Okay, that title could be the opener to any number of jokes. But I mean “strange season” in the way Football Perspective has used the phrase before. Take a look at Cleveland’s schedule and results from 2013:
| Score | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | Day | Date | Rec | Opp | Tm | Opp | |||
| 1 | Sun | September 8 | boxscore | L | 0-1 | Miami Dolphins | 10 | 23 | |
| 2 | Sun | September 15 | boxscore | L | 0-2 | @ | Baltimore Ravens | 6 | 14 |
| 3 | Sun | September 22 | boxscore | W | 1-2 | @ | Minnesota Vikings | 31 | 27 |
| 4 | Sun | September 29 | boxscore | W | 2-2 | Cincinnati Bengals | 17 | 6 | |
| 5 | Thu | October 3 | boxscore | W | 3-2 | Buffalo Bills | 37 | 24 | |
| 6 | Sun | October 13 | boxscore | L | 3-3 | Detroit Lions | 17 | 31 | |
| 7 | Sun | October 20 | boxscore | L | 3-4 | @ | Green Bay Packers | 13 | 31 |
| 8 | Sun | October 27 | boxscore | L | 3-5 | @ | Kansas City Chiefs | 17 | 23 |
| 9 | Sun | November 3 | boxscore | W | 4-5 | Baltimore Ravens | 24 | 18 | |
| 10 | Bye Week | ||||||||
| 11 | Sun | November 17 | boxscore | L | 4-6 | @ | Cincinnati Bengals | 20 | 41 |
| 12 | Sun | November 24 | boxscore | L | 4-7 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 11 | 27 | |
| 13 | Sun | December 1 | boxscore | L | 4-8 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 28 | 32 | |
| 14 | Sun | December 8 | boxscore | L | 4-9 | @ | New England Patriots | 26 | 27 |
| 15 | Sun | December 15 | boxscore | L | 4-10 | Chicago Bears | 31 | 38 | |
| 16 | Sun | December 22 | boxscore | L | 4-11 | @ | New York Jets | 13 | 24 |
| 17 | Sun | December 29 | boxscore | L | 4-12 | @ | Pittsburgh Steelers | 7 | 20 |
It might not be immediately obvious, but the Browns season was pretty strange. The best teams Cleveland faced were the Chiefs, Patriots, and Bengals. The Browns split the season series against Cincinnati; in the other two games, both on the road, Cleveland lost by a total of 7 points. The worst team the Browns faced was the Jaguars, whom Cleveland lost to at home.
In last season’s Bears preview, I wrote about strange seasons. In that post, for each team game, I looked at two variables: the opponent’s SRS rating and the location-adjusted margin of victory (giving three points to the home team) in the game. After running the numbers, I found that the 2012 Bears had the least strange season in modern history, as Chicago’s performance nearly perfectly matched up with their opponent’s SRS rating (i.e., the Bears were outscored by a lot against the top teams, played even against the average teams, and blew out the bad teams).
I re-ran this study using the 2013 season. As a reminder, we would expect there to be a negative correlation between the two variables for each team: as the opponent’s rating decreases, the team’s margin of victory should increase. In 2012, the correlation coefficient between those two variables was negative for every team; last year, it was negative for 31 of the 32 teams, with the Browns being the only outlier. Take a look:
| Rk | Tm | CC |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CLE | 0.05 |
| 2 | NYJ | -0.18 |
| 3 | CIN | -0.21 |
| 4 | HOU | -0.21 |
| 5 | SDG | -0.25 |
| 6 | SEA | -0.27 |
| 7 | NWE | -0.29 |
| 8 | IND | -0.34 |
| 9 | MIA | -0.35 |
| 10 | DAL | -0.36 |
| 11 | GNB | -0.37 |
| 12 | CHI | -0.39 |
| 13 | ARI | -0.4 |
| 14 | NOR | -0.4 |
| 15 | BUF | -0.42 |
| 16 | DET | -0.45 |
| 17 | STL | -0.51 |
| 18 | PIT | -0.51 |
| 19 | OAK | -0.54 |
| 20 | MIN | -0.54 |
| 21 | PHI | -0.55 |
| 22 | DEN | -0.57 |
| 23 | ATL | -0.61 |
| 24 | TEN | -0.62 |
| 25 | WAS | -0.65 |
| 26 | TAM | -0.67 |
| 27 | BAL | -0.72 |
| 28 | KAN | -0.73 |
| 29 | CAR | -0.74 |
| 30 | SFO | -0.74 |
| 31 | JAX | -0.76 |
| 32 | NYG | -0.84 |
Minor sidetrack: remember the Giants 0-6 start? New York finished the season on a 7-3 run, although that doesn’t mean they improved very much. In fact, the Giants were the most predictable team in the NFL according to this metric. That 0-6 start included blowout losses to the Chiefs, Broncos, Panthers, and Eagles, but we did not yet know how good Kansas City, Carolina, and Philadelphia would turn out to be. Even close losses to Dallas and Chicago were not the marks of a terrible team. Then, the 7-3 run included two wins against Washington, home wins against the Raiders, Vikings, and Aaron Rodgers-less Packers, and wins against the Lions and Nick Foles-less Eagles (the losses were to Dallas, San Diego, and Seattle). In other words, the Giants looked terrible against the very good teams, good against the bad teams, and mediocre against the average teams. But the way the schedule was ordered led to a very streaky season.
Back to the Browns. Cleveland wasn’t totally flipped — it’s not as though the correlation coefficient indicated a strong positive relationship. The CC was essentially zero, but that is odd because it means the team’s production was essentially not impacted by the opponent. Now, is that anything other than a quirky fact or bit of trivia? Probably not; after all, we should expect a team every few years to have this type of strange season. And it’s hard to make the case that Cleveland “put it together” at some point when you consider that the Browns’ near upset of New England came just one week after the home loss to the Jags.
Although since Browns fans are likely desperate for positive news, I’ll add that there is some evidence to indicate that a very strange season like this might indicate a higher ceiling for the team. The defense is talented and very young, and the offense now has four cornerstones in Josh Gordon, Joe Thomas, Alex Mack, and Jordan Cameron. Ex-Texans running back Ben Tate might be the fifth, and slot receiver Andrew Hawkins (from Cincinnati) could find lots of room to operate on a suddenly talent-rich offense. If Mike Pettine can make the defense a top-ten unit, the Browns are only a quarterback away from being a legitimate AFC contender. Of course, if the Browns ever get that quarterback (Johnny Manziel? Teddy Bridgewater?), that would lead to the strangest season of all.