Browns, playoff hopes, and Manziel get crushed

SOURCE:Cleveland.com

Pathetic. The one word to describe Sunday's football game. Absolutely pathetic. I was even tempted to write the "Browns efforts" in the second sentence, but that would be giving the Browns the benefit of the doubt. And I am done with doing that this year. Sunday's attempt of playing football by the Browns was the most uninspired, godawful, most embarrassing performance that I have witnessed being a Browns fan. It was simply awful and heart breaking.

How can you lose 30-0 on you're own field, against the Bengals? The Bengals! They have the most overrated, over payed QB in the entire NFL! 14-24 for 117 yards. and they still won by 30. How? I'll tell you how. Jeremy Hill and the Bengals ran for over 200 yards. It seemed as Jeremy Hill ran for more yards that the Browns offense had the entire freakin' game. That made me more sick than Manziel being a disaster. Jeremy "I run my mouth more than I have rushing yards" Hill went off on the Browns. 148 stinking yards and 2 TD's. Pathetic. However, I am going to take some words from Mr. Hill. I wasn't impressed by Cincinnati at all. In fact, the Bengals are worse than I thought they were before the. You can thank Andy Dalton for that, Mr. Hill.

SOURCE:Cleveland.com

Now I'm saving my criticism for Manziel for last, because I first need to talk about how bad the offensive line, and receivers were. It seemed like after every positive play the offense somehow managed to get, a penalty would take it away. False start, holding, chop block; you name it, the offense probably committed it. 9 penalties for 68 yards just killed any sort of momentum that the offense could get. The second thing I was disgusted with was how the offense didn't seem to play with trust to Manziel. This guy was drafted to take over this franchise, and whether you like him on or off the field or not, you have to put trust into him, or else the entire team is going to go down like the Titanic.  And don't even get me started on the O-Line. I would've rather had the LOHS offensive line out there for the amount of false starts and their awful attempts at a thing called blocking. If that is what they were trying to do.

Now it's time for Johnny Football's special place for his lashing. His decision making was some of the worst since Brandon Weedon was the QB last year. He'd rather throw it into triple coverage than throw the ball away. You're not playing against Bama anymore Johnny. Run the stinkin' ball or throw it away. It's as simple as that. Because if he would have thrown it out of the end zone, we would have at least had a chance to try out the new kicker. But no, Johnny has to prove himself every play, so he commits the cardinal sin for Qb's and he's picked in the end zone. His dancing around, in what little of a pocket he had, drove me nuts. Just throw the ball and take the hit! You signed up to play football didn't you? If you wanna dance around, just appear on next season's dancing with the stars.

Bottom line is, the entire Browns team was super disappointing in what was supposed to be the "Perfect Debut" for Manziel. Now that its all over with, the most important thing is to out this all behind us, and move onto Carolina, so we can get to 8 wins, and not lose the last 5 games, again.

SOURCE: BostInno.com

Maybe This Year?

SOURCE:Cleveland Browns.com

 Maybe This Year?

As some of you may or may not know about me is that I am possibly the biggest Cleveland Browns fan ever. Yes, that is a thing. Everything is brown and orange. My room, my shirts, phone background, etc. So that means as a person, I should have a ton of hope, right? Right. And this year is no different. This year, like many other of the 15 seasons since the Browns returned to the NFL, the Browns have started 2-2. And like every year before this, us Browns fans have an incredible amount of hope for our team. But this year is different, and this is why.

Through the first 4 games of the Browns season, I've noticed a couple of traits about this year's team, that have been lacking in the other 14 teams since '99. First of all, we have a steady quarterback, and a great plan to develop a great young Quarterback in the future. Brian Hoyer is going to hold the ship down for the next 3-4 years, then Manziel is going to come in and run the show. However, Hoyer is the one quarterback since '99, to actually give us some consistency.   Some GOOD consistency. In fact, it took him until the fourth quarter of last weeks game to throw his first interception of the year. And it wasn't even a bad one either, taking a shot down the field on a third and ten from their own 30. the ball ended up on Tennessee's own 20, which is probably farther than a Spencer Lanning punt. With that, he's also been doing a great job on making smart decisions throwing the ball, and has been moving the ball down the field, for TD's. The second thing about Hoyer is that we actually have a QB who can lead a 2 minutes drill. Moreover, 3 of Hoyer's 5 wins, have been in comeback form. That is something I have never witnessed as a Browns fan. A guy who can actually lead us from behind. And he's done it three times this year. Two of those three have been wins, FYI.

SOURCE: Cleveland Browns.com

Another thing I have noticed is that this team has A LOT of fight in them. This isn't the Browns that get blown out by 42 like teams of the old. They've been down by margins of 24 and 25 on the road this year, and have at least tied it in both games. I don't know about you, but I am used to being blown out by 40 in that situation. Instead, both games were extremely close,with one of those games be a close loss, and the other the largest come from behind win by a road team in NFL history (Down 25 points against Tennessee). This tells me that I really think that these boys can make some serious noise when it comes to December. The trait of always fighting, and staying in every game is going  to keep the Browns well into the playoff hunt into December. Which brings me to my next point.

The Browns have the most winnable next two months out of any other team in the NFL. Listen to who they play in order. Pittsburgh, at Jacksonville, Oakland, Tampa Bay, at Cincinnati, Houston, at Atlanta, then at Buffalo. Those are 8 games that the Browns COULD easily win. Now looking at that schedule, I'm predicting that Cleveland is going to be seriously in the hunt for the division when we go into December. But, they will fizzle out due to a tough month against 4 potentially playoff teams.

In conclusion, what I've seen from this year's Cleveland Browns team is something that I have not seen from others. They have a steady QB situation, and have a lot of fight to go along with a pretty favorable schedule. Those reasons are a very good combo for the Browns. As said before, I think it's going to keep the browns in the playoff hunt into December. In all, I think it's going to be an improvement of a season. However, it's going to lead to an 8-8 season for Cleveland. But, Browns fans, our day is coming very soon. And it starts with THIS YEAR.

SOURCE:Cleveland Browns.com

Keselowski takes big hit at Kentucky, chase hopes take hit too

For Brad Keselowski, 2013 has not gone as planned. When he and his number 2 team battled back from not one, but two wrecks in the Daytona 500, to almost win the race and finish 4th; it looked like Brad was going to pick up where he left off in 2012. He started the year off with four top fives in the first four races and seven top tens in the first eight races. But after the two team failed a pre-race inspection at Texas, crew chief Paul Wolfe was suspended and the 2 team's season dramatically changed.


After Paul Wolfe was suspended, Keselowski did have a top ten at Martinsville, but couldn't find his way back into the top ten until Wolfe returned at Dover. Even since then, Keselowski's stats still aren't the best for a defending champion. Keselowski has just haven't had the best cars this year, and he's had some poor luck too. Keselowski was on a much needed top five in Michigan with a few laps remaining, but a mistake on his last pit stop caused him to run out of fuel and for him to finish 12th.

For Keselowski to turn it around this season and for him to make the chase wont be hard, since he's only 14 points behind 10th place and we are heading to Daytona this week. That means that anything could happen in the points standings. Keselowski could go well into the top 10, or even fall way behind 10th. But for now, I have no doubts that Brad will be able to make it into the chase.

College Football is at its half way

SOURCE: Chicago Reader

After watching football for the last 6 weeks, I know a lot of things. First, Michigan won't win the Big Ten and will be lucky to win 9 games. Second, The Big Ten won't have a second team go to a BCS bowl. Third, Gino Smith is going to cruse to the Heisman. Fourth, The ACC is the only conference to even be close to be as bad as the Big Ten is playing right now.

SOURCE: goemaw.com

With 6 weeks in the books, I have revised my predictions for conference winners. The SEC will crown Alabama its champion for second year in a row, but not after them sneaking out a victory over South Carolina in the SEC Championship. The PAC-12 will crown Oregon champion after they will beat an overrated USC team twice. The most pathetic BCS conference this year is the Big Ten, who has last years front runners with one or two losses. Although Michigan's losses are non-conference, they still will be affected by going 8-4. I pick Nebraska to win the Big Ten because Ohio State is ineligible to win the title. The ACC will still have Florida State represent them in the Orange Bowl, even after a heart breaking loss to NC State.

SOURCE: CBS Sports

The National Championship will include Alabama and Oregon, with Bama taking the title. Bama's defense is too good for the rest of the country, and will beat Oregon by 10, because of their decent offense. The Rose Bowl will feature USC and Nebraska with USC beating Nebraska by 17. Nebraska is the survivor the the very weak Big Ten, but their inability to score will cost them. The Sugar Bowl is South Carolina and Kansas State with South Carolina giving K-State a good ole' SEC beat down. Although Colin "Optimus" Kline has really impressed me, I don't think he can overcome the powerful South Carolina defense. The Orange Bowl will feature Florida State and Cincinnati. Florida State will win easily over a decent Cincinnati. The Fiesta Bowl will feature West Virginia and Notre Dame. West Virginia's 40 PPG will overwhelm the Defense of Notre Dame and beat ND easily.

SOURCE: BCS

Alabama shows up Michigan, Clemson surprisingly beats Auburn

SOURCE: bigredtickets.com

There was no question who was the favorite to win last night's cowboys classic. There was no question about who was the better team last night in Arlington, Texas. That would be Alabama. Alabama showed why they were a National Champion a year ago and why they will be a contender this year. Now don't crown them National Champion yet, they still have to go through the SEC schedule which includes road games at Arkansas and LSU. I wouldn't be surprised if any one of them or both teams beat Alabama.

SOURCE: University of Michigan

 Michigan is a different story. After they were ranked 8th and embarrassed by Alabama, I have a few statements for MSU fans.  First Alabama won the National championship last year, second "Remember the time you were 11-1 and got blown out 42-7 by a 9-3 Alabama team", last “At least it wasn't Appalachian State." For Michigan fans, they will be fine, Michigan will learn from their many mistakes. One thing that needs to happen is Denard Robinson needs to work on his passing some more. He looked like the quarter back from Navy.

SOURCE: Clemson University

 Clemson showed that they MIGHT be contenders for the ACC championship, with a 26-19 win against Auburn. If you know Clemson as well as I do, you know they are the most inconsistent school in all of college sports. They have to go to Tallahassee to play Florida State, and they have another tough two game stretch with Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. Good news is both games are in Death Valley. But then again, Clemson will have to play South Carolina and the rest of the ACC.

SOURCE: orangeandwhite.com

South Carolina survives upset minded Vanderbilt, Michigan State almost beats themselves

SOURCE: thewiseguise.com

Two top 15 college football teams were in action on Thursday and Friday, and the results were identical. Surviving upset minded teams in Vanderbilt and #24 Boise State.  Both games ended 17-13 in favor of the higher ranked team, which was #9 South Carolina and #13 Michigan State. But, both teams looked very sloppy and are going to be in trouble when it comes to conference play.

SOURCE: Sportslogos.net

 South Carolina had two big turnovers that Vandy could not capitalize on, including a Jordan Rodgers interception when Vanderbilt was on the goaline of South Carolina. That interception led to a quick South Carolina touchdown, then a field goal. Vanderbilt answered though, with a touchdown on a gutsy Jordan Rodgers throw, and a field goal. Vandy kicked another field goal, but Marcus Lattimore scored a touchdown and South Carolina held on. However, Connor Shaw did hurt his shoulder during the game. 

SOURCE: Fat Head

 Michigan State was beating themselves for most of the second half because of turnovers. It seemed whenever MSU got over the 50 yard line, their drive would stall, or a turnover would happen. Andrew Maxwell needs a lot of work, especially after throwing three interceptions against a Mountain West defense. The Spartans can thank  Le'Veon Bell for the win, after 266 total yards and 2 TD's. Who knows if Bell is a Heisman finalist, his real skills will be shown in Big Ten conference play. For Boise State, Joe Southwick did a nice job in the second half, and will be a real threat next year, where Boise State will compete for the Big East championship.

SOURCE: NY Daily News

Bristol doesn't impress me, Sprint cup race blacked out

SOURCE: examiner.com

From the 50 laps I was able to watch, I wasn't impressed with Bristol. It looked the same as the old Bristol, where there isn't any passing and the race is boring. Yes there was the Tony Stewart incident, but other than that it was just your normal racing incidents.

As I mentioned before, I was only able to watch the last 50 laps of the race, because I live in the Detroit market, which blacked out the NASCAR race because of the NFL Preseason game. Instead, I had to watch the thugs of the Detroit Lions. I was pissed off, especially because the race was not on ESPN 3 and there was not any Race Buddy coverage.

SOURCE:  fangsbites.com

 My question to ABC and ESPN, "Why do this to us die hard NASCAR fans?" We are in the middle of the Race to the Chase, and ESPN decides to hand the race over to ABC when they know that the NFL is in the Preseason. It’s like blacking out week 17 of the NFL for Figure Skating. It should be embarrassing for ESPN, and ABC's affiliates.

I sent a very angry E-mail to our ABC affiliate and AT&T for not having the second most watched sport in the US, instead having fourth string NFL rejects from Grand Valley state playing in a meaningless touch football game. It made me and a lot of Detroiters very angry, as seeing in the ESPN game-cast of the race. My advice to ESPN, look at the NFL preseason schedule before giving the Sprint Cup race to ABC.

SOURCE: whatwouldamenschdo.com