CBBI
Super Chill Mode
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2005
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Seeding is weird in the AFC this year due to parity and I don't necessarily think it means much. With the coaching job this year I truly think our season ends at the Chiefs or Bills in the playoffs with the likes of Carr, Wilson, Cousins, or Garoppolo. With a roster that, supposedly, is just a QB away from winning the big one. That's simply not good enough.
We have the talent to be a playoff team this year - I could easily point to the Steelers who have had QB play nearly as bad as ours, with a worse roster on offense (their o-line is nowhere near ours and their RBs are nowhere near ours). Strong defense but from a talent perspective we're right there with them. Yet they still won't finish with a losing record, have swept us, and have a shot at a wildcard next week.
We're 5th in penalties and 5th in penalized yards after leading the league in yards for most of the season. That's two straight seasons where we've done poorly in penalties under Stefanski. If we play the what-if game I'm guessing we win 2 more games if not for our penalties (Chiefs/Chargers for sure).
But I'm not doing that - this isn't a Baker vs. Stefanski thing for me. I think Baker is the bigger issue but Stefanski hasn't been very good himself, and I think he needs to be better if we're ever going to win the Super Bowl.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on how much Stefanski's coaching has negatively impacted things this season.
Let me put it another way.
If the Browns swapped out Stefanski and his staff for a staff that is universally considered better - for arguments sake let's say the Rams staff or the Bucs staff - I don't think the Browns record changes all that much because they'd still getting bottom of the barrel QB play and it's nearly impossible to overcome that. Maybe they win 1 more? But there's still virtually no chance of winning a playoff game with QB play this bad if they even get in at all.
Conversely, if the Browns kept the same coaching staff and same personnel and simply swapped Baker Mayfield out for a better QB, really any of the guys they could possibly acquire this offseason - Rodgers, Watson and Wilson they'd have 4 or 5 more wins - Carr, Cousins, Garoppolo they'd have at least 3 more wins and be competing for the No. 1 seed with a chance to make a much deeper playoff run. Not necessarily favorites to win the Super Bowl because they'd still be at a QB disadvantage against a couple of teams if they got a guy from the second group, but a much better chance still.