Cleveland Browns vs. Bengals: Predicting another loss for Hue Jackson
By Randy Gurzi
Writer: Chris Markoch
Game: Cleveland Browns (3-6-1) at Cincinnati Bengals (5-5)
The Cleveland Browns come off their bye week and head to Cincinnati for the 2018 Battle of Ohio, Part One. The Bengals have been struggling after getting off to an impressive start. In a situation that is almost exactly opposite of the Browns, Head Coach Marvin Lewis fired his defensive coordinator and is now taking over those responsibilities. That didn’t seem to help much as the Bengals blew a second-half lead against the Ravens. The Ravens were starting Lamar Jackson who was making his first career start and was running the read option – and not much else.
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Adding to the storyline, former Browns coach Hue Jackson is now assisting Lewis. This is almost unfortunate because there will be surely way too many cutaways of Jackson standing on the Bengals sideline.
The Browns come into the Queen City fresh off their most impressive win of the year. Dare I say it, the Browns made it look easy against the Falcons. The challenge and the opportunity for the Browns is to show development and improvement over the season’s last six games.
Nick Chubb figures to be an integral part of the game plan this week. A solid running game should slow down the pass rush and give Baker Mayfield time to throw. Look for the Browns to try to get David Njoku a bit more involved against the Bengals. The Browns have been notoriously poor at covering the tight end, but get this all you analytics folks…the Bengals have given up more yards to tight ends and more average points per game than the Browns. Really it’s true.
Desperation is a powerful motivator and I expect Cincinnati to come out playing with fire. It helps that it appears they will have A.J. Green back which may make the reappearance of Terrance (Money) Mitchell very important.
Emotion only gets you so far. The Browns are ascending. The Bengals are not.
Final Score: Cleveland 31, Cincinnati 20