It’s the strategy of choice for nearly every upstart team in every sport that gets off to a decent start.
You know the one. “Nobody believes in us but the (12, 20, 25, 53) guys in this room. Nobody thinks we belong here. Anyone who said they had us in first place is lying.”
It’s the “nobody believes in us” card. It’s safe, easy and it tends to keep the media distracted. It’s rarely true, because the teams that come from out of nowhere usually don’t win over the long haul.
But there is a team that can legitimately use that hackneyed cliché like few others. The Cleveland Browns are in first place in the AFC North and they have a good chance to solidify that lead with three games coming up against the Texans, Falcons, and Bills.
By the time you tear the November page from the calendar, the Browns could be swimming along with a 9-3 record. They are doing it with a coach that nobody ever heard of in Mike Pettine and a quarterback nobody wanted in Brian Hoyer.
Instead of looking at this shocking and amazing development that has the Steelers, Bengals, and Ravens all looking up at the Browns, many in the national media are speculating about rookie Johnny Manziel and what they are going to do with the No. 1 draft pick and when he’s going to get his chance to play.
Let’s break it down simply. Manziel’s development doesn’t matter this season.
The Browns have a chance to win the division and go to the playoffs. If Manziel wants to play, he can spend his time working on his game in the offseason and find a way to beat out Hoyer next year. If media experts like Mike Florio want to speculate about Hoyer’s situation and how every day they wait to give him a new contract will cost them more, they are missing the real story.
The Browns appeared to be a last-place team when they gathered for training camp. They were the last team to fill their head-coaching vacancy and the only reason Pettine was offered the job was because every other candidate the Browns had contacted had turned them down.
Pettine was found in the bottom of the barrel, and he jumped at the opportunity. He didn’t come to Cleveland from Buffalo with the idea of doing anything fancy. His ideas were purely from the 1970s. He wanted to run the ball, play nasty defense, and limit the team’s mistakes.
The Browns went out and drafted one of the most glamorous rookies in Manziel, and nothing changed in Pettine’s mind. He wanted a quarterback who could run his offense, keep mistakes to a minimum, and figure out a way to win the fourth quarter.
If that was Manziel, that would be fine. If it was Hoyer, that was even better. Hoyer was a veteran who at least had a semblance of understanding what NFL offenses are supposed to do and also had the knowledge of what opposing defenses were doing to stop him.
Hoyer came into training camp on a mission. He had the knowledge, experience, and ability, and it didn’t matter to him that the Browns had drafted a quarterback who had the top-selling jersey during the summer. Hoyer was demonstrating that he was the best quarterback in camp on an every-day basis, and it was clear that everybody knew it.
Even Manziel, who acknowledged that Hoyer was far ahead of him.
Hoyer does not have a shotgun for an arm and while he is a good athlete, he is not going to run like Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson or even Andrew Luck. But what he can do is read defenses. He finds the weak spot in the defense, and he attacks when he gets the opportunity.
The numbers fairly ordinary. Hoyer has completed 161-of-275 passes for 2,212 yards with 10 TDs and just four interceptions.
However, his offensive line is protecting him. In Cleveland’s 24-3 Week 10 victory over the Bengals, Hoyer was pressured on just 3-of-24 drop backs. That allowed him to complete 15-of-23 passes for 198 yards – and no interceptions.
Those numbers are not going to get Hoyer invited to the Pro Bowl, but the Browns are not swimming in receiving talent, either.
That will change when Josh Gordon is allowed to play again. Gordon, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound blazer with great moves and even better hands, will be eligible to start playing again in Week 12 when the Browns go to Atlanta against the defenseless Falcons.
If you didn’t remember, Gordon caught 87 passes for 1,646 yards and nine touchdowns last year. When he gets back into the lineup, he is going to lift the Browns’ offense dramatically. He is going to be working with a decent supporting cast that includes Jordan Cameron, Andrew Hawkins and Taylor Gabriel and a three-headed running attack. But it is going to be Gordon’s show when he gets back.
You want to give him a warm-up period? Let him use the first five minutes of the first quarter to get his feet wet. After that, Gordon has to dominate.
He’s got the quarterback in Hoyer who knows how to make plays. If the Browns can take advantage of the schedule and get to 9-3, they are going to be in a position to shock a lot of people.
Nobody will believe in them, because they are the Cleveland Browns.
But Hoyer may just be writing one of the best stories of the year, and when he gets Gordon back in the huddle, they may just have the right formula to shock a lot of people who have been laughing at them for years.
