Quote:
Originally Posted by skinsfan69
Or you can look at it this way. Clev added two solid d-tackles, D. Stallworth and Anderson has a full off season and training camp as the unquestioned starter. Add all that to Blaylon Edwards, Kellen Winslow Joe J., Jamal Lewis and you've got a pretty impressive set of skills guys. We'll see what happens but I like Cleveland over Balt, Pitts and Cinn.
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But with the schedule they are playing, if their defense (hypotetically) jumps into the top ten in the NFL, they are still only an 8-8 team. And that's a lot to ask from the 30th ranked defense last year.
I'm not writing off those defensive acquisitions here, but they also traded their best cover corner, maybe the best cover corner in that division (Bodden), to Detroit in the Rogers deal and they will be replacing him with the great...Gary Baxter. They are really going to be asking a lot from that front seven to improve 4 "wins"** worth just to keep them competitive in a tough division.
**My argument here is that last year's Browns roster playing this year's Browns' schedule would win 6-7 games. I have numbers to back up this theory, but for simplicity's sake, I'm just posting it as an opinion.
I will give you that Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are playing the same difficult schedule that Cleveland is, that much is certain, however I feel that those teams are far more prepared to play those tough opponents than the young Browns are AND they are just probably better teams overall. I don't think Cleveland is going to be relevant come December--unless a bunch of guys have career years.