Mid-week thoughts

Here we are 10 games into the weird 2020 National Football League season and the Browns are a hard-to-believe 7-3 and flirting with the postseason. (My fingers fought me typing that last part.)

They are in the comparatively strange position in the AFC North of looking up at only one team in the division standings. Strange because for the last two decades, they are normally looking up at three teams in the four-team division at this juncture of the season. 

Only unbeaten Pittsburgh and once-beaten Kansas City sport better records in the conference. The Browns own, along with Buffalo, Indianapolis and Tennessee, the third-best record. That's big-boy territory with only six games left in the regular season.

It's an old axiom in the NFL that games played in November and December separate the pretenders from the contenders. They take on significantly more importance. Right now, the Browns find themselves in uncharted territory. 

Beginning Sunday in Jacksonville against the Jaguires (yeah, I know), every game takes on much more relevance. One stumble can make the difference between playing in a game 17 and ostensibly beyond and making plans for next season.

Every series becomes more important. For that matter, every snap becomes more important. On both sides of the football. Rapt attention to -- and focusing on -- every minuscule detail is the paramount goal. They are means to an end.

For the first time in a long time -- the 2007 season to be exact when the Browns last challenged for the playoffs -- every game from here on out takes on an entirely different meaning. This club is not playing out the rest of the season, searching for respectability, as has been the case almost every season since 1999.

With their best record since 1994, when Bill Belichick coached the team that now resides in Baltimore, the Browns now have bull's-eyes on their backs. They are not the hunter anymore. They are the hunted. No longer are they the perennial pushover, the soft spot on teams' schedules. 

This is serious territory. They have worked hard under a rookie head coach to achieve this lofty status. Now it is up to them to prove this is not a fluke, an aberration, another big buildup to an even bigger letdown. Their fan base has waited too long, suffered too much to even consider that possibility.

This team has worked too hard and labored through some tough times during this season of the pandemic to all of a sudden lose sight of the goal, much as the Browns did in 2014 when they collapsed, losing their last five games and disappearing from the playoffs picture after starting the season 7-4.

This is foreign territory to a vast majority of this team. It might even seem somewhat surreal to some of the veterans who have been around long enough to endure the embarrassment that has dogged this franchise for way too long.

Most of the others have no idea of what lies ahead. They will experience a different kind of pressure as the schedule shrinks. The hope is they will learn from it. 

Playing four of the next five games away from home, where they are 5-1, makes it even more difficult, although they will enter three of them (the New York Giants, New York Jets and Jacksonville) as favorites.

Now the big question is: After the next six games, will the Browns emerge as mere pretenders or honest-to-goodness contenders?

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It seems lately that Kevin Stefanski's coachspeak when it comes to generically breaking down that week's opponent for the media in their mid-week sessions has become like a broken record when it comes to special teams. After talking about their offense and defense, he turns to special teams. That's where he might think about working on his wording. The transcript of the news conference is provided by the team. 

First the Eagles. After breaking them down on offense and defense, Stefanski said: "On special teams, I think they might be the fastest group we play all year." 

Now the Jags. After breaking them down on offense and defense, he said: "Special teams, I think it might be the fastest group we play all year."

Next up after the Jags, the Tennessee Titans, who probably have "the fastest group" of special teams the Browns "will play all year."