"This was the kind of game that makes you believe the Browns will make the playoffs." —Terry Pluto

I started this edition of Born and Raised with a quote from Terry Pluto's Monday morning article, "Browns turning fans into [pancakes] believers," to highlight the wrongheadedness of so many football analysts. Just scraping by against a bad team like the Jets—and they truly have been a bad team this season—is not an indicator of pancakes-preparedness. In fact, I'd say it's the opposite.

You know what is an indicator of pancakes-preparedness? Beating the ever-loving shit out of a bad team. And I'm not just pulling this stuff out of nowhere. According to Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, the best predictor of post-season success is not "knowing how to win" or any crazy maxim like that. He wrote, "People want to believe that the teams that can win the close ones are championship teams. But as counter-intuitive as it sounds, championship teams are generally defined by their ability to easily win games over inferior teams."

Granted, barely beating the Jets is the same as badly beating the Jets in that they're both worth one win in the standings. But barely beating them is barely a good thing, while stomping all over them would've been great. The Browns have a good chance of reaching the post-season, and they do deserve it. This week's game just isn't evidence of that.

Play of the Week

Alex says: By my count, Jamal Lewis broke at least six tackles on his fourth-quarter, thirty-one-yard, nearly-game-clinching touchdown. Without doing any fancy-pants "research," I think we can safely conclude that Lewis's 5.2 yards per broken tackle in the last 1:31 of the game represent the new team record in that category. Way to go, Jamal—even though your overall game wasn't nearly as successful as people think.

Corey says: Braylon Edwards' franchise-record-tying touchdown catch was one of his coolest-looking catches of the year, and that's really saying something. Not only did he see the play all the way to completion without ever using his left hand; he snared the ball between his right hand and right shoulder, as if flexing a bicep. The guy may be a little inconsistent, but give him credit: he makes catches only a superstar makes.

Player of the Week

Alex says: He only made two plays, which may not be enough to qualify him as the Player of the Week, but he's definitely not an Obscure Brown, so I say: meh, whatever. Jerome Harrison, I choose you. Jerome got two carries on consecutive 1st-and-10s, and gained seventeen then four yards—both successes. Considering this and his other great running earlier this season, why doesn't Harrison get more touches? Now, I realize that Harrison might've benefitted from the defense being "worn down" by Jamal Lewis, but I'm not advocating benching Lewis. Just use the two more efficiently. I know that Harrison could be a great change of pace back, especially for more than two snaps.

Corey says: It's fair to say that Mistake by the Lake fave Leigh Bodden has had a disappointing season, especially by his own lofty standards. However, this week we saw a mini-return to the Bodden of 2005-2006. When he has one of his great games, it's usually not by making lots of acrobatic plays, swatting balls to the ground, and intercepting passes; it's by covering his man so well that the opposing quarterback never even tests him. Sure enough, the Jets only tested Bodden once, by my unofficial count, and the only other times Leigh shows up in the play-by-play are when he was cleaning up other people's mess (like making tackles on running plays, etc.). Basically, it was a non-sight for sore eyes.

Quote of the Week

Alex says:

"[The defense] bent some, but we didn't break." —Kamerion Wimbley

Didn't break? Didn't break?! What then do you call giving up three scoring drives in the final five minutes of the game? Sure, for the last two, the Jets had very good field position. But that didn't cause the defense to allow four first downs on those two drives. Clearly, the defense remains the weak spot for the Browns. They've improved slightly since the weekly meltdowns of early 2007. With a decent defense, who knows how far this team could go?

Corey says:

"When it started raining, I knew we'd have to run." —Jamal Lewis

"It's cold, so you want to run the football." —Jamal Lewis

I don't want to single out Lewis, because this opinion, it seems to me, is shared by most: when it's cold, you run. Now, I realize that many in the media will haphazardly jump on any excuse to advocate rushing, rushing, and more rushing. But I don't understand the specific logic behind this one. Is it that running backs are supposedly the tougher players and therefore are less affected by the cold? At any rate, I am going to hypothesize that passing success and running success are affected by weather conditions to (more or less) the same degree. And that's if they're affected at all: doesn't the cold affect the defense too? I can't remember if I've read articles about this before; I welcome anyone to chime in if they're aware of a serious study.

Ryan Pontbriand Honorary Special Teams Moment of the Week

Alex says: Le Fils d'Awesome's forty-nine-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter just barely squeaked inside the upright. Now, for some, that's cutting it close. But for Phil—Human, Robot, Borg, or otherwise—that's as close to "right down the pipe" as you're going to get for a 40+ yarder. That Dawson's kickoffs only travelled, on average, 53.2 yards speaks to the difficultly of kicking long-distance with accuracy in Giants Stadium.

Corey says: The Browns' vaunted kickoff return team only got two opportunities in the game. The Jets' vaunted kickoff return team, however, got several more than that, and I'm pleased to say the Browns' kickoff team did an excellent job holding them in check. On the opening kickoff, the Jets started from the 10-yard line due to a muff. The next two times, the Jets started at the 30- and 32-yard lines. Then there was my Special Teams Moment of the Week: Jason Wright's stop of Leon Washington at the Jets' 20-yard line early in the fourth quarter. Finally, late in the fourth quarter, the Jets ended up with good field position (the 40-yard line) due to an extremely short kick. All in all, though, it was a good day for the kickoff team.

Madre Hill Memorial Obscure Brown of the Week

Alex says: The Browns' first four draft picks from this season have all made a name for themselves one way or another: Joe Thomas, Brady Quinn, Eric Wright, Brandon McDonald. But tell me, can you name the team's next pick, from the sixth round? Too late, it's Melila Purcell III, a defensive end out of Hawaii. As Corey has noted before, Melila is Samoan, which I believe is a Browns second, after Pio Sagapolutele. Here's to the first of his (hopefully) many Obscure Brown of the Week awards!

Corey says: Another week, another recently-acquired Brown you've never heard of. This time it's linebacker Colby Bockwoldt, signed to replace the injured Kris Griffin. Bockwoldt, a four-year special teams veteran, last appeared on the prestigious San Francisco 49ers practice squad. He instantly becomes one of the top 11 current Cleveland athletes to share his name with a variety of cheese.

Fashion Item of the Week

Alex says: I got nothing, I really do. Except those orange parkas are always kind of an eyesore. Can't they make them brown or something? Just a little elegance would be nice.

Corey says: You may accuse me of being an unfeeling robot if you wish, but why must the Browns (and 30 other NFL teams) continue to wear helmet decals memorializing fallen hero/greatest American patriot Sean Taylor? Plenty of football players have died before—a number of them in-season—and there was no league-wide, mandatory memorial patch or decal, let alone a multi-week one. I suspect the answer is that Sean Taylor was a starter, and famous. But the Browns are already memorializing Bill Willis on the back of their helmets. One of these days, NFL uniforms are going to look like boy scout costumes, with 43-year anniversary patches, team captain logos, green dots on the helmets, 25 dead people's initials, and "My other helmet is a BMW" decals. Enough is enough! You can mourn the loss of Sean Taylor without wearing his initials everywhere you go. More importantly, mourning is personal: the players of the NFL should not be forced to do it publicly, or at all.

Idiot of the Week

Alex says: The Jets were facing a 4th-and-10 with 1:48 left, down by five. Eric Mangini sent in the kicking unit—and Mike Nugent made the 38-yarder—but was this the right decision? After the kick, to win the game, the Jets would've needed to recover an onside kick, gain at least twenty-five yards, and hit another field goal. It'll be inexact, but let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculations. I didn't feel like looking too hard, but I found that last season about one-in-four onside kicks in obvious onside-kicking situations were successful. Let's say the Jets' chances of gaining twenty-five yards and leaving themselves with enough time to attempt a field goal (they did have three timeouts left) are 90%, which is pretty generous. For his career, Mike Nugent has made field goals over thirty yards three-quarters of the time. So, using these numbers, when Mangini decided to send in Nugent, his team's chances of winning was about 12%. Mangini could've, however, gone for it on fourth down—a first down would've put them at the ten, at worst. Their chances of punching it in from there would be pretty high, 60% maybe? So, for the kicking it strategy to be the best, the probability of converting a 4th-and-10 would have to be lower than one-in-five. Personally, I think that they had a much better chance of converting than one-in-five. This is a roundabout way of saying that I think Mangini messed up his endgame strategy and he's my Idiot of the Week.

Corey says: I, too, would like to know what the heck Mangini was thinking. But hey, I'm not complaining. It's just that I don't think there's any degree of lopsided, over-generous calculation you can do that will show that your chance of recovering an onside kick is better than your chance of converting a 4th-and-10. But that's just me.

Number of the Week

Alex says: 26, or the number of rushing plays called by Rob Chudzinski. Now, that number on its own isn't terribly interesting, but I broke down the rushing plays by direction and success. You might remember from Corey's Browns–Jets preview, the maxim of "the lefter, the better," meaning that the further left the Browns rush, the more success they find, according to Adjusted Line Yards. Paradoxically, they have rushed to the left much less often than other teams. But this week, that pattern was reversed. The Browns rushed twelve times to the left (marked "left end" or "left tackle"), nine times up the middle ("left guard," "up the middle," or "right guard"), and only five times to the right ("right tackle" or "right end"). And did pounding the ball to the left result in more success? Well, it depends on your outlook. The three longest runs of the day all went to the left, but it's hard to attribute the difference between a twelve-yard and forty-yard run to the offensive line. Using success rate, we see that the Browns were much better running to the right—80% of rushes were successful, compared to 22% up the middle, and 42% to the left.

Corey says: We'll have a better idea tomorrow (when this page is updated), but for now, my best estimate as to the Browns' pancake odds is... 70%. With about a 10% chance of winning the AFC North. I will further conjecture that if they beat the Bills next weekend, their pancake odds will rise to—at the minimum—90%. Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times: your one-stop shop for completely made-up, hypothetical statistics!!!

This Week on Josh's Cribbs

Corey says: The latest installment of Josh's Cribbs finds Josh taking part in a pair of activities: first, taking his two dogs to the groomer, and second, recording music in his basement studio with teammate Brandon McDonald. McDonald is on hand for his (supposedly) renowned R&B singing voice. Interestingly, he's the first Browns teammate of Josh's to appear on the TV show without giving an interview for the camera (apparently, he's shy). This was a very low-key episode; once again, I'm hoping for something a little zanier next week.

Pythagorean Moral Standings

Well, obviously, the Browns crushed the Jets. At this point of the season, the Jets' only hope is for other teams to get caught cheating against them and have their crushing moral wins nullified by the league. Meanwhile, the Steelers did their best Jets impression, getting morally destroyed by New England. Baltimore, as always, got shut out—this time by the Colts. Oh yeah, Cincinnati lost too.

            PMW   PML   pct
Cleveland  10.7   2.3  .823
Cincinnati  6.4   6.6  .492
Pittsburgh  5.6   7.4  .431
Baltimore   0.0  14.0  .000

Next week: The Buffalo Bills become the first in a series of falling dominoes at the hands of the mighty Browns, their blue-collar play and their blue-collar fans. We'll be here to potentially spray the literary champagne all over our parents' basement on the next edition of Born and Raised on the Cleveland Browns!