Browns' Damarious Randall: 'We feel like we’re a playoff team'
It’s been quite a season for the Cleveland Browns. They won their first game in almost two years, and then won four more. Baker Mayfield went from first overall draft pick to starting quarterback. Head coach Hue Jackson was fired, and Condoleezza Rice was rumored to be his replacement (for a few hours at least).
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But how about the playoffs? Could that be next? It’s a long shot, but safety Damarious Randall told the Akron Beacon Journal that he thinks the Browns deserve a playoff spot.
“We feel like we’re a playoff team,” Randall said Tuesday. “We feel like we deserve one of them six spots. We know we dug ourselves in a hole, and we know that we need some help. It starts with us winning out.
“If we win out, they just better not let us in the playoffs. I’m going to tell you that because the world was shocked when the Cavs came back from 3-1 [to defeat the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals].
“We got all the pieces, man. We’re a complete team, and if guys take care of what they got to do play in and play out, we’re a tough out. And I mean that, and everybody knows that.”
Putting “Browns” and “playoffs” in the same sentence is unfathomable, but this isn’t the same Browns team that failed constantly in 2016 and 2017. And Randall is obviously hyped about it. He’s so hyped that he invoked the memory of the now-legendary 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that brought Cleveland its first championship in 52 years.
Randall might be imagining the Browns in the playoffs, but he admitted that they have some work to do before they get there. And they definitely do. To make the playoffs, the Browns have to win all three games they have left to play. In Week 15, they face the Denver Broncos. Then in Week 16, it’s the Cincinnati Bengals again. And in the Week 17 finale, they take on the Baltimore Ravens.
Beating those three teams won’t be easy, but it is doable. The Broncos have a losing record, though they’ve won three of their last four games. The Bengals are mired in a five-game losing streak, and the Browns gave them one of those five losses — they beat the Bengals 35-20 in Week 12. The Ravens, like the Broncos, have also lacked consistency but have won three of their last four games.
It’s possible that the Browns could win all of those games, though it’s not likely. But that this team is even in the playoff conversation — and not as the first team eliminated from contention — is such a dramatic turnaround from the last few years.
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