this year’s different than other years I’ve been here where we feel like we have the team to get over the hump, but our record doesn’t show it,” linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said. “At the end of the day, that’s what we’re judged by, our record. We’re just going to keep fighting and keep moving forward and hopefully, get this thing changed around because there’s no rule, there’s no law that says we can’t win the rest of our games.”

Half-full: The Browns have played one of the toughest schedules in the entire NFL. That’s a all order for a team filled with so many first- and second-year players, one that has won in double digits only once since returning to the NFL in 1999.

Half-empty: Hey, you play who’s on the schedule. Things get easier over the season’s final weeks, with potential winnable games against Dallas, Washington, Oakland and Kansas City. But if you don’t win those ... what does that say about the team?

Notable quote: “I’m very excited about these last seven games because we can make a big difference especially when people think about the Cleveland Browns,” Richardson said. “We can write our own story off right here. It’s a big chapter right here – what we demand on this team and what we want our season to end like.”

The Browns have seven games left to make a lasting impression on team owner James Haslam and CEO Joe Banner. There has been non-stop speculation since the ownership change was announced that Shurmur, at the least, was on his way out once the season ended.

Can Shurmur do enough between now and Dec. 30 to earn a third-year in Cleveland? Do Browns fans even want that as an option? We’ll know soon enough.

For now, we’ll give Shurmur the last word.

“The reason I feel good about it is I’ve watched the way they’ve approached each week,” he said. “I see a bunch of guys in that locker room that love to play the game. They are very prideful. They’ve got a name on the front and back of their jersey, and they’re prideful about everything that they do. I anticipate that, because that’s the foundation of where these guys are at. That we’ll continue to get better. That’s why I’m very confident it will happen.”

(Photo by ClevelandBrowns.com)