3 reasons the Cleveland Browns will beat New Orleans in Week 16
By Randy Gurzi
1. The weather favors the Browns
Snow, freezing conditions, and 60-mile-per-hour winds are expected this weekend as Cleveland hosts New Orleans. It’s going to be the second weekend in a row with terrible weather in Northeast Ohio and while it might not make for exciting football, it can be an advantage for a team such as the Browns — especially against the Saints.
New Orleans is used to playing in their own domed stadium eight times per season. They also head to Atlanta once per year for another indoor game plus they head to Tampa Bay and Carolina for their other divisional games.
What they don’t do very often, is play in the snow, high winds, or single-digit temps. Cleveland, on the other hand, has several games per season where the weather is downright unbearable. And as we saw against Baltimore last weekend, they can exceed in that since they’re capable of dominating on the ground.
Cleveland finished with 143 rushing yards, led by Nick Chubb who had 99 yards on 21 attempts. They also had 24 from Kareem Hunt and 22 from Deshaun Watson.
Throw in the fact that the Saints are ranked 23rd in the league in run defense and there’s no reason to expect a different result on Christmas Eve, which is the main reason to believe they’ll secure win No. 7 on the season.
