For Browns the playoffs begin now

Cleveland hosts the Bills this week with a wild card spot on the line. Good to have meaningful football on the North Coast in December again!

It certainly has been a long time since a December game in Cleveland had playoff implications for both teams. Not since the Kelly Holcomb led Browns have we even sniffed a December to remember. That is about to change.

The Buffalo Bills come to town with a chance to get back to the playoffs themselves, but they will have to leapfrog the Browns for the last wild card slot. A win this Sunday would certainly help them in that leap. They will have to beat a motivated Cleveland team to do it. The Browns have the playoffs in their sight. They can nearly taste it. But they realize that without this game it will be an uphill battle. Browns quotes to follow.

Tressel did what???

Here’s the first line of an article I came across…

Jim Tressel encouraged 13 of his juniors to ask the NFL where they might be selected in the next draft.

Of course my first thought was along the lines of, “What are you thinking? Have you gone mad?” But as I continued to read through the article, which is an AP article available after the jump, I realized Tressel was simply trying to control the situation. There is no doubt that some of these young men would be entertaining notions of leaving early, and Tressel wants them to understand where they would stand if they decided to enter the upcoming draft. It also seems like he is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened last year, when players might have been distracted by talk of the NFL before the big game. It seems the players themselves realized this could have been a problem last year, and are taking steps to correct it. They have decided as a group not to talk about it until after the game against LSU. Let’s hope that’s true.

As for Tressel, it makes a lot of sense for him to help his players make this difficult decision. He has invested a lot into their lives for the last three years, and he is always trying to make them better men, not just better football players. Despite what Mo Clarrett said, Jim Tressel does have his players’ best interest at heart. I suppose I am more comfortable with our young players getting coached through this process by the Vest than Ted Ginn’s dad, like what happened last year. Perhaps Antonio Pittman would have come back for his senior year, instead of bolting for the NFL. He could have been a Heisman finalist this year. Instead, he sits on the Rams’ bench. Full Article follows…