Fantasy Football

5 Harsh Realities That NFL Fans Need to Face

Baker Mayfield Browns qb index
Baker Mayfield is one of the NFL’s rising stars, but are the Browns as good as their record says they are?

By: NFLHeads

    As fans, be that of a specific team or just the NFL in general, we are sometimes prone to hanging on to narratives or hopes that just aren’t realistic. Today, we’re going to address this bias, this might sting for some of you but I think these points are necessary to outline. So without further ado, let’s kick this off.

The Cleveland Browns are still nowhere near ready to make a playoff push

The Cleveland Browns have been the laughingstock of the NFL for God knows how many years, and for the first time in what seems like decades, they are about to have a winning record, and make the playoffs. Now I don’t think anyone is realistically tooting the horn that the Browns are going to take the league by storm in the playoffs and make the Super Bowl, but I am arguing that it will not even be close to happening within the next five years.

The Browns are not a franchise prone to winning, as dumb as that argument sounds how many teams that have a random winning season that usually are irrelevant do you see winning playoff games? Additionally, Baker Mayfield is far too inconsistent of a quarterback to make any realistic push in the playoffs. That is why quarterbacks that are so consistently amazing like Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes continually make deep playoff runs, they are quarterbacks you are 100% sure are going to play well in big spots. Now look at a quarterback even as good as Peyton Manning, whose inconsistencies as a playoff quarterback held him back from multiple Super Bowls. Baker is not nearly as good as Manning and has a much worse problem than him. 

As if that was not enough, it is unlikely that this front office will be able to retain their talent even past this season, unless Andrew Berry turns out to be one of the new great GM’s in the NFL.

The Steelers are not as good as their record

Do not misunderstand what I mean when I say not as good as their record, I still believe they are a top 5 team, but any realistic person has to admit that their schedule has been a bit of a cakewalk. Let’s just say a narrow win over Robert Griffin III and Trace McSorley does not exactly instill me with confidence.

Teams with great defenses and mediocre offenses, like the Steelers, are not prone to big playoff success. If you notice, most of the teams that end up winning the Super Bowl win it because their offense can kick the other 31 teams’ asses. I simply do not see that kind of offense with the Steelers, and I believe this will be their eventual downfall in the playoffs, particularly against Patrick Mahomes.

The Steelers are more like a 9-3 team that has a chance in big games, but has a slim Super Bowl window and is not taken as seriously as a team like the Chiefs, Bills, or Titans in the AFC.

The Saints are not a strong Super Bowl candidate

This one is a very unfortunate lose lose reality. Drew Brees does not have what it takes as a quarterback to lead these Saints to the Super Bowl, which was apparent even when the Saints and Brees were much better than they are right now. So at that point, what about Taysom Hill? The unfortunate reality of first time starters who are undrafted and also play roughly four other positions is that the said quarterback cannot be seen as a playoff quarterback. 

The Saints are all in all a very strong team, players like Alvin Kamara and Cameron Jordan are players you can build around in the offense and defense respectively, but the most important position in professional sports is ultimately going to be a team’s success or downfall, and I believe in this case it is a downfall.

The Jets are very likely to whiff on the first overall pick this year

This isn’t going to become a think piece on how Trevor Lawrence is some clown who doesn’t know how to play quarterback, this is simply a commentary on the fact that all of the players that come out of college are going to be even more unprepared than usual for what the NFL is going to bring, given the circumstances we face with 2020 and all the chaos that has been ensuing. 

So add this lack of preparation with the fact that the Jets are a sad pathetic franchise that doesn’t know how to do anything right, whatever player that walks in that door has an extremely low chance of having any success. My hope for the Jets is at an all time low, and I feel like that is a sadly realistic low hope.

The Chiefs are the next huge dynasty that the other 31 teams will have to get past for the next decade

The fact that Patrick Mahomes is going to end up as the best professional sports athlete of all time poses a bit of a problem for the rest of the league, especially since he has Andy Reid in one pocket, and Tyreek Hill in the other. So given this added to the fact that the AFC is a bit of a sad division, and we will be seeing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl 8 times in the next decade and a half (I am not kidding about this I think it will really be 8).

The point of all this is that I really do not see a reasonable chance that the Chiefs will have anybody to oppose them for the next few years of football, and this will cause the NFL to be lopsided for a while. 

Damond Talbot

NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button