After trying their very best to hand another game away, the Browns eked out a win over the Carolina Panthers last week and get ready to head into Miami to take on the still playoff hopeful Dolphins. Miami has been a team with a lot of ups and downs this season going through quarterback changes and a defense that can be stout one week and very porous the next. The Browns need to once again put a lot of the offensive responsibility on the very stout shoulders of one Peyton Hillis. Hillis went buck wild last week with three touchdowns and putting his total rushing TD's at eleven for the season. That puts him in some VERY select company with the Browns. Only Leroy Kelly and the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time - for those who don't know that) Jim Brown. Hillis's response to being told that responded with, "I'm nobody."
While I appreciate his modesty when compared to those two historic running backs, Peyton Hillis is much more than a nobody for the Browns this season.
Lets see....he has 13 of the teams 21 touchdowns on the year, 905 of 1285 yards rushing, and is the number two receiver for the Browns! Not exactly a nobody! His one Achilles heel this year has been fumbles. He has lost a total of four fumbles out of five total. This can be improved and I am sure it will be. Thankfully, a majority of his fumbles have come in the first half of games and he usually follows them up with a touchdown run on the next possession. That said; opposing defenses are beginning to stack the box against Hillis and it is becoming effective against higher caliber teams slowing down the Browns running game and allowing defenses to force us to rely on our quarterbacks and receivers. This is a glaring sore spot for us as we have no true "go to guy" running routes for us and we are desperately in need of that one true down field threat. Our trio of quarterbacks haven't been the greatest with rookie Colt McCoy being the most reliable after his introduction into the NFL was against top tier defenses such as the Steelers, Patriots, Saints, and Jets. He handles himself very well in those games and unfortunately for us, he joined veterans Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace with his own high ankle sprain. We need Delhomme to avoid the costly interceptions he threw last week keeping the Panthers in the game. Many fans wondered if he was capable of coming back from the horrible year he had last season that led to the Panthers releasing of him. Thus far I would say that we didn't get the results we were hoping for. Wallace was overall not too bad in his time prior to his own ankle sprain but, showed why he is a career backup when it became obvious that he cannot throw the deep ball accurately and can get flustered when he has pressure. He is still a threat with his feet and can make it difficult to defend him when he only has to throw balls less than 20 yards or less. McCoy will hopefully heal quicker than his counterparts and get back on track and continue his development at the helm of our offense...Hillis needs the help.
Our defense is strange. It seems impenetrable on one drive and the next but, second half adjustments by other teams have shown that we are not quite there yet. We give up too many game breaking plays with poor arm tackling (Santonio Holmes and Maurice Jones-Drew) allowing our opponents to find daylight late in games and ultimately allowing comeback wins. Hopefully Scott Fujita gets back to healthy soon and takes back over as the defensive leader we need on the field. He was more than dangerous prior to his injury and we have struggled without his veteran leadership on the field. Overall I see another close game in Miami that we can win if we can put together 60 full minutes of good football. We are a team that cannot afford to make mistakes since we seem unable to take advantage of other teams mistakes (6 Jaguar turnovers somehow did not translate into a win?). Avoiding the turnovers on offense and not giving up large yardage plays on defense will give us the big "W" we so sorely need right now...24-21 Browns!
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