WFNY Stats & Info: Scott Kazmir’s stellar comeback season
September 7, 2013NFL News: Browns add Tori Gurley to roster, waive Dennis Johnson
September 7, 2013With Browns kickoff just 24 hours away, many of the NFL outlets have already unveiled their week 1 predictions. And according to two of the most popular football sites — CBS and ESPN — the Browns are an overwhelmingly popular choice to win.
CBS’ eight experts all picked Cleveland and its 1.5-point spread over the visiting Miami Dolphins. Dolphins fans were not so happy (tweet) about the CBS predictions when unveiled last week, as first brought to our attention by @RyinCbus.
On CBS this week, only three other teams were unanimous picks against the spread: Baltimore +7.5 at Denver (which failed miserably), New England -9.5 at Buffalo and Indianapolis -9.5 vs. Oakland. That puts the Browns in fairly prestigious company for week 1.
Then, 10 out of ESPN’s 13 analysts picked the Browns in a straight-up fashion. The three people who picked Miami: Ron Jaworski, Cris Carter and K.C. Joyner. That’s two former players (including an Ohio State legend) and “The Football Scientist” in Joyner.
When not factoring in the spread, nearly every single game had an overwhelming majority of at least 10/13ths. Only two games, in fact, did not have such a heavy favorite per ESPN: Baltimore-Denver (which failed) and Cincinnati-Chicago.
These predictions are fairly surprising to me, as is Grantland’s No. 15 ranking of the Browns in their preseason projections. Miami ranked only No. 26, which even despite their high-risk free agent signings still seems quite low to me after their solid, yet unspectacular 7-9 season a year ago. In my mind, the two teams project to be pretty even, as the 1.5-point spread indicates.
[Related: NFL Week 1 – Previewing the Dolphins vs. the Browns – WFNY Podcast – 2013-09-06]
5 Comments
To be fair, those were more Bill Simmons’ power rankings than Grantland’s.
So pick Miami?
Every time national media gets on the Cleveland bandwagon we always fail to impress and fall on the loosing side
This is the year we stop the losing skidmark of falling flat in the home opener. Two similar teams butting heads but the advantage goes to the home team.
To be fair, there has only been one season – 2007 – when the browns didn’t fail so it’s not like your are stating something interesting. You could have also said “regardless of what anyone has predicted, the browns always fail to impress and fall on the loosing side”.