Mike Greenberg likes Cleveland Browns over Kansas City

At least one nationally significant sports personality believes the Cleveland Browns are doing things right. 

ESPN’s Mike Greenberg — on national television, no less — has predicted that your Cleveland Browns will upset the Kansas City Chiefs outright in game one of the NFL season. The Browns are underdogs heading into this one, so the Green Man is making a rather fearless prognostication, displaying much greater confidence in the Browns than the rest of the national media.

For those Browns fans who clamor for respect, this is respect. Mr. Greenberg should never have to pay for a meal in northeast Ohio ever again, you hear?

Browns fans, if you ever see Mr. Greenberg and his family at a restaurant, just pick up his tab, add a 20% tip, and if you want to really be classy, don’t even ask for an autograph.

On the other hand, nationwide, many fans are unhappy when Greeny picks their team, assuming that he has magic powers to curse teams by choosing them to win. Oh, come on! Greeny cannot possibly have superpowers.

Don’t you get tired of Colin Cowherd and Stephen A. Smith always trashing the Browns and especially their star quarterback Baker Mayfield? Why don’t they have the power to curse Kansas City by constantly picking them to win?

Now when someone actually agrees with you and believes that the Browns are at least on a reasonable par with the AFC Champion Chiefs, you’re going to be mad about that too? No, if we in the Browns media are going to cross swords with Cowherd and Stephen A. for trash-talking our team, we ought to give at least equal time to those in the media who give positive recognition.

That would be Mike Greenberg, who has tried to earn a living in sports as a traditional sportscaster without putting people down or ridiculing anyone, and he actually offers intelligent commentary. He is, without a doubt, the most articulate sports media host in the business and does not get enough credit.

Greeny called Browns second-round draft pick Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah the “steal of the draft” based on where he was drafted. He believes that JOK fell due to concerns about a heart issue that was flagged as part of the pre-draft process, or else he would have been a first-round draft pick.

Overall, based on the upgraded roster, Greeny says the Browns may have the most talented roster in the NFL, though he still gives an edge to Patrick Mahomes at quarterback for the Chiefs. That’s understandable, if not universally accepted.

Mahomes is a great quarterback, terrific passer, trick shot artist, and a great kid who deserves great things to happen to him. Truthfully, however, there is not much separation among the top quarterbacks around the league, like our guy Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, Dak, Aaron, and some of the others who are MVP threats this season.

Mayfield could very well enter the Most Valuable Player conversation if he plays like he did the second half of 2020 (most impressive stat: one INT in the second half of the season, a year after being one of the worst in the NFL under Freddie Kitchens and Todd Monken), but it is understandable if Greenberg holds the opinion that Mahomes has a distinct edge over Mayfield.

We may wish to re-sample his opinion after Mahomes sees Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney in the same lineup.

On the other hand, Greeny also projects 13 wins for the New York Jets, which leads me to totally question his sanity. Although I do like the Jets’ basic formula of hoarding draft picks, as the Browns have done, Greeny is a masochist to allow his expectations to rise to that level. I doubt if he reads my stuff, but my warning to him is that the reason they drafted Zach Wilson number two in the draft was that they were the most quarterback-desperate team in the NFL, not necessarily because Wilson was the second-most dominant athlete in the draft.

Being drafted early does not elevate the talent and skill of the player, just as being drafted low does not weaken the talent and skill of the player who slides. Warning number two is that only one quarterback in the history of the NFL ever went more than one game over .500 as a starter at age 21.

That was Lamar Jackson, and Zach Wilson is not a dual-threat quarterback like Jackson, and Jackson didn’t start right away his rookie year, either. Is Wilson ready to make history? Well, we’ll see how it goes, Mr. Greenberg.

It is a long wait until September 12. Hopefully, the Browns will make Greeny’s longshot prediction on the Browns look good. As for his Jets, they travel to Carolina (quarterbacked by Slingin’ Sam Darnold, no less).

Gee, I wish I could offer better support for them in return for Greeny’s support for the Brown and Orange, but the best I can offer is that Robert Saleh should be able to get them to play winning defense.