Power Ranking the Browns for Week 9
The 2024 season is BACK ON, baby!!!
It feels strange to write this column after a Browns victory. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, akin to your aunt saying she’s “trying out a new gravy recipe” at Thanksgiving this year. You knew the old gravy, got used to the old gravy. But deep down, you always felt that the gravy was trash. You dreaded the gravy boat being passed to you, knowing you had to watch that liquid descend on your pile of turkey like slush. A new recipe, just by means of being something different, certainly couldn’t be any worse.
Jameis Winston is that new gravy, and suddenly, things don’t seem so bad in Browns-land. The Browns knocked off a division rival and one of the best teams in the NFL in the Ravens. The offense scored 20 points for the first time all season. Tim Couch smashed a guitar. The vibes, at least for one Sunday by the lake, were back.
Whether or not the Browns can fully salvage the season remains to be seen. But they took a gigantic step forward toward even entertaining the possibility. Here are the four most important players on (or around) the Browns as they get set to face The Weirder Harbaugh Brother this weekend.
4. Cedric Tillman
It’s hard to know what to make of Cedric Tillman. Through six weeks of the 2024 season, he had three total catches. He didn’t get a single target in weeks four, five and six. He amassed nine total receiving yards. Nine! He seemed to be running incorrect routes, giving minimal effort when asked to run block and generally just existing in purgatory.
Over the last two weeks? 15 receptions. 150 yards. Two touchdowns. Like….what?
If Tillman can establish himself as legitimate threat over the middle of the field, one that Winston apparently already has a good amount of trust in, it changes a lot. It changes the number of wideouts defenses truly need to game plan for. It changes how we view Andrew Berry’s drafting of Tillman. And it changes the perception of Tillman himself.
3. Grant Delpit Too Small-ing Derrick Henry
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