Written by Chris Hutchison

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With that whiskey-dick of a performance on Sunday, the Browns have not only eliminated themselves from playoff contention but dropped back down into the twenties in this week's rankings (#21).  Cleveland had a scoring defense of 8 going into the contest, but a lukewarm talented 4th round rookie in his first ever start lit them up like Time's Square on New Years, causing them to drop all the way down to 15.

More depressing than ranking drops would be the performance of Brandon Weeden, which has seemed to have regressed the last 4 or 5 weeks.  Is it Shurmur's fault?  Is his scheme handcuffing Weeden?  Has Weeds hit a rookie wall?  Or are teams simply figuring out what he does well and taking that away?

There are a lot of rookie and 2nd year players starting at QB these days(13 last week), and it doesn't really take a lot of time watching them to be able to gauge their NFL potential, and Weeden's is likely somewhere smack dab in the middle.  Better than Gabbert, Ponder, Locker, etc., but nowhere near Luck, RG3, and Kaepernick.  Of course, things could always change.  There ARE examples of players "getting it" after a couple years, and there are even more examples of guys that look great early crashing and burning.  

But the law of averages says that Brandon Weeden is likely to never be anything more than average.

For his defenders, worry not, since he'll be back next year under a coach who (hopefully) knows how to run a modern-day NFL offense.  So he'll get every opportunity to prove the detractors wrong.

Let's be honest - it's hard to care who the QB of the Browns is anymore anyway.

Enough about that directionless mess (Lombardi?  McDaniels?  Tebow?  Mallett?) that plays the #1 ranked team this week (sure to be great fun to watch)...  the real teams are honing in on Playoff position, and the rankings easily show who the true contenders are.  Namely, New England, Houston, and Denver in the AFC and San Fran, Atlanta, Seattle (up to a season high of 6), and the Giants.  I guess I should include the Packers in that mix as well since they can be dangerous if they get hot, but... just too many holes.

Just in case you were curious, the lowest ranked playoff teams is... the Indy Colts at #19.

Team	Wins	Losses	Ties	WP	Avg_PF	Avg_PA	Diff	Rank_PF	Rank_PA	Rank_Final
Denver	11	3	0	0.786	29.21	19.57	135	2	5	1
San Francisco	10	3	1	0.75	25.50	15.57	139	8	1	2
Houston	12	2	0	0.857	28.14	20.00	114	3	7	3
Atlanta	12	2	0	0.857	26.50	18.50	112	7	4	4
New England	10	4	0	0.714	36.14	22.50	191	1	17	5
Seattle	9	5	0	0.643	25.00	15.64	131	11	2	6
N.Y. Giants	8	6	0	0.571	26.64	21.71	69	6	12	7
Chicago	8	6	0	0.571	22.93	17.14	81	16	3	8
Green Bay	10	4	0	0.714	24.57	20.86	52	13	9	9
Cincinnati	8	6	0	0.571	25.36	20.93	62	9	10	10
Baltimore	9	5	0	0.643	24.86	21.93	41	12	13	11
Washington	8	6	0	0.571	27.21	25.00	31	5	23	12
Minnesota	8	6	0	0.571	22.79	22.00	11	17	14	13
Pittsburgh	7	7	0	0.5	21.57	20.79	11	20	8	14
Dallas	8	6	0	0.571	23.36	24.14	-11	15	21	15
New Orleans	6	8	0	0.429	27.79	27.07	10	4	27	16
Tampa Bay	6	8	0	0.429	25.29	24.93	5	10	22	17
Miami	6	8	0	0.429	18.86	19.93	-15	25	6	18
Indianapolis	9	5	0	0.643	22.07	25.57	-49	18	24	19
San Diego	5	9	0	0.357	21.36	22.29	-13	21	16	20
Cleveland	5	9	0	0.357	20.00	22.14	-30	24	15	21
Carolina	5	9	0	0.357	21.14	22.79	-23	22	19	22
St. Louis	6	7	1	0.464	18.43	22.50	-57	27	17	23
Arizona	5	9	0	0.357	16.00	21.57	-78	30	11	24
N.Y. Jets	6	8	0	0.429	18.21	22.86	-65	28	20	25
Detroit	4	10	0	0.286	23.57	27.14	-50	14	28	26
Buffalo	5	9	0	0.357	21.86	28.71	-96	19	31	27
Tennessee	5	9	0	0.357	20.36	28.29	-111	23	30	28
Philadelphia	4	10	0	0.286	18.07	26.79	-122	29	26	29
Oakland	4	10	0	0.286	18.79	28.71	-139	26	31	30
Kansas City	2	12	0	0.143	13.93	26.21	-172	32	25	31
Jacksonville	2	12	0	0.143	15.64	27.36	-164	31	29	32

 

Key: WP = Winning Percentage, Avg_PF = Average Points Scored per game, Avg_PA = Average Points Allowed per game, Diff = Points Scored minus Points Allowed (season), Rank_PF = NFL Rank in Points Scored, Rank_PA = NFL Rank in Points Allowed