Torpedo or resuscitate

There comes a time in a season when a football team arrives at a juncture during the schedule where the difference between winning and losing either torpedoes the entire season or resuscitates it.

The Browns are at that juncture Monday night at home with resuscitation in mind when they take on the red-hot Cincinnati Bengals in front of a national television audience. 

The Browns are the polar opposites of the 4-3 Bengals, entering the game with a four-game losing streak and 2-5 record. The last time the Browns lost five straight games in the same season was 2017, when they lost them all.

The history between these division rivals in the last four seasons is a bit deceiving, The Browns have won seven of eight, including the last four in a row, but that was before the emergence of quarterback Joe Burrow, who has transformed the Bengals into a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

Putting this into perspective, getting to the Super Bowl is merely a pipe dream, a fervent hope for starved Browns fans. The much younger Bengals franchise has been there three times, Winless in three tries, but three times more than Cleveland.

The Browns not only need to win this one, they must win it or the season is flushed down the drain and welcoming Deshaun Watson back from the suspended list for game 12 in early December only means the early stages of putting together the 2023 Cleveland Browns offense commences.

Burrow, who led the Bengals to their third Super Bowl appearance last season in just his second National Football League season, has never beaten the Browns in three tries. He's thrown for 1,003 yards with six touchdown passes, but zero victories. He sat out last season's finale after clinching the AFC North title.

He comes into this one blazing -- six scoring passes, no interceptions and 885 yards in his last two games -- against a Cleveland defense that has been mistake-prone throughout the season. In the process, he has risen to the top tier of NFL quarterbacks along with Patrick Mahomes II, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert.

He comes in with one huge bullet removed from his arsenal. Ja'Marr Chase, his favorite receiver who caught 15 passes for 262 yards and four touchdowns in his last two games, is out with a hip injury, bumping Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd to the top of the wide receiver rotation. 

Chase's absence could possibly change Bengals head coach Zac Taylor's game plan against the Browns and concentrate on running the football. A quick glance at the stats reveals the Browns have surrendered 175 yards a game on the ground in their last four outings.

Numerous critics all season long have carped about the need for defensive tackles and the front office appears to have responded with almost disdainful inaction, basically saying, "We don't need no stinking defensive tackles." 

Yes you do. Take off your blinders, gentlemen.

That said, Taylor hasn't really unleashed running back Joe Mixon this season, riding Burrow's elite arm to the top of the division after an 0-2 start. Mixon, who has yet to record a 100-yard game this season, has three of them against Cleveland in eight games. 

Keeping him busier than usual is one way to take whatever heat the Cleveland pass rush can bring from the edge off Burrow, who tends to hold on to the ball longer than he should. His 24 sacks thus far is a little misleading, though, 13 coming in the first two games (both losses) and just 11 in the last five games (4-1).

The Bengals' defense has in a different way been just as big a story as the offense in becoming the NFL's best second-half team. As in the second half of every game this season. The next team that scores a touchdown against this defense in the final 30 minutes will be the first.

A big challenge for the Cleveland offense, which has scored 77 points in the second half this season, including at least one touchdown in each of the last six games. That will depend largely on whether head coach and playcaller Kevin Stefanski returns to the run-first stance that has been so successful.

Quarterback Jacoby Brissett will operate at a slight disadvantage with tight end David Njoku down with a high ankle sprain and right guard Wyatt Teller (calf) missing his second game in a row. That means Harrison Bryant moves up to TE1 for the game with Pharaoh Brown backing up.

Out for the defense is cornerback Denzel Ward, still in concussion protocol, while linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, who had his best game last week against Baltimore, is listed as questionable and hasn't practiced all week with a knee.

Look for a lot of scoring with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, playing perhaps his last game as a Brown pending trade-deadline moves Tuesday, leading the way for the Browns on the ground, and Burrow sustaining his hot streak even with Chase on the sidelines as a spectator and throwing three more touchdown passes. The Bengals' second-half TD streak comes to an end and so, too, does the Browns' 2022 season, for all practical purposes, as the losing streak reaches five games. Make it:

Bengals 34, Browns 21