Written by Thomas Moore

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The Cleveland Browns hit the road for the final two games of the 2012 NFL season.

After a thoroughly disappointing showing last week against Washington, these may not only be the last two games of the season, but also the final two games of coach Pat Shurmur’s tenure in Cleveland, and possibly for general manager Tom Heckert as well.

Can the Browns bounce back against a Denver team that has posted 11 wins against teams that are a combined 32 games under .500?

Let’s see if we can find out.

The Opposition

Denver’s record: 11-3
Offensive rank: 5th overall/6th passing/18th rushing
Defensive rank: 4th overall/8th passing/2nd rushing
All-time record: Broncos lead, 18-5
Last meeting: Denver won, 27-6, in Week 2 of 2009
The line: Browns +13.5

What to Watch For

How will the Browns fare against Peyton Manning, who has rebounded from missing last season to throw for 31 touchdown passes so far this year and post a quarterback rating of 103.5?

While the defense certainly has to respect Manning, hopefully the players are not as in awe of Manning as the coaches seem to be.

“It’s clearly really tough,” Browns defensive coordinator Dick Jauron said. “There are very few teams that have any kind of record against him over the years of his playing career. He’s clearly headed for the Hall of Fame. He’s one of the best that has ever played the game. He’s very smart. He studies, prepares himself well. It’s difficult and about everything has been tried, that’s for sure. He doesn’t win every one of them so we’ll prepare and we’ll go out there and try to play our best game.”

But the Browns have something special planned for Manning on defense, right?

“Honestly, he’s effective against almost everything you do, so the blitz plays a part in it,” Jauron said. “I think against every quarterback, even him, they’ve got to be aware that you will blitz, you’ll bring people. He reads it awfully quickly like he does most things in football. He’s extremely professional, very prepared, very experienced. He can tell by your tilts, and where the safeties go and that kind of thing, where the pressure is coming from. I think you’ve just got to keep mixing it up like people do and then fight. You’ve got to fight for 60 minutes and hope you can get some breaks, and you can get the ball bouncing your way. Some luck always plays into every game and just play hard.”

C’mon, give us something to believe in coach Shurmur.

“I think it’s fair to say that in this league as a quarterback, Peyton Manning is rare,” Shurmur said. “He’s established himself as one of the great players at quarterback – especially of our era – of all time. His style, you’re starting to see his style of play and the style of offense in Denver like he had played all those years in Indy.

“I think what’s important is that we’ve got to put together a plan. We have to go play fast. We have to go play aggressive. I think that’s important. We do know that he tries to change things and makes sure he’s not snapping the ball into a bad defense. We’re aware of that. We’ve got to do what we can to stay aggressive, disguise some things and play hard.”

Oh, geez.

Well, since the Browns may have already lost the battle against Manning before it even began, let’s switch to the Browns offense.

Against Washington, quarterback Brandon Weeden had his worst showing of the season since opening day, and the Browns only handed the ball to running back Trent Richardson twice in the second half.

Weeden has played better away from home this season, so he has that going for him. And after questioning just what the coaches were thinking last week, Richardson should be ready to go if given the chance – he did score twice last week even if he was held back by his own coaches – and is only 103 yards away from the 1,000-yard mark on the season.

“I expect they are going to try to get after (me and) Brandon (Weeden), too,” Richardson said. “That’s one thing Denver does, especially with Von Miller right there. He’s one of the best linebackers I’ve seen watching him on film. He’s got 16 sacks. I don’t know the stats of many guys, but I know the stats of that guy there. That’s one guy you’ve got to keep your eye on and make sure you can do whatever you can to go and make sure that he’s not making a tackle or disrupting a play.”

Helping Richardson – and keeping Weeden off his back – will be the primary responsibility of tackles Joe Thomas and Mitchell Schwartz. They will take on Denver rushers Miller (16 sacks) and Elvis Dumervil (nine sacks).

According to Pro Football Focus, Schwartz has not given up more than two quarterback pressures in one game since Week 7 against Indianapolis, but they refer to Miller as “unblockable” as he has 82 quarterback disruptions on the season.

“If (Miller’s) not the best (we’ve faced), he’s very, very close,” Schwartz told The Plain Dealer. “He’s probably the best pure athlete in terms of speed and change of direction and athleticism. You set too wide, he’ll get inside of you at the snap of a finger. You try to take that away, and he’ll beat you on the corner. He’s able to do everything, which gives you a lot of challenges.”

Thomas thinks that Schwartz is up to the challenge.

“He’s doing a great job this year,” Thomas said. “He’s exceeded everybody’s expectations. He’s playing as well as probably any right tackle in the league and without having seen every rookie, I think he’s probably the best rookie tackle that I’ve seen on film so far. He’s just consistently doing his job day in and day out and that's what you have to do as a tackle.”

Something to Consider

The Browns have lost nine consecutive games to Denver, and 20 of their last 22 meetings, with their last win coming in 1990.

Stat of the Week that Seems Important

The Browns were just four-of-12 on third downs against the Redskins. But eight of those third downs were third-and-nine or longer, which makes it difficult for any team to convert.

The Browns need to find a way to avoid those third-and-longs if they hope to have any chance at beating the Broncos.

The Prediction

It’s hard to see the Browns winning this game. Not only are the Broncos playing much, much better than Cleveland right now, the Browns are just 1-12 in their last 13 road games.

Plus there’s no way of knowing how the team will bounce back from last week’s deflating loss, in a lot of ways one of the worst losses of the season.

It’s easy to envision a scenario where the Broncos do just enough to win, but it’s also just as easy to see Manning leading a late touchdown drive to cover the point spread.

We’ll take the Broncos and the points this week.

Record picking the Browns this season: 4-9-1

(Photo by ClevelandBrowns.com)