The Cleveland Browns are off to their best start to a season in many years. They return to Northeast Ohio to play the Houston Texans on Sunday. While the Browns have a 5-4 winning record, the Texans are 3-5.
Those records would suggest that Cleveland has the upper hand, but the oddsmakers have Houston installed as a 4.5-point road favorite.
Cleveland has lost two games in a row, while Houston has won three in a row after starting the season with four straight losses.
Sayre Bedinger of NFL Spin Zone suggested that the Texans could win this game by multiple scores.
"The Browns look like a classic case of a team that caught some fire early on, only to fizzle out and show their true colors as the season goes along," Bedinger wrote, adding of Houston: "It does feel like the Texans are going to find a way to stay hot. CJ Stroud is playing some of the best football of his career, the Texans have a plethora of weapons in the passing game, and that defense gained some confidence with an outstanding performance in their domination of Justin Herbert and the Chargers.
"Given the number of sacks Deshaun Watson has taken this season, this one could get out of hand."
Have the Browns already fizzled out this season? They have been fortunate to be in a position to win several games and have made the most of it to this point.
How much luck does Cleveland have left this season? That seems to be the question, and the oddsmakers think that luck has run out with these latest odds.
Browns must clean up costly mistakes to silence doubters against Texans
The Browns can't continue to be their own worst enemy by racking up numerous careless penalties. If they can clean some of those issues up, they could very well be in this game and potentially win it.
Cleveland also needs to be better defensively as a whole. The Browns seem to allow more yards to their opponents with each game. Last week, they gave up 396 total yards to the New Orleans Saints. That trend can't keep happening if the Browns want to stick around in the AFC playoff hunt.
The Browns' offense also needs to play better. They are continuing to get off to slow starts in games. They only had three points at halftime a week ago against the Saints. Cleveland quarterback Shedeur Sanders started in place of the injured Watson, and that might have been part of the reason for the slow start.
Watson hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in the last three games that he's played in, and has only thrown seven touchdowns this season. He's been sacked 33 times already. Those two factors alone aren't a winning formula.
The Browns have the next four games at home, which is an odd scheduling occurrence in the NFL. If they can get back in the win column against this Texans team, with a bye week on deck, they would be hitting the second half of their schedule with some serious momentum.
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