Week 17 Cleveland Browns score predictions: Looking to fourth straight vs. Bengals

Writer: Mike Lukas

So, you gonna watch the AFC North Bottom Bowl on Sunday?

AKA Freddie’s Last Stand…

AKA The Sixteenth Nail in Dorsey’s Disappointment Coffin  (v. 2019)…

Win or lose, this Week 17 Browns / Bengals game is just sad.

Beat the 1-14 Cincinnati Bengals and they could not care less. They still get the first overall draft pick next offseason (hello, Joe Burrow) and Baker Mayfield’s Cleveland Browns are still under .500 for the year and nowhere near the playoffs. Again.

Lose to the Bengals (don’t laugh, have you seen the Browns’ play-calling?) and the city of Cleveland will have to eat all ten of those defeats for breakfast every morning while the Browns take yet another rebuilding year to figure out how to win.

Either way, welcome to another clueless Cleveland Browns offseason…where the head coach carousel takes yet another spin and the organization must endure yet another ‘reset’ for the umpteenth time this century.

Which most likely means new offensive and defensive coordinators, new playbooks and new game plans to learn and implement. Ugh.

Browns general manager John Dorsey is the chef here, and he’s been forced out of the Kitchens (pun intended) and back to the market, having to shop for even more main ingredients instead of just having to add a few extra spices to the mix.

And us hungry Browns fans can’t do a thing about it except pound our forks and knives on the table and wait. Football stomachs grumbling. Again.

Only this time, (unlike at the beginning of the season), nobody will expect the meal to taste good. Not because it won’t (the Jarvis, Chubb and OBJ are fresh and tasty, indeed), but because fans had to learn the hard (and disappointing) way (again) that expectations don’t belong in Cleveland. At least not yet.

The one positive that comes from beating the Bengals this week is a 4-2 divisional record (it’s Chef Dorsey’s delicious dessert surprise). That’s the result of beating every AFC North team at least once, and that has never happened in the team’s history.

Ooh la la, that and a dollar will get you a crappy cup of coffee.  But still…

Of course, I’m gonna watch the AFC North Bottom Bowl (Freddie’s last stand) on Sunday, and I’m going to predict a Browns’ win because I’m a Browns fan and I sure do love this football team. Always have. But ugh.

Until Chef Dorsey figures out a decent recipe to shop for, I’m not gonna expect anything too tasty anytime soon. Again.

Final Score Prediction: Browns 20, Bengals 16