NFL Football Betting–Will The Cleveland Browns Finish 0-16?
–The Cleveland Browns dropped to 0-11 with Sunday’s loss to Pittsburgh.
– With just five games remaining the Browns are running out of time.
– Since 1945 only four NFL teams have finished a season winless.
Will the Cleveland Browns finish the 2016 NFL season with a record of 0-16?
Yes: +120
No: -150
THE CLEVELAND BROWNS COULD BE ONE OF THE WORST TEAMS IN NFL HISTORY
Here’s a spoiler alert–the Cleveland Browns aren’t a very good football team. In fact, they could be historically bad. This isn’t a normative judgement on their talent, this is a simple statement of fact based on looking at the NFL standings. The Browns finished 3-13 in 2015 but that team looks like the 1985 Chicago Bears compared to the 2016 Cleveland team.
To be fair, not all of the Cleveland Browns’ struggles are of their making. They had decided to make Johnny Manziel their ‘quarterback of the future’ only to have ‘Johnny Football’ drink himself out of the league. Of course, the contrarian view would be that had the Browns done a bit more ‘due diligence’ on Manziel they might have thought better of their decision to draft him at all, let alone factoring him in to their future plans.
Having subjected myself to a few Cleveland Browns games this year I never got the impression that they didn’t ‘play hard’. They just didn’t ‘play well’. They don’t have many ‘playmakers’ on either side of the ball and they get manhandled physically ‘in the trenches’. The inability to compete physically against bigger, stronger and tougher teams makes life all the more difficult for their overmatched skill position personnel. To mix my sport metaphors, they’re like a 1985 Toyota Celica with a blown engine *and* flat tires trying to compete in a NASCAR race.
LOSING IS A HARD HABIT TO BREAK
There are bad teams in every league but the Browns really make losing an ‘art form’. Their 0-11 record for the 2016 regular season only tells part of the story. Cleveland lost all four of their preseason games this year so they’re 0-15 combined preseason and regular season. They lost their final three games of the 2015 regular season meaning that they’re on an 18 game losing streak (regular and preseason) and a 14 game regular season losing streak. They were 3-13 last year, leaving their regular season record at 3-24 since the start of the 2015 season. They lost 10 of their final 11 games of the 2015 season so they’ve won once in their last 22 games. They also haven’t been a good pointspread team going 2-9 ATS this year. They’re 0-5 against the spread at home running their home ATS record over the last three seasons to 6-14. Don’t forget that they finished with a relatively decent 7-9 record in 2014 so many of their ‘L3’ pointspread records are misleading. Some bad teams at least keep games competitive but the Browns just don’t have the talent on offense or defense.
Should the Browns finish the 2016 regular season with a winless record they’ll join an ‘exclusive club’ to ‘achieve’ this dubious honor. There were quite a few teams that finished winless in the early days of the NFL. Prior to 1945 there were 29 teams to go winless though there are a number of ‘qualifications’ on this number. Some teams like the 1920 Muncie Flyers played one game and called it a season. The Flyers at least had the guts to come back in 1921 where they went 0-2 before suspending operations for good. A number of teams got into the league and found themselves financially unable to compete. Schedules were shorter which had the dual effect of giving bad teams fewer chances to win and good teams fewer ‘flat spots’ where they were ripe for an upset.
Since 1945 only four NFL teams have finished without a victory. The 1960 Dallas Cowboys went 0-11-1 in what was their debut season in the NFL. At least they got the tie. 16 years later, the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 in their debut season. They looked to be on the verge of ‘running the table the wrong way’ again in 1977, losing their first 12 games before securing the franchise’s first win. The 1982 Baltimore Colts went 0-8-1 in a strike shortened season. Twenty six years would pass until the 2008 Detroit Lions went a pitiful 0-16 to become the only winless team since the league went to the longer schedule.
DO THE BROWNS HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN?
Of course they do. You’ve heard the old ‘any given Sunday’ cliche. That being said, Cleveland doesn’t have an easy schedule down the stretch. They’ll play the 7-3 New York Giants next week before their bye week. The Giants have opened as a -6.5 favorite in that game. The good news for Cleveland is that’s the toughest game on their remaining schedule. The schedule after the bye week begins with an interesting game–they’ll face their longtime rivals the Cincinnati Bengals at home on December 11. Cincinnati isn’t having a great year either with a record of 3-6-1 including a 1-4 record on the road. They’ll take on the 5-5 Buffalo Bills on the road on December 18 before hosting the 4-6 San Diego Chargers on Christmas Eve (also 1-4 on the road). They’ll play at 5-5 Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day.
Not the easiest schedule but when you’re 0-11 no schedule looks especially easy. They do have a few ‘winnable’ games down the stretch, most particularly the home games against Cincinnati and San Diego. They only play one team that is currently above .500. There’s also other ‘variables’. No one can anticipate injuries or how teams will react to being out of playoff contention. Teams have a tendency to take weak foes less seriously and that can lead to a loss. It’s also obvious that the Browns’ only real goal for the rest of the season is to put at least one victory in the win column.
So let’s set some odds: One proposition wager that came immediately to mind was the future of first year Browns’ coach Hue Jackson. I had assumed that prop was useless because it was hard to envision a coach keeping his job after what might be a winless season. Surprisingly, the ‘word on the streets’ is that Jackson is safe. According to Jackson, that was part of the deal before he took the gig:
‘Hue, we are going to do this the right way. It might take a little time to get it to where it needs to be, but we are comfortable and confident in you, and you are the guy we want to have here to lead this team and this organization.’ That’s comforting.”
The former NFL coaching ranks are littered with men who were ‘told their job was not at risk’ before they got fired but we’ll take Jackson at his word. It’s not really his fault–he didn’t build this physically overmatched, talentless team he just inherited it. There’s even been rumors that he’s ‘in demand’ with the San Francisco 49ers showing interest. That leaves the only proposition worth setting the obvious one:
CLEVELAND BROWNS WINLESS SEASON SPECIALS
Will the Cleveland Browns finish the 2016 NFL season with a record of 0-16?
Yes: +120
No: -150
Good luck to the Browns the rest of the way. They definitely need it. We’ll check in on them again after the end of the 2016 NFL season.