Cleveland Browns face Tom Brady, Bucs trying to avoid winless November
CLEVELAND − The last time the Browns were in their own stadium, it may have been their best performance of the season.
That was on Halloween night, when the Browns went out and pummeled the Cincinnati Bengals 32-13 to head into the bye with a bit of momentum. However, that momentum didn’t come out of the bye with them.
Instead, what has emerged as the calendar changed from October is a cold November rain on the Browns’ hopes for a big second half. They’ve dropped back-to-back games away from Cleveland to Miami and Buffalo, the latter one in Detroit thanks to a massive snowstorm in Western New York.
So as the Browns limp back with a 3-7 record to their home stadium for the first time this month, they do so trying to avoid going 0-for-November. They’ll do so against a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that is coming off the bye week, but has been the definition of up and down as evidenced by their 5-5 record.
“We still have games left,” quarterback Jacoby Brissett said. “The season isn’t over. We still have a job to do. You just worry about one week at a time. Whatever happens, happens. Like I said, there are more games and more season to be played.”
A former New England Patriots quarterback is making what may very well be his final start in front of Browns fans. Brissett, though, knew that his run as the starting quarterback for Cleveland would be over once Deshaun Watson returned from suspension, as he will next week in Houston.
Tom Brady may also be making his final appearance against the Browns after the 45-year-old returned for a 23rd season following a month-long “retirement” back on February. He’s not looked that age in finding a groove with Tampa Bay’s trio of talented receivers in Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Julio Jones.
That’s the challenge for a Browns defense that has only heard the criticism grow even louder the last two weeks after the Dolphins and Bills chewed them up. That noise will only grow deafening should they struggle against the Buccaneers, especially if they can also run the football on the Browns the way the previous two opponents did.
“I think they’ll do something similar to what the Bills did,” defensive end Myles Garrett said of his expectations from the Buccaneers offense. “I mean, the Bills were doing OK trying to throw the ball. I think they had kind of settled their mind on that, ‘We got hell of a quarterback back there,’ and they said, ‘You know, we’ll throw it and we’ll do what we usually do. We have the No. 1 pass offense.’ We were doing a good job playing the pass and then they cracked a few runs and said, ‘Well, if this is working we’ll keep on doing it.’ And I think the Bucs will try the same thing, but the difference is we have to be able to shore up the run and make sure that they don’t feel as comfortable running the ball and popping up some of those big runs.”
