Daily Dawg Tags: Fear the AFC North
By Thomas Moore
Spanning the virtual globe to bring you the latest news about the Cleveland Browns and the NFL – these are your Daily Dawg Tags for Wednesday, July 20.
The Cleveland Browns have been the AFC North’s doormat since 1999.
Add it all up and the Browns are just 27-76 within the division, a .262 winning percentage that makes it increasingly premature to talk about setting aside a January weekend for a Browns playoff game.
There are multiple reasons for Cleveland’s shortcomings, from multiple changes in the front office and on the sidelines, to a lack of talented players on the field.
That hasn’t been a problem for the squads in Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cincinnati, however, which lead the Dawg Pound Daily staff to confront their collective fears and name the players they fear the most within the division.
That is just one of the topics we will look at in today’s edition of the Daily Dawg Tags.
Cleveland Browns:
DPD Q&A: Who do you fear in the AFC North?
"The Cleveland Browns are still chasing the other teams in the AFC North. So which opposing players should worry the Browns the most?"
Bold prediction for the Cleveland Browns (NFL.com)
"It’s mid-July. Nearly every player is healthy. Everyone is anticipating when Tony Romo won’t be … and every team besides the Browns have hope. The landscape of pro football is wide open for off-the-beaten-path speculation."
Browns training camp position breakdown: RBs (clevelandbrowns.com)
"We’re less than two weeks out from the Browns’ first training camp under head coach Hue Jackson. As such, we’ll dive deep into each position group and analyze what we’ll be looking for when practice resumes July 29. We previewed Cleveland’s quarterbacks, so let’s take a look at who’s lining up behind them."
5 over-under predictions for the 2016 season (NFL Spin Zone)
"With a new regime in place, the Cleveland Browns hope to turn a horrible recent past into a bright future. The Browns welcome back a familiar face on the sidelines. Head coach Hue Jackson added Ray Horton to manage the defense. This time around, he’ll work with several first- and second-year players to rebuild the team’s respect on the defensive side of the ball. What about the overall expectations for the team? Will Browns steal a few division wins in 2016? We’ll go through five over-under scenarios for the upcoming season."
People told me to shut up and play football (Slate)
"Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins on why athletes are speaking out about social justice."
NFL News:
Roger Goodell’s first 10 years and why he’s staying (MMQB)
"During his tenure as NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell has been the subject of unrelenting criticism while overseeing unprecedented growth. And, despite the public’s perception of him, he’s positioned to be the face of the NFL for years to come."
NFL could have a Cinderella this year (Bleacher Report)
"It’s not too hard to project how a pretty good team could win the Super Bowl, either. If Andrew Luck bounces back…If all the Vikings’ young talent develops…If the Bengals find the right combination of meditation and yoga to get them through the playoffs…and so on. It’s a real challenge, however, to project how a bad team wins the Super Bowl. Yet teams with terrible records one year sometimes win the Super Bowl the following season, like the 1999 Rams or the 2001 Patriots. Others fall short but make a fine run of it, shocking the football world with 11 or 12 wins that no one saw coming. It’s worth taking a long look at the league’s bottom feeders in search of potential Cinderellas."
T.J. Ward believes Broncos defense has “no ceiling” (Denver Post)
"With training camp about a week away, the boisterous and proud members of the Denver Broncos let it be known they’re still out to defend their crown as Super Bowl champions — and as the NFL’s best defense. T.J. Ward’s second annual celebrity charity golf tournament at the Blackstone Country Club in Aurora brought them all together for fun. Once it came down to football, there was no holding back feelings about their expectations this season."
Santana Moss ranks top 5 QBs he played with in Washington (CSN Mid-Atlantic)
"In his football career, including his college years, Santana Moss has played under 18 different quarterbacks. Spending fourteen years in the NFL and ten seasons with the Redskins, Moss must be nothing less than an expert when it comes to ranking QBs so we had him rank the top five he played with in Washington. He did not disappoint."