The Armpit

As the Monday Night Football intro came on last night, I turned to my wife and said, "and that will be the highlight of tonights coverage." I said this with a straight face. Actually, I might have had a bit of a frown knowing what a poor matchup our nation would be witnessing. Baltimore isn't a bad football team. They've been sputtering of late, but not horrible by any means. But from a football excitement level, the Ravens bring it in bursts. Its fun while it lasts, then you still have the other 50 to 55 minutes of slow, defense oriented football. This isn't normally so bad, except when you bring that style against a team like Clevelend.

Cleveland truely is simply the worst team in the NFL. Yes, there are three other teams sharing the Browns 1-8 record, but each of those teams has shown promise. The Browns do not. They can't score (32nd in both scoring/total offense), nor can they defend anyone (32nd in total/27th in scoring defense). If I can give them credit for anything, its that they are the least penalized team in the league. I suppose that last stat is some sort of gift to the fans.

The players, based on reports last night, had thoughts of not showing at all. I commend them for that thought. The follow through was as poor as their shutout loss. But to be fair to the players, Eric Mangini isn't meant to be an NFL head coach. He might have been ok in New York, but he also had better talent there. And he didn't have to turn so much of the personnel over in New York to fit whatever he wanted to do like he is having to in Cleveland. And, well, that just makes him a bad head coach to me. You have to be able to succeed with what is given to you. And the Cleveland Browns are unable to do that. Win that is.

And what might the most frustrating thing about the Browns is for as bad as they've been, they have found a way to keep some games closer than they should have been. Four of their losses where by 14 points or less. I find this amazing. But not as amazing as how they beat the Bills in October with Derek Anderson going 2-17. Amazing.