Inneresting Week for Picks in the NFL

Wow, what a weekend. Although at this point in the season it's hard to call anything an upset, I was really amazed how many games didn't go the way most people expected. Accordingly our picks for the week were abysmal! Bird was the Norv Turner of weekly predictors this week, but I have faith that after some up-and-close time with the Brownies this weekend at Gillette Stadium, he'll get his swagger back! But as luck would have it, the Steel Skins weren't able to rouse their third member, and three always beats two. (except when that hot chick from Hero's turns into her nasty evil alter-ego.) Anyway here are our results for the week and for the season so far.

Maxx
Week 4: 7-7
Overall Record: 17-13

Top Dawg
Week 4: 6-8
Overall Record: 14-16

Bird
Week 4: 5-9
Overall Record: 13-17

TEAM MUTM: 44-46

Beating a Dead Horse

For three weeks in a row I've heard Romeo Crennel say in press conferences something to the effect of: "some people weren't' where they needed to be on defence, and that's something we need to work on in practice this week." What? I appreciate that each week you see an offensive scheme that is slightly different, but I'm still wondering why, in the 3rd year of this 3-4 with better talent, we're still having so much trouble. Tell me it's in-experience or injuries, but don't tell me they don't know where to line up. If that's still a problem 3 years into a system, there's a problem with one of two things: 1. The coaches don't do a good job teaching the system. 2. The players we've drafted aren't smart enough to learn the system. Maybe it's a combination of both, but I have a feeling it's a lot more of reason #1 than #2. Let's see if practice helped this week, cause we're going to need to stop Baltimore and keep them out of the endzone, because you know we're going to have trouble getting points on the board this week. I'm still taking Cleveland though, 17-16.

Week 4 Picks v. SteelSkins

Well, we were slightly humbled last week by the Steel Skins 28 wins to 26. So we decided to switch strategies this week. No more dart boards and blindfolds involved. This week it's for real. So while we're still awaiting the Steel Skins article they get to post, here are our picks for this week. GO BROWNS!

Top Dawg's Picks
Cleveland over Baltimore
Minnesota over Green Bay
Houston over Atlanta
New York Jets over Buffalo
Dallas over St. Louis
Chicago over Detroit
Miami over Oakland
Seattle over San Francisco
Tampa Bay over Carolina
Pittsburgh over Arizona
San Diego over KC
Indianapolis over Denver
Philadelphia over New York Giants
New England over Cincinnati

Overall Record: 8-8

Bird's Picks
New York Jets over Buffalo
Dallas over St. Louis
Chicago over Detroit
Miami over Oakland
Houston over Atlanta
Minnesota over Green Bay
Cleveland over Baltimore
Seattle over San Francisco
Carolina over Tampa Bay
Indianapolis over Denver
San Diego over Kansas City
Pittsburgh over Arizona
Philadelphia over New York Giants
New England over Cincinnati

Overall Record: 8-8

Maxx's Picks
Houston over Atlanta
New York Jets over Buffalo
Cleveland over Baltimore
Dallas over St. Louis
Chicago over Detroit
Miami over Oakland
Green Bay over Minnesota
Tampa Bay over Carolina
Seattle over San Francisco
Pittsburgh over Arizona
Indianapolis over Denver
San Diego over Kansas City
Philadelphia over New York Giants
New England over Cincinnati

Overall Record: 10-6

Steel Skins Wins First Weekly Pick'em

We're sad to say that MUTM lost the first weekly pick'em competition against the Steel Skins. It was extremely close though. (The Browns killed us!) Look for an article penned by the Steel Skins to be posted on MUTM this week. And next week we won't let our wives make our picks! Check out the scores below.

Team MUTM
Maxx - 10-6
Top Dawg - 8-8
Bird - 8-8
TOTAL - 26-22

Team Steal Skins
Aaron - 12-4
Sean - 10-6
Boss Hog - 6-10
TOTAL - 28-20

Oh Boy...

I tried to write something positive and clever, but this just sucks. A blocked field goal? Are you f'ing kidding me? Dawson nails that 99 times out of 100. Just f'ing block. Just block. Please...just...block...

Time to go to bed and build up my optimism for next weekend...

It's On!

We at MUTM were happy to accept a challenge from another blog called Steel Skins for a weekly Pick'em competition. We're going to post our picks for each game, each week before the first game of the week, add up our wins and losses, and then the blog with the best record wins for that week.

There is one major rule: picks must be made completely independently, so that you can't rig it to cover each game (for instance, if all three guys want to pick the Giants over Skins, you can't collude and decide that one guy should pick the Skins, to cover yourself.)

The winner then gets to post an article on the others blog about whatever they please. If you've visited Steel Skins, you'd see that it's a pretty big Steelers site, so we're excited about the possibility of some good ol'smack talkin. Our picks for the week are coming soon, and we apologize for the formatting, but the monkey that puts this site together can't seem to figure out how to post them any better. No food for him this week.

Week 3 Picks from Team MUTM

We've gladly accepted the challenge from Steel Skins for a weekly Pick'em competition. How could we not, half their bloggers are from Pittsburgh, so this should be easy. In addition, when we win we get to post an article on their blog about anything we want. So we at MUTM see this as a great opportunity to spread the good word about the Browns, and all things Cleveland! Peep our Week 3 picks below.

Maxx's Picks for Week 3

Cleveland over Oakland
Baltimore over Arizona
San Diego over Green Bay
Indianapolis over Houston
Minnesota over KC
New England over Buffalo
New York Jets over Miami
Philadelphia over Detroit
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
Tampa Bay over St. Louis
Denver over Jacksonville
Seattle over Cincinnati
Carolina over Atlanta
Washington over New York Giants
Dallas over Chicago
New Orleans over Tennessee

Top Dawg's Picks for Week 3

Cleveland over Oakland
Indianapolis over Houston
New England over Buffalo
Miami over New York Jets
Philadelphia over Detroit
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
St. Louis over Tampa Bay
San Diego over Green Bay
Baltimore over Arizona
Kansas City over Minnesota
Cincinnati over Seattle
Denver over Jacksonville
Carolina over Atlanta
Washington over New York Giants
Dallas over Chicago
New Orleans over Tennessee

Bird's Picks for Week 3

Cleveland over Oakland
Indianapolis over Houston
New England over Buffalo
New York Jets over Miami
Detroit over Philadelphia
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
St. Louis over Tamp Bay
San Diego over Green Bay
Baltimore over Arizona
Minnesota over Kansas City
Cincinnati over Seattle
Denver over Jacksonville
Carolina over Atlanta
New York Giants over Washington
Chicago over Dallas
Tennessee over New Orleans

IT'S MORNING IN CLEVELAND

While we here at MUTM normally stick to the greatest sport in the land, circumstances sometimes call for us to branch out and comment on the general Cleveland sports scene. So here goes...

Two words, Cleveland....ENJOY THIS!

We've all been conditioned to expect the worst when it comes to our teams. This has been ingrained in us through numerous heartbreaks, so it is not surprising. Last week, when the Browns were only able to muster a field goal to go up 51-38, how many of you had the first thought "uh oh. i see a 52-51 loss coming?" The answer, if you grew up in Cleveland or spent any amount of time following Cleveland teams, is all of you did. Of course you did. We've come to expect not just losing, but agony and heartbreak in ways that sound too ridiculous to believe. I don't need to recount them here, as I'm sure all of those wonderful moments will be played ad nauseam during the upcoming Tribe playoff run.

The point is...look around you. We are in the midst of Cleveland sports utopia. The Cavs reached the finals and the best player on the court during our playoff series was actually on OUR team. Not only that, but he is from just down the road! Now, rooting extra hard for Joe Jurevicius because he's a local kid done good is one thing, but when you have the local guy who is also the supreme talent in the game? Well you put in a bottle and you got something sweeter than Yoohoo.

And how about the Tribe? In case you haven't noticed, and judging by the attendance, you haven't, the Tribe has managed to win a couple here and there...OK, the attendance has actually gotten better. This team is playing inspired baseball right now. They are an absolute pleasure to watch and genuinely seem to enjoy each other (the pie in the face thing is a little cheesy, but the fact that they play Nintendo RBI baseball in the locker room before games is outstanding). They've taken care of Detroit, and now as we look forward to the playoffs, we are the proverbial "team no one wants to play." Is there an easy out in our lineup? Is there a better 1-2 starting combination than CC and Fausto? Does anyone have better set-up men than "The Dueling Rafaels?" What's my record for most consecutive rhetorical questions asked?

Even our beloved Brownies, after starting out the season in typical fashion, came back last week and showed us what this team could be. MUTM has been in the Braylon Edwards camp from the beginning and last week he showed the talent and determination to be a top 10 receiver in the league. K2 is a stud, as well. Most importantly, the offensive line looked not good, but great. The holes were there, the QB stayed clean. Pencil Thomas and Steinbach into the left side of our O-Line for the next five years at least. The defense has a little work to do, and I expect them to look much better this weekend.

The point is, there's lots to be happy about. Heck, even my fantasy team looks strong. So enjoy it Cleveland. Get over your ingrained assumption that something bad is going to happen. John Elway is not walking through that door, Michael Jordan is not walking through that door, Jose Mesa is playing in the Mexican League with Jake Taylor, I think.

Check Out "O Romeo, Romeo!"

On the left hand side of this blog, check out our new section, "O Romeo, Romeo!" Here we'll post great qoutes from Cleveland Browns Head Coach Romeo Crennel!

WOW! BROWNS WIN 51 - 45!

WOW! That's all I can say! Jamal is legit! Kellen doesn't drop the ball, and man, DA can throw! More later...

Here We Go!

Well at least now I know what to expect, which is nothing. Boy, for a minute there I had some hope for this season, and it took all of 20 minutes for the Browns to stab that hope to death with a butter knife. Well it's good and dead now!

I wrote about 8-8 being our Super Bowl last week, and now I'm not sure if that's even realistic. .500 and this Browns team my pass like two strangers in the night.

The only think I'm excited about tomorrow is to see how badly we are prepared for this game. How many asinine coaching decisions Romeo will make. I can't get over the fact that the talent has improved, but we are continually useless on the field. On Cleveland.com they were predicting the Browns losing to the Bengals (they must be clairvoyant!). But my problem is that they were also thinking the Browns were going to score...now that's just plain crazy talk. We'll score 10 points or less this week, Quinn will start next week, and we'll be on our way to ruining another QB! Joy! Well at least we've got the guy who LOST the QB competition starting for us!

But the Browns fan in me, is secretly hoping this phrase is true: "You're never quite as bad as you look, and you're never quite as good as you look." Let's just hope the Browns aren't as bad as they looked last week...

Belichick Still Screwing the Browns

Were you surprised? I was.

As much as Bill Belichick stunk as the coach of the Browns, as much as he had ripped out the heart of the franchise by cutting Bernie Kosar when the backup plan was Todd Philcox (Gesundheit), I had come to begrudgingly respect the coaching abilities of this man. He was, without question, an evil genius and the best coach in the NFL. Furthermore, at least the damage he did to Cleveland was already done. Like Ike Turner in prison, he couldn't hurt us anymore (other than the occasional times when the Patriots played our squad). We were safe from him forever.

But now he has been exposed as a cheater. Despite the non-apology (apologizing for a "mis-interpretation of the rule" is the same as saying "if anyone was offended, I apologize", which basically means "I think you are an idiot, but my agent made me say this"), this story is likely to have legs. Who knows how long this has been going on? Rumors that he employed the same tactics while coach of the Browns are pretty funny. We're apparently not even good at cheating. But it is not too big of a leap to see that Belichick, from all the way on the East Coast, is still screwing the Browns. Follow my logic here. If the Patriots have been stealing defensive signals, it is not too much of a leap to conclude that they were stealing offensive signals from the other team as well. This led to three (now tainted) Super Bowl titles and a dominating defense, which in turn led to the hot candidacy of a certain "jolly" defensive coordinator. Thus, we got a coach who, after a full off-season of workouts, OTAs and Training Camp practices, flipped a coin to decide the starter at quarterback for the first pre-season game, and then TOLD THE MEDIA ABOUT IT! Being stupid is one thing. Letting everyone else know that you are stupid is entirely another. And we sink further into the abyss...

So you see, once again, the world is aligned against the Browns and the Dr. Evil of the NFL has continued to pull the strings which continue to keep the franchise down. Can I prove any of this? Of course not, but can you disprove it?

One other interesting tidbit from today. The Forbes annual survey of franchise value came out. The last paragraph notes that "The Cleveland Browns were the only franchise whose value decreased. They rank ninth at $969 million, down from $970 million." Sounds about right...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/football/nfl/09/13/franchise.values.ap/index.html

You Can't Say we Dont Care

On the day the Browns shipped Charlie Frye to Seattle, an unprecedented number of users were on the message boards bitching, ranting, raving (about Brady Quinn only), and poking fun at an ailing franchise. You can say what you want about Browns fans, (trash, dreamers, circus freaks, losers, etc.) but you can't say we don't care about our team. At some point in the evening, there were close to 2000 users in the water cooler of berniesinsiders.com. There was some memorable chatter including next years head coach, Romeo's IQ and weight, suicide notes, etc. The funniest of the bunch was a list of movie quotes with Browns anecdotes filled in. Here are some of the good ones:

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this pathetic, losing Cleveland Browns team. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm fan emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest season since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny ******* Kaye. And when Romeo Crennel squeezes his fat ass down that CBS corridor next Sunday afternoon, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. "

"I think you're all f***ed in the head. We're 6 days from the fing Bengals game and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer just being a fan. It's a quest. It's a quest for wins. I'm gonna win and you're gonna win. We're all gonna have so many fing wins we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Cleveland Rocks' out of you're a-holes! Ahh. ha. ha. ha. I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see an elf. Praise the Brownie elf! Holy Sh*t!"

"Charlie, you're nothing to me now. You're not a quarterback, you're not a clipboard holder. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you at the stadium, I don't want you near my practice facility. When you see our coach, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?"

"Worse, How the hell can it get any worse. Look around you, We're at the threshold of hell."

"Caddyshack"
Cower: Whats your Record? (What did you shoot?-Smails)
Romeo: I don't coach for wins (I don't keep score-Tie Webb)
Cower: How do you measure yourself against other coaches?(How do you measure yourself against other golfers?-smails)
Romeo: By Weight(By Height-Tie Webb)"

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue."Airplane

God I Love Browns Fans

Hmm...

Vs.

FRYE TRADED TO SEATTLE!

Just 48hrs after starting the season opener for the Cleveland Browns, Charlie Frye is no longer on the team. He was traded today to the Seattle Seahawks to be one of their back-up QB's. The Browns received a 6th round draft pick for Frye. Not a good return for a former 3rd rounder.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

or

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7214446

Frye To Be Traded? Cut? Dorsey Back?

My how things change! Check out the Rumor Mill on PFT.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

or WTAM.com

http://www.wtam.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122520&article=2624000

Browns Steelers

I have nothing to say. I don't want to talk or think about it.
Please don't call me, email me, or text me. leave me alone. If you need to get in touch with me, come find me. Best place to start looking is the bottom of a very large bottle of Jose Cuervo.

Tonight Is Our Christmas Eve, 8-8 Is Our Super Bowl

I'm almost 30. As in like, 47 days away. And over the past few months, as I've watched my birthday creep up, I've been thinking a lot about my life, and what I'm doing with it. Is my job fulfilling? Do I need to make more money? Is my 401k properly distributed between stocks and bonds? But for the first time, in a long time, (well since last year I guess) I've forgotten about all the pressures of my career (if you can call it that), family, and my future, and I've been swept up by the optimism of a new season for the Cleveland Browns. Sad maybe, or pathetic, I'm not sure. But I do know it's true.

When I was little, on Christmas Eve I used to want to go to bed as fast as possible so that tomorrow would come and I could run downstairs and open up my gifts! I feel that way right now (with a little less innocence, and about 7 drinks thrown in...) and it's a nice feeling. To start anew, with eternal optimism and hope for nothing but the best, are some of the best characteristics that make us human. But they're also some of the wonderful feelings that we get from sports. We've all read the articles about the draw of sports to the average man, and these traits I guess, are what draw me.

Listening to Phil Savage's presser from a week ago, you'd think that this team is really competitive. The scary part is that I believe him. I think we are competitive. We've got some real talent here now. Our LB's are legit. Our receivers are pretty damn good. Our O-Line seems to be pretty solid. K2 is nasty. And hopefully, with some luck, and not too many injuries, we might win our fair share of games.

8 games is all I'm asking for. I want to run downstairs and open up a box of 8 wins this Christmas. That's it. Just give me .500 and we might as well have won the Super Bowl as far as I'm concerned.

And so tomorrow, as the saying goes, "we're all undefeated". And hope springs eternal. And if a dandelion were hard to grow it would be most welcome in any garden. (not sure where that came from) And I'm excited! So I'm off to bed to wake up tomorrow and put on my Quinn jersey! In Romeo We Trust...

Thoughts on Final Cuts, the QB Situation and Bernie Kosar

*Each time I listen to Bernie Kosar open his mouth, I die a little inside. I mean sure, he has some good insights and really knows defenses. I think he'd make a good offensive coordinator (though it's pretty clear his team would thrown 99% of the time). But either he has a real problem or he's pulling a Harry Doyle and keeping a nipper of Jack Daniels up there in the broadcast booth with him.

*No real surprises among final cuts. Derek Anderson made it for now and would likely step in if Charlie Frye gets injured in Week 1 and is out for awhile. Otherwise, he will get the most coveted job in sports...the 3rd QB. This is a pretty good life.

*Cutting Melila "Manu Manu the Slender" Purcell is disappointing, though not surprising, considering that Bird couldn't find him listed in any draft guide. My guess is that he'll end up on the practice squad. Chase Pittman and his hair were also let go. Pittman may end up on the practice squad, or he may end up in a boy band.

*Kudos to Kris Griffin for apparently making the team. He has become a fast favorite among those of us here at Metcalf up the Middle.

*Brady Quinn makes me feel giddy. He goes through his reads quickly and makes smart decisions with the football. We all remember Tim Couch dinking and dunking his way downfield, but he always appeared to use those outlets because he was panicked. Quinn calmly goes through his progressions quickly and seems to make the right reads most of the time. However....

*Charlie Frye starting game 1 is the right move. Charlie has some mobility and hasn't been terrible during preseason (Derek Anderson has). We play Pittsburgh, Baltimore and New England in the early weeks. No use throwing Brady to those wolves. If Frye succeeds against those teams, great. If not, look for Brady to start after the bye week.

*Look for the Browns to take a flyer on defensive end Bobby Hamilton, long-time Crennel protege in the 3-4, who was recently cut by the Jets. Seth Payne who went to Cornell (ever heard of it?) and sang in the group Here Comes Treble with Dunder Mifflin's own Andy Bernard, may also provide some help.

* One week until the bullets start flying for reals. Get your jersey out of storage (who am I kidding...you've been wearing it all year. Brown and orange looks good with everything).

Separated at Birth?

Willie McGinest and Lennie James from the show Jericho...separated at birth?