5 Reasons To Be Optimistic About The 2015 Cleveland Browns

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Jan 31, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; General view of the golden NFL shield logo at the entrance to the 4th annual NFL Honors at Symphony Hall. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Our Schedule Is Not That Bad

Seriously. It’s not. I remember hearing months ago that Cleveland wwas playing the AFC West and the NFC West, along with our own division and nearly fainting.

Adding Seattle and Denver to a schedule already consisting of six games split between Baltimore, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh was a nightmare to me. When I first saw it I didn’t think the Browns had a shot to finish over .500, but after looking at it for a few months I’m not nearly as scared as I once was.

Seattle seems like a near impossible game to win. I’ll conceded that. But the rest of the schedule looks much less hopeless in my eyes.

One of the toughest teams the Browns will face this year is the Denver Broncos. Thankfully, we get to face Denver at home. Regardless of where the game is located most national media members will look at this matchup and say it looks like a blowout in the Broncos favor, but we know better than that.

Remember facing Andrew Luck‘s Colts at home last year? Yes we lost, but it was by 1 point. To Andrew Luck and the greatest passing attack in the NFL. Right now most people would take Andrew Luck over Peyton Manning, so if the Browns’ Defense can defend Luck and keep the game close, can’t we do the same to an older and less mobile Manning?

Playing the Cardinals at home offers potential, as well. Arizona comes to FirstEnergy Stadium with a great wide receiver duo consisting of Larry Fitzgerald and Michael Floyd, a shaky running game and an up-and-down quarterback in Carson Palmer. Our defense (especially our Secondary) will be able to take advantage of that. The Cardinals also have a shaky run defense, which will benefit our run game greatly.

While they boast one of the best secondaries in football right now, we probably won’t be testing Patrick Peterson and company too much with our offensive mindset this year being run first and pass if we must. With the Cardinals defense almost inviting us to run, and the Browns defense matching up really well with the Cardinals offensive strengths, I imagine this will be another close game at home.

The Chargers will be boasting a solid passing game as well with Phillip Rivers at the helm, but on the flip side the Chargers defense will be flat out bad and that will give our offense the opportunity to put up more points than usual. Melvin Gordon will a big wild card, if he is as good as the Chargers think he will be then he might very well be what turns this game in the Chargers favor. If not, then the Browns will have another good matchup between our Secondary against the Chargers passing attack (you’ll probably notice a reoccurring theme here) and another odd but good matchup between our offense vs the Chargers defense. Again another close ball game here, wouldn’t be Browns football without plenty of those.

The Chiefs will have an elite running game behind Jamaal Charles which will cause us some issues on defense, but Charles will likely be the Chiefs lone playmaker. Stopping him will leave the KC offense lifeless. The Chiefs gameplan is extremely identical to that of the Browns. Play good defense and run the football. Both teams will be doing that when the Chiefs and the Browns face off a few Sundays from now, that will lead to a low scoring game on both sides. With the offense and defense the Browns are armed with, that’s exactly the kind of game we want.

The rest of the teams from those two divisions, along with the New York Jets and the Tennessee Titans were all .500 or under teams last year (the only .500 team being San Fran and I guarantee they have a worse record this year after their losses this past offseason).

The point: Almost all of these games are winnable–more winnable than most people believe them to be based on matchups. The Browns’ schedule will have its tough games, but the notion that the Browns could win half of these games is not as crazy as many people make it out to be.

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