3 reasons the Browns — yes, the *Cleveland* Browns — could be a 2018 playoff team

For the first time since 2014, the Browns enter the month of December with legitimate, if slim, postseason hope, And unlike that ‘14 team — a club that finished its season with a five-game losing streak — this year’s Cleveland team is trending in the right direction.

So does it make any sense to believe in the Browns?

For 2019, sure. They have the foundation of a playoff team without a Hue Jackson-sized albatross hanging around its neck. In 2018? It’s dicey, but if you rub your eyes hard enough you can see the vague outline of a wild card berth. In 11 games, Cleveland has already matched its win total from the past three seasons combined.

With four.

So yes, there’s still so, so much work to be done. But these Browns have improved at an impressive pace this fall, and there’s reason to believe their midseason turnaround could potentially extend to an unlikely game on Week 18.

Here’s why Cleveland’s door to the postseason hasn’t completely shut just yet.

Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley both received their walking papers on Oct. 29, turning the team over to interim head coach Gregg Williams and newfound OC Freddie Kitchens. Before their departure, Cleveland was 2-5-1 with a -41 scoring differential. Since then, the Browns are 2-1 and outscoring foes by 11 points in that span.

Kitchens saw a challenge with prized quarterback prospect Mayfield and ran toward it, opening up the Cleveland playbook and allowing the rookie to fire passes to a wider variety of targets than he ever had under Jackson and Haley. While Jackson’s passing offense was predicated almost singularly on getting the ball to Jarvis Landry, Kitchens has given license for Mayfield to throw to at least eight different targets in each of his last three games and 12 different targets total in that span. This diversity has paid off in a big way.

It’s only been three games — and it’s come against injury-ravaged defenses from the Chiefs, Falcons, and Bengals — but those are borderline MVP candidate numbers. And he’s doing it with a receiving corps with all the depth of a kiddie pool. Mayfield has pushed David Njoku to match his potential, turned Duke Johnson into a receiving weapon out of the backfield, and even developed Ravens castoff Breshad Perriman into a legitimate target.

The bad news for Mayfield is his schedule gets much tougher over the course of five final must-win games. The Panthers and Bengals both have flawed passing defenses, but the rest of the Browns’ slate is brutal. The Texans and Ravens each have top-five defenses when it comes to yards gained per pass attempt. The Broncos are sacking opposing quarterbacks on nearly eight percent of their dropbacks. Mayfield’s going to have to keep his swagger up and continue to glean the most from his supporting cast to keep Cleveland’s win streak and playoff hopes alive.

The good news is, he’s been pretty great under pressure so far.

The biggest benefit of the Browns’ never-ending rebuild is that it’s brought a truckload of young, explosive, and inexpensive talent to the roster. Five of the team’s defensive starters were selected in the first three rounds of the last three drafts. Of the 10 players who have started seven or more games on defense, only one — linebacker Jamie Collins — is older than 26.

That’s led to some growing pains, but the talent has begun to shine through. These Browns are still very much a work in progress, and while they’ve been gashed for more than 415 yards per game in 2018 (31st-best in the league), they’ve come up big when their team has needed them the most, creating turnovers, stopping opponents on third down, and sharpening their senses near the goal line.

Denzel Ward is proving worthy of the No. 4 draft slot last spring, Damarious Randall and Jabrill Peppers are emerging as a solid safety tandem with the potential to be much more. Joe Schobert is a tackling machine in the middle of the field. And Myles Garrett continues to be a quarterback-haunting presence on the edge as a fast-twitch pass rusher. Those are all players who will get better, and they’re the Browns’ best chance to close the gap between 2017’s 31st-ranked scoring defense and a playoff unit in 2018.

There are relatively well-defined tiers in the American Football Conference through 12 weeks of 2018. At the top is the Chiefs, the conference’s only team to avoid a stupid loss this fall. Right below them, with the chance to jump to the uppermost level, are the Patriots, Steelers, Texans, and Chargers.

Then everything gets dicey. Six teams ahead of the Browns for the AFC’s sixth and final playoff spot are either 6-5 or 5-6. All have their own flaws. The Ravens have a looming quarterback controversy between Joe Flacco and Lamar Jackson and have already lost to Cleveland. The Bengals are cratering and trailed the Browns 28-0 late in the second quarter of last week’s blowout loss.

The Colts have a back-to-normal Andrew Luck, but a lack of defense and questionable depth suggests they aren’t ready to completely forget their 1-5 start just yet. The Broncos have a regressing-to-his-mean Case Keenum and the league’s easiest remaining schedule, but advanced stats suggest they’re a mediocre club — even on defense. No one knows what the hell the Titans are. The Dolphins are 2-6 in their last eight games.

Nine wins could be the key to securing that final wild card spot come New Year’s Eve. There’s a chance — a very slim chance, but still a somewhat reasonable one — the club that escapes the AFC’s mediocre team gridlock is a peaking Cleveland squad.

Cleveland’s slow start may keep the franchise in football purgatory for its 16th straight season. If the Browns and Bengals both lose this weekend and the Steelers defeat the Chargers, Cleveland will be officially eliminated from the AFC North race.

The division title is, for most intents and purposes, out of reach. The wild card is more attainable, but Cleveland will have to be nearly perfect to get there. The rest of the Browns’ schedule doesn’t do them many favors:

All five of the team’s final opponents are in the playoff hunt, though the Bengals are rapidly plummeting from that orbit. Each will be hoping to pick up what was originally looked like an easy win back in August. Cleveland’s latest surge has helped darken the hopes of other playoff contenders, but extending the team’s current win streak from two to seven — the team’s longest streak since 1968 — is going to be extremely difficult. Even if we give the Browns a 50/50 shot to win each of their final five games, the odds of them going 5-0 and getting to 9-6-1 are 1 in 32.

Those are rough odds, and they’d require a history-defying string of mastery to get there. But for the first time in a long time, the Browns are starting to believe in themselves.

“You are starting to see a team that everybody in this building knew was here,” starting center JC Tretter told the Associated Press. “We do understand that if we do take it one game at a time and everything goes our way, there is an opportunity to keep playing football games into January and into February, but that is something that we can’t look too far ahead on right now.”

Tretter isn’t wrong. A Cleveland playoff push isn’t just mathematically possible, but even slightly, just-a-little-bit feasible. The Browns are trending upward for the first time in what feels like decades, and while their slow start may lead their path toward a postseason game to a dead end, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to ruin other teams’ playoff dreams in the process.

Cleveland is alive and fighting, and that means a handful of hastily penciled “W”s across the league are slowly getting erased with each and every Baker Mayfield touchdown pass. That’s progress in Ohio — and it could lead to the Browns’ first playoff berth since 2002.