Browns - Skins Preview

Pick
The Skins are seven point favorites and that’s just about right. We like Washington to bounce back at home following last week’s loss to the Rams. How does 24-17 Skins sound?

Running Game
Statistically, Washington’s running attack is currently among the best in the NFL. However, the Skins’ #1 back, Clinton Portis, missed practice time this week due to an injury. If he is healthy, this will be the Browns’ rush defense’s biggest test to date in 2008. We will get to see if all that money spent up front was worth it. This corner believes Portis will get his 100+ yards and the Skins will take this one in their building.

No INTs
Secondly, Jason Campbell has yet to throw a pick this season. That’s impressive. If that trend continues, the Browns will lose the turnover battle and lose the contest.

Campbell is an adequate starter who is “managing” the game well for Washington. There’s that terrible phrase again – “managing the game.” The Browns will need to get him in second, and third and long, and hope to force him into a couple of mistakes today if they expect to earn the W.

Special Teams
There is one area of the game where Cleveland could come up big – special teams. Washington has allowed a pair of punt returns for touchdowns in ’08. Josh Cribbs is due to have a breakout game. If he delivers, that will go a long way toward a Cleveland win.

Cleveland Offense
We will see today if the Browns’ offense is back on track or if last week’s performance against the Giants was just a mirage. Derek Anderson will of course be the center of attention. If he outplays Campbell, the Browns win. If not, Cleveland will be sitting at 2-4 tonight.

Media
I must have read and heard a half dozen comments this week from area media types discussing how Phil Savage, Romeo Crennel and DA were “vindicated” after last week’s big win over the Super Bowl Champion Giants.

What a crock of $#@!

I would like to have a job where I perform at a high level only 20% of the time and then be allowed to feel good about myself. As we stated at the time – it was a huge win, the most impressive since the return of the franchise in 1999, but it was just one win and the first time this season in five tries the team played well from beginning to end (with the noticeable exception of those ridiculous procedure penalties).

The local media is so far in the tank, it's like watching MSNBC, CNN News, The New York Times, etc... cheerleading for Obama to win the presidency. Much of the local press picked Cleveland to win in Washington this week, despite Vegas putting Washington at -7.

Let’s do this one more time – yes, the Browns can win today - it's the NFL. However, based on what I have seen so far in ’08, the Skins are better – especially if they do the one thing they have done so well so far these first two months – not turn it over.

The Browns must stop the run and DA must not put the ball in the hands of the Skins’ secondary if the Browns expect to win. We just don’t see both of those things happening at the same time today. If they do, the Browns win and they are at 3-3 headed in the rigth direction.

Theoretically, being able to pick winners should be getting easier simply because we now have empirical evidence to base things on. Translation - these teams have now played enough games in '08 to get a read on what they do and don't do well.

Again, I would like to pick Cleveland, but the mind says otherwise.

Red Sox – Rays
If there is any justice in the world, Tampa will win game #7 tonight and advance to the World Series.

Speaking of Politics
I have come to the conclusion that John McCain simply does not want to win bad enough.

Perhaps, a better description is he refuses to go to the wall to win. He has refused to bring up Obama's 20-year relationship with a preacher who hates America (Jeremiah Wright). He waited too long to bring up Obama's association with radicals (i.e. terrorist Bill Ayers). And, he waited way too long to link Obama with what borders on socialist economic policies.

His campaign should have been running ads months ago letting the American people know what this country will look like with Obama as president, and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in complete control of Congress. He and his people, again, simply waited too long to make the point that the big spending liberals will be in total control of the nation's purse strings.

And I have yet to see an ad emphasizing what type of Supreme Court Justices Obama would appoint.

Secondly, in the debates, he had numerous opportunities to hammer Obama. There were several hanging curve balls he fouled off. For example, when Obama claimed he only had a passing association with Ayers, and besides that, the man is now a respected college professor, all Mcain had to say is was -

"Senator, I would never sit on a Board with this man like you did, I would not give speeches with this man liek you did, I would never work hand in and with this man on projects like you did, and with all due respect - I wouldn't even shake this man's hand.

"Senator, how can Americans trust you to go after the terrorists that are trying to kill us when you had the horrible judgment to form an association with a domestic terrorist who doesn't even regret anything he's done?"

That approach alone would have been worth five points in the polls. Unfortunately, McCain would rather lose being nice than pull out all the stops and actually try to win.

Right now, he looks like an old 72 just going through the motions.