Cleveland Browns: It’s officially time to hit the panic button

For anyone holding out hope that the Cleveland Browns were about to turn things around, the time to panic has now officially arrived.

It’s officially time to panic for the Cleveland Browns as they dropped their fourth-straight game to fall to 2-6 on the season with an embarrassing 24-19 loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 9. Why was this loss embarrassing and why is it just now time to panic in Cleveland?

The score would signify a close, hard-fought contest. Diving deeper into the Browns locker room and what’s going on there, though, more answers as to why the loss to Denver was a disaster and why the hapless Cleveland Browns we know and love (some of us, at least) showed up yet again.

Cleveland was coming into the game on a three-game losing streak on the verge of collapsing after such high praise in the offseason. They had a very favorable opponent in the Broncos who were without Joe Flacco and starting a quarterback who had never taken an NFL snap, Brandon Allen. Not to mention, Denver traded away its best receiver in Emmanuel Sanders and looked primed to pack it in for the rest of 2019.

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The weather was even nice in Denver — a lot better than it typically should be in a November game. So, the Browns had everything going for them on paper to go on the road and win this matchup.

Instead, they came out about as flat as possible on both sides of the ball. Missed tackles, uninspired play-calls and (once again) poor protection of the quarterback by the offensive line led to the Browns notching their sixth loss of the season. But the on-the-field play is not exactly what should drive Browns fans into fits of anger.

For one thing, Baker Mayfield shaved his beard in the stadium more times than he threw touchdowns against the Broncos. He arrived on the scene with a full beard, a “scruffy” look, which he promptly shaved off into a classic “Hulk Hogan” stache during pregame. After the loss, he came out to his press conference with the “Milk Man” style. Obviously, the guy can do whatever he wants — but isn’t it a little gimmicky, especially with the state the Browns are in at the moment?

Another prominent storyline from this game was the cleat controversy surrounding Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry. Both OBJ and Landry came out during warmups with unapproved cleats and continued into the game wearing those same ones. The league had to step in and force both of them to change their cleats or they’d be subjected to being held out of the rest of the game.

Then, there was the whole Jermaine Whitehead situation where he threatened people (a radio personality and a fan) on Twitter who were agitating and criticizing him for his poor tackling on a couple of big plays. Whitehead is now out of a job because the Browns cut him the following day.

Winning football teams, and franchises with winning cultures do not behave like this. One of Mayfield’s best qualities is his swagger, the chip on his shoulder that never seems to fall off. But that only works when you’re winning games.

You can’t snap at reporters and lose your cool in front of the public. That’s not the way to garner respect in this league, especially as a young player. You can’t have your two best receivers do whatever they want whenever they want and violate league rules that could put them out of your lineup.

In the case of OBJ, this is yet another uniform violation he’s had this season. He had the watch on opening day, the wrong visor on Monday Night Football against the New York Jets, and now the wrong cleats. Throw that into all the other stuff he did in New York with the Giants and you have your next big diva wide receiver.

But why is it now time to panic if you’re the Cleveland Browns? This Broncos game was a gimme. Denver was beaten up, starting a quarterback who’d never been under center in the NFL before and virtually done with their season. And Cleveland looked like the worse team on the field by comparison.

Now, the Browns are 2-6 still without a home win about to face one of the best defenses in football in the Buffalo Bills. Yes, the schedule is a lot easier on the back end for this team, but they just lost one of the easiest games they could’ve hoped for at a time like this. And with the Ravens win over New England, the AFC North seems to run through Baltimore.

Things are looking very bad right now for the Brownies.