Just In Case (Keenum)- Cleveland Browns vs Denver Broncos Preview

Image Courtesy of The News-Herald

I’m gonna be honest with you Browns fans, I have almost nothing good to say about last week. There’s usually one week for every NFL fan that elicits nothing but negative emotions, and this past Sunday was that for us. We couldn’t move the ball since we didn’t have two of our starting tackles, our defense stunk up the joint again (they were also short handed), and we somehow came out of the game more beat up than when we came in. All in all, a game I’m sure we all want to forget an move on from, and luckily for us one thing we have is that we have an easy stretch of the schedule coming up. The question is, can our back ups step?

Going against the Broncos, we are down 20 players, and almost all of the are key contributors on both sides of the ball. We’re missing half of our secondary, a linebacker, our whole defensive line, two on the offensive line, our quarterback, and both our running backs. As of writing this, Jarvis Landry is confirmed to be back, and I believe Odell Beckham Jr. is up in the air. Pretty bleak outlook if you ask me, but I truthfully feel like this game is winnable, and we then get to reap the rewards of a 10 day break to get everyone healthy. One reason I think we’re okay, is that we have Case Keenum, who I believe is more than good enough to put out there. I think it is fantastic that we have a serviceable back up, when for years we couldn’t even get one good quarterback. Also, I believe D’earnest Johnson is very shifty and will be able to pick up some good yards when we need him too. But most importantly, we have Kevin Stefanski as our coach. Outside of a couple rough play calls, this man has been at the forefront of our turn arounds, and I have complete faith he put in a good scheme for his former quarterback from Minnesota.

Going into this game against Denver, I believe that it will not be a flashy, high paced game. We just need to use our method of controlling time of possession, and keep our beat up defense on the sideline. On offense, we also need to just move the play away from Von Miller and keep him from single handedly winning them the game. On defense, we need better communication in the secondary. We’ve given up an inexcusable amount of giant throws due to poor communication, and that has to change. If we can do these three things, I think we can escape Thursday night football with a win. I know it’s bold to guess a score when there is almost nothing to base it off of, but my final score prediction is 27-24 Cleveland Back Ups take the win. I think we can control time of possession just enough and out score Denver in a slow and methodical game.