Week 7 Colts vs. Browns Game Thread

The Colts are at home to take on the Browns in this week seven match up. Get in on this open thread

The Indianapolis Colts will host the Cleveland Browns for their week 7 game, Sunday at 1PM EST.

Last week we saw the Colts offense take the field and almost immediately let us know, nothing good would be happening on that day in Florida. The Jacksonville Jaguars stayed in their base 4-3 set and Gardner Minshew couldn’t beat it, even with multiple three receiver sets. It was a really rough day for the offense, but week six is over and the Colts are on to their week seven opponent in the Cleveland Browns.

The Browns come into the week sitting at 3-2 with their own issues at the quarterback position. Starting quarterback Deshaun Watson has missed the last two games with a bruised rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder. In those two games the Browns offense has been really bad, averaging 11 points per game. In their three games with Watson the Browns were averaging just over 24 points per game. But their opponents during that stretch were the yet-to-find-themselves Bengals, the Steelers and the Titans, so you can take from that what you will. Offensively they’ve scored just 8 touchdowns through five games. 41% of the Browns points scored this season haven’t come by way of an offensive touchdown. For the sake of comparison the Colts have scored 14 touchdowns in six games and 30% of their points have come via non-offensive touchdowns and field goals.

To go along with their scoring struggles the Browns have also turned the ball over a league leading 12 times. To put it bluntly, the Browns offense has been bad, regardless of who is playing quarterback.

But then how do they have a winning record? Well, despite what you may have heard the NFL still allows teams to play defense and through six weeks the Cleveland Browns have played defense better than everyone else. The only thing the Browns defense seemingly doesn’t rank in the top five statistical categories in, is forcing turnovers. Today they’re facing a quarterback who turned the ball over four times a week ago and had multiple passes hit defenders in the hands before mercifully falling to the turf. So the Browns turnover troubles could turn around in a hurry if the Colts aren’t careful.

I wish I had some good nugget to give you about this Browns defense, some morsel of hope for the Colts offense, but I’m left with nothing of substance. All I can say is that on any given Sunday any NFL team can surprise you and today, I would be surprised if the Colts offense was able to do much against a great Browns defense.

But then again, stranger things have happened.

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This is your week seven open thread so hang out here, chat, celebrate, commiserate, and argue in the comments! Go wild (within reason)!