The AFC North can be as competitive as it gets in pro football, but some teams in the division are more competitive than others. The Battle of Ohio was once known for its mutual admiration, turned to rough tension, following close game after close game. Nowadays, the games always seem primed to be a lopsided affair and it's pretty clear that the Cincinnati Bengals have established dominance for the most part over the Cleveland Browns in recent history. Will it continue to show in the two games the teams play this year? Let’s take a look at what we know now about the Bengals and Browns' Week 7 and Week 14 contests.
Team: Cleveland Browns
Team Blog: Dawgs By Nature
Division: AFC North
Coach:
Hue Jackson is entering his first season as Cleveland’s head coach. He is now five years removed from his first head coaching position with the Oakland Raiders, where he was fired after an 8-8 season back in 2011. Since then, Jackson has been the Bengals defensive backs coach in 2012, running backs coach in 2013, and offensive coordinator from 2014 to 2015, before taking the reigns of the Browns this offseason. The Bengals were sad to see him go, but making it even worse is that Jackson is off to the team's in-state, divisional rival.
2015 Season:
Death, taxes, and the Browns finishing with a losing record. With only two seasons with more wins than losses to speak of in the past 25 years, the 2015 edition of Cleveland Browns wasn’t much different than what we've seen in the past several. Their 3-13 record was highlighted by the emergence of tight end Gary Barnidge, the perpetual consistency of left tackle Joe Thomas, and the quarterback carousel of Josh McCown, Austin Davis, and Johnny Manziel. Their wins came against the Tennessee Titans in Week 2, The Baltimore Ravens in Week 5 in overtime, and the San Francisco 49ers in Week 14. And the combined records of these opponents was an abysmal 13-35.
Since Week 13 of the 2014 season, when they were 7-4, the Browns are 3-18. Even for a franchise that has no shortage of disappointment, the collapse of 2014 that led to another unsuccessful season was what ultimately led to the firing of head coach Mike Pettine, who accumulated a 10-22 record before he was replaced by Jackson.
History with Cincinnati:
No two teams in the league may have a more close relationship with one another than the Browns and Bengals. They were fathered by the same great man after all, Paul Brown. In 1968, six years after he was let go from the organization that was named after him, the legendary Paul Brown formed an AFL expansion team 250 miles down Interstate 71, south from Cleveland, known as the Cincinnati Bengals, bringing back football to the Queen City for the first time in 26 years.
Almost 50 years later, the state of the "Battle of Ohio" is currently unbalanced, with high scoring bouts and blowouts more frequent than nail biters, with the last four meetings between the two teams being prime examples. Back in 2014, after an embarrassing 24-3 primetime Thursday night loss at home to the then Brian Hoyer-led Browns, the Bengals answered with a shutout 30 point victory five weeks later in Manziel’s first start of his career.
This past year, there was no split, just annihilation from the men in stripes. The Bengals, remembering what happened on their turf one year prior, put on a Thursday night clinic, with a three touchdown effort from tight end Tyler Eifert. In the second meeting, it was more of the same. Jeremy Hill led the way with his best performance of his 2015 campaign with 98 yards rushing and one rushing touchdown. The combined score of the two meetings was 68-13 in favor of Cincinnati, and almost personifies the current state of both teams to a tee.
In the rich history of this rivalry, the Bengals currently lead the all-time series 46-39.
2016 Browns Outlook:
This is a roster that truly needs all 14 draft picks it made. After the departures of players like Travis Benjamin, Mitchell Schwartz, Alex Mack, Karlos Dansby (thanks for that) and Tashaun Gipson via free agency, the Browns are in yet another phase of roster turnover without viable replacements at critical positions. Let’s start with the quarterbacks.
Where else can you begin than with Manziel? The Heisman winning phenom has since been released from the team for his off-field mishaps, and another quarterback who has held up the Heisman, Robert Griffin III, has been called upon to help out. RGIII and incumbent starter Josh McCown will presumably battle for the starting role and third round draft pick Cody Kessler will be groomed under the winner of the battle.
The Browns do have some bright spots to help whoever starts. Running back Duke Johnson showed he can be receiving threat out of the backfield. Josh Gordon has now been reinstated by the league and will be allowed to play following a 4 game suspension to start the season. The aforementioned Barnidge became a reliable red zone target for whoever decided to play quarterback on a weekly basis. And the left tackle spot is occupied by the very best in Thomas.
On the other side of the ball, now second year nose tackle Danny Shelton is looking to become a more effective player on a three down basis and has dropped 30 pounds this offseason to prove that. Unfortunately, their leading sack man Desmond Bryant suffered a torn pectoral injury earlier this month and will be unavailable for the majority, if not all of 2016. In the secondary, Joe Haden needs to bounce back from a poor 2015 season, especially with Justin Gilbert struggling as well and with both starting safeties from last year gone.
There is no trickery here, the Browns are just plain bad. And they’ve not done enough to begin to compete with the rest of the division or the conference. It’s easy to expect another season well below .500, but it’s also extremely logical.
Cincinnati Game Date and Time:
Week 7: Sunday, October 23, 2016, 1:00 p.m. ET, Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio
Cleveland Game Date and Time:
Week 14: Sunday, December 11th, 1:00 p.m. ET, FirstEnergy Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio
Early Outlook:
I don’t always expect the Bengals to win handily, but when they are faced with the underwhelming mess that is this version of the Cleveland Browns, it’s hard not to imagine a seamless victory, even with a talented mind in Jackson now pulling the strings.
Home field advantage doesn’t seem to be a strong narrative in this bi-yearly matchup, and even as the AFC North matchup with least amount animosity, at least for Bengals fans, there is still not a lot of love lost when each team walks into the other’s building. When comparing the teams from quarterbacks to special teams, it’s only really close in one or two areas, with the absolute advantage in favor of the Bengals.
NFL Network seemed to learn its lesson for scheduling another possible blowout for a Thursday night game between these two, as the Battle of Ohio won't be played on Thursday night for the third year in a row, but the results we saw last year on that stage are more than likely what we’re going to see when these teams meet this year as well. I’m going to go with a 24-7 victory for the good guys in the first matchup, and a 28-6 victory the second time around, with the Bengals completing the sweep for Ohio.
Even with all that we know Jackson can do, he’s going to have a tough time getting even with the team he used to work for. And unless things dramatically change in the coming months, it’s hard to see Jackson and the Browns defeating the Bengals this year.