Closer Than You Might Think

After a successful year for the Cleveland Browns, it looks like they may still be a couple years away from contending for the AFC championship and the Super Bowl...or are they? After the New York Giants won yesterday, I went back and found a statistic I remembered reading a couple weeks ago from Peter King, journalist for Sports Illustrated that showed the Browns might not be that far off from becoming a serious contender. Here is the difference between the Cleveland Browns and World Champion New York Giants: The Browns were 7-1 at home and 3-5 on the road in the regular season. The Giants were 7-1 on the road and 3-5 at home.

Both teams finished the regular season with an identical record of 10-6, but because the AFC is an overall tougher division (and a serious choke job at Cincinnati), the Browns lost out on making the playoffs. This statistic might mean very little to you, but when you are a Cleveland sports fan, anything positive that you can read into (and I am really reading into this) means a lot.