Denver Broncos Host Cleveland Browns As AFC Action Hits The ‘Mile High City’

It’s never a good sign for a NFL head coach when a team beat reporter ranks you as the ‘worst in franchise history’. That’s what happened to Denver Broncos head coach Vance Joseph this week following his team’s horrible performance in a 20-14 road loss to the San Francisco 49ers. There really wasn’t a bright spot in Denver’s performance in losing outright as -3 point road favorites. The offense amassed a paltry 274 yards with the rushing game (103 yards or 3.8 yards per carry) and the passing game (171 yards or 7.1 yards per pass) equally abysmal. The Broncos’ defense made San Francisco quarterback Nick Mullens’ job much easier as he amassed 305 yards of passing (15.3 YPA) with 2 touchdowns against 1 interception. 210 receiving yards were amassed by tight end George Kittle including an 85 yard touchdown strike.

The Broncos had been awful in the first half of the season and entered the month of November having lost 6 of 7 games. They then experienced a bit of a winning streak winning their next three games against extremely capable opponents beating the Los Angeles Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals on the road and the Pittsburgh Steelers at home. That nice run didn’t do anything to get head coach Joseph off the hot seat. Travis Wakeman wrote an article on BroncoWire.com ranking the five worst coaches in franchise history. Joseph ‘earned’ the dubious distinction of being the worst coach in Denver Broncos’ history beating out another terrible coach in Josh McDaniels.

Wakeman’s ‘Vance Joseph is the worst’ case is extremely compelling: “Joseph is a guy that doesn’t have his team ready to play far too often. He doesn’t handle in-game situations at even an adequate level and his players play with far less enthusiasm than you would like to see.” That just about covers the job description of a National Football League head coach but if you want a quantitative assessment to go along with the qualitative analysis the article points out that unless the Broncos win two of their last three games the team will have back to back losing seasons for the first time since 1971-1972. There’s already a lot of ‘Fire Joseph’ sentiment among Broncos’ boosters as it is and consecutive losing seasons for the first time in nearly 50 years would make it a fait accompli. The zeitgeist in Denver is such that much of the media is covering the team as if Joseph has already been fired with speculation on a replacement running rampant.

On paper, Saturday night’s home game against the Cleveland Browns looks like the ‘most winnable’ game on the Broncos’ remaining schedule. That might not be the case and even if it is Joseph’s unholy trinity of bad playcalling, bad preparation and poor motivational skills might make it such. It shouldn’t be a problem getting the team ‘up’ to play against the Raiders and Chargers—two hated rivals. It’s easy to dismiss the Browns as a weak team that has won only once in their last 22 road games. Big mistake. A pass defense that managed to make Nick Mullens look like a Pro Bowl candidate should be easily pickin’s for budding superstar Baker Mayfield. The Browns are developing a nice running game to compliment Mayfield’s aerial attack—Nick Chubb has scored touchdowns in Cleveland’s last five games. The Browns are playing hard for interim head coach Gregg Williams and even more so for well liked offensive coordinator Freddie Hitchens. Hitchens has developed a nice rapport with Mayfield, a fact that won’t be lost on management during the offseason.

Even in their losses, the Browns have been very competitive this season with a 7-4 pointspread record as an underdog. Denver will once again be without Chris Harris, Jr. who is their best pass coverage option and they’ve got plenty of other injuries that might not make headlines on ‘ESPN SportsCenter’ but have a significant impact on the Broncos’ ability to win games. Case in point—wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders who was the Broncos’ best big play receiving option until he tore his Achilles Tendon in practice a couple of weeks ago.  Cleveland has all of the enthusiasm that Denver lacks and in what is otherwise a nice tactical matchup for future superstar Mayfield there’s no reason that the Browns can’t win this game outright.

BET CLEVELAND BROWNS +2.5 OVER DENVER BRONCOS