Hump Day Blues…Cleveland Style

Aug 29, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Jason Campbell (17) practices before the game against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Due to it being wedding weekend, there was not enough time to get the Monday Morning Blues column out to you all on Monday.

With that being said, this week’s addition will be known as the Hump Day Blues…Cleveland Style.

After watching the game on Sunday we once again started our work week with that sour taste in our mouths after another Cleveland Browns loss.  For the third time in as many weeks, we have added another notch to the loss column to bring the Browns record to 3-5.

Although this game was a close one, we lost in more ways than just on the scoreboard.

Losing punt return specialist Travis Benjamin in the third quarter not only hurt the Browns chances to possibly comeback and win that game, but also diminishes one of the bright spots of this Cleveland team.

Late in the fourth quarter, trailing by 6, and Benjamin out with a knee injury, Davone Bess replaced the injured speedster dropping back into punt return formation.  Bess fielded the short punt at midfield, but never really secured it, and it popped out after a couple of steps.  Not even a full quarter without Benjamin and his absence was felt tremendously.

It seems like this year has been nothing but a roller coaster of emotions.  Some good, but for the most part just a lot of bad.  We went from the low of Trent Richardson being traded and thinking the front office had given up on the season, to Brian Hoyer stepping in for the injured Brandon Weeden after the trade, and leading the Browns to three straight wins.  But just as we were riding that high, Hoyer went down with a knee injury.  The next week we were riding high into halftime with a nice commanding ten point lead against the Detroit Lions, to only see it slip away with a poor second half showing, and poof, the bad was back.

As we head into week nine’s showdown with the Baltimore Ravens coming to town, we are now stuck in a low period.  If they come out and play hard, this is a very winnable game.  If they don’t and lose, that will be four straight the Browns have dropped and will head into the bye week 3-6, on a four game losing streak.

Nobody knows for sure how the rest of the season is going to turn out, but we will definitely have a pretty good idea after Sunday.  They will either rally around each other and win at home to head into the bye 4-6,  recharge and get healthy for the late season push, or bring a five game losing streak to Cincinnati in their week eleven matchup.

If you look at the remaining schedule, there are several winnable games.

Let’s see how Sunday goes, and then we can take the entire bye week to speculate where this team could be headed the rest of the way.

-MR(@puckelves)