Displaced Cleveland Fan

These are stories from around the league that I thought were worth noting. You can read my recap of the Browns week 15 game here.

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As long as it’s still the regular season, the Colts are the NFL’s best team.

Indianapolis beat Jacksonville in a wild Thursday night game, 35-31. The win is the Colts’ 23rd straight regular season win, an NFL record. The Jaguars gave them all they had. But in the end, the Colts were just the better team.

Peyton Manning threw for 308 yards and 4 touchdowns. Dallas Clark caught two TD passes. Reggie Wayne and Austin Collie had one each.

The Colts are now 14-0 and their remaining games are against the Jets and the Bills. Both are winnable games, if Indy wants to shoot for 16-0. They may choose to sit some of their key players in view of the playoffs though. They do have the #1 seed in the conference wrapped up. 16-0 means nothing without  a Super Bowl (just ask the Patriots).

So what should they do? Play the reserves, but play to win. After all, you never know when you might need them for real. Might as well try to win with them instead of kill time with them.

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The Cleveland Browns are on a 2-game winning streak. Most of the credit is due to two men - Josh Cribbs and Jerome Harrison.

Josh Cribbs had not one, but two kickoff return touchdowns in this game. The first, which broke the NFL record for total kickoff return touchdowns, was for 100 yards. The second was 103 yards. Cribbs now has 8 in his career.
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These are stories from around the league that I thought were worth noting. You can read my recap of the Browns week 14 game here.

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The New York Giants accumulated 512 yards of offense. They won the time of possession battle (34:46 to 25:14). They scored 38 points. And they lost. The thing that killed them was turnovers - 4 fumbles. One was returned for a touchdown.

The Philadelphia Eagles won a wild one in New Jersey last night with a 45-38 win over the Giants. During the high-scoring game, Eagles’ wide receiver DeSean Jackson tied an NFL record. He had a 72-yard punt return for a touchdown, and also a 60-yard reception for a score. The two scores brought him to 8 touchdowns of 50+ yards this season.

The Eagles are now 9-4 and in first place in the NFC East. Meanwhile, the Giants are 7-6, barely holding on to their playoff hopes after a 5-0 start followed by a 2-6 stretch. Their remaining games are against Washington (4-9), Carolina (5-8), and Minnesota (11-2).
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Yes, that title is correct. The Browns beat the Steelers.

Cleveland’s last win over Pittsburgh came on October 5, 2003. In their second meeting that season, the Steelers began a 12-game winning streak over the Browns with a 13-6 win. Interestingly, it was a 13-6 win by the Browns tonight that snapped that streak.

The game was broadcast on NFL Network. I hesitate to call it a nationally televised game though. But those who were able to see the game saw the Browns all but end the Steelers’ playoff hopes on a bitterly cold and windy night.
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These are stories from around the league that I thought were worth noting. You can read my recap of the Browns week 13 game here.

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OK. Before any of you Patriots fans panic, your team is still in first place. But there is certainly cause for concern.

New England lost to Miami yesterday 22-21. This despite the fact that the Patriots were up 21-10 in the third quarter and the Dolphins were without their most dangerous offensive weapon — Ronnie Brown.

The Patriots were winning 21-19 when they punted the ball to Miami with under four minutes to play. All they needed was for the defense to make one more stop. Leading the Dolphins offense was second-year, backup to Chad Pennington quarterback Chad Henne. Surely New England would make this last stop and close out the game, right?

Wrong. Henne led the Dolphins 51 yards down the field in a drive that took just over a minute. It ended with a 41-yard field goal to put Miami on top 22-21. The Patriots tried to come back, but they couldn’t do it.

So now, while the Patriots are still in first place in the AFC East, they have fallen to 7-5, are only one game ahead of the Dolphins and Jets, and fell to 1-5 on the road this year. Of their remaining four games, it’s very possible they win three or four of them and get into the playoffs. But their failure to win games like this has got to worry New England fans.
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This game should not have been close. No one thought it would be, hence the threat of a TV blackout. Surprisingly it was close. Yet the Browns still came up short.

The game started well. The Browns scored first when Brady Quinn hit Mohamed Massaquoi for an 11-yard touchdown pass. According to @OfficialBrowns, it was the team’s first opening-drive touchdown in 35 games. They fell behind 13-7 at halftime, completely lost control of the game in the third quarter, and despite 17 fourth quarter points, they could not come back.

The Browns are now 1-11. Keeping pace are Tampa Bay and St. Louis.
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Big game for the Cavaliers tonight. They beat the Phoenix Suns by 17 points and improved to 13-5 on the year. But more than the score and their record, this game was great for several reasons.

#1 - Zydrunas Ilgauskas broke the team record for number of games played at 724. I love Z. He is, hands down, my favorite Cavs player ever (yes, even more than LeBron James). He has played his entire career in a Cleveland uniform and battled through foot injuries to make it this far. This year he has had to move to the bench with the addition of Shaquille O’Neal and is adjusting to that in the best interest of the team.

Congrats, Z. Hope to see you help this team finally win a championship this year as well.
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