CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
I've rooted for many strange things in my years as a Browns fan. Karma for Baltimore. TJ Watt going into pout mode. A swirling wind off the lake right as the other team's kicker lines up.
In 2026, I've added a new one. I root against the team Myles Garrett plays for. I don't root against Myles. I root against the Rams, which, given that Myles has been on IR since September, turns out to be a pretty fine distinction.
Back in June, the Browns sent Myles to Los Angeles for Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second and a 2029 third. The Rams did it for the reason the Rams always do it. Super Bowl LXI is at SoFi Stadium in February, and they live by a famous motto about draft picks that ESPN has to print as "F--- them picks." In September, The Athletic's Hope-O-Meter had Rams fans at 98.7 percent optimism. Browns fans checked in at 2.7.
I instantly figured the Browns first-round pick from LA was going to wind up being somewhere around the 31st or 32nd pick. With Aaron Donald coming out of retirement to play alongside Myles, the fate of the 2026 season seemed assured. The only hope, in my mind, that the pick would be higher relied on the dubious prospect of Rams QB Matthew Stafford starting to show his age.
Six weeks later, the Browns are 4-2 and tied for first in the AFC North. The Rams are 2-4 and dead last in the NFC West.
Bill Barnwell's autopsy at ESPN is worth your time if you enjoy reading about other people's problems, and I'm ashamed to say I do. The Rams lost the opener to the 49ers in Melbourne after they "tried to reimagine jet lag." They lost in Denver on a pick-six. They lost to Buffalo on Monday night when the special teams melted down. And on Sunday they lost 18-16 at home to a 1-4 Cardinals team, with Jacoby Brissett dropping back 35 times and never getting sacked.
The details are delicious, in a guilty sort of way. Matthew Stafford has gone from fourth in QBR last season to 14th. He has six interceptions in six games after throwing eight all of last year, and he ranks one spot below Deshaun Watson in passer rating, which nobody had on their bingo card in August. The defense built to terrorize quarterbacks has eight sacks. Total. Todd Monken was asked Monday why our defense is better without Myles. Smart man: "I'm not going to say that. You said that... I don't know that, because he's not here."
My favorite detail: the Rams' special teams ranked 32nd in DVOA through five weeks under coordinator Bubba Ventrone, who went to L.A. straight from Berea, where our special teams ranked 32nd last year. So we didn't just send them Myles. We threw in the kicking game at no additional charge.
Then came Monday, when Sean McVay read out an injury list that sounded like a casualty report. Davante Adams ruptured his hamstring and is out six to 10 weeks. Nose tackle Poona Ford is done for the year with a torn triceps. Kobie Turner is likely headed to IR with a groin injury. Blake Grupe, the kicker they signed after cutting the last one, tore his ACL in his debut, so they're working out Brandon McManus and Matt Prater today. And Myles, who had knee surgery in mid-September and has missed five games, won't practice this week.
Mary Kay Cabot summed it up: "First Myles Garrett, and now Davante Adams." Zac Jackson was blunter: "The Rams are a mess and the Browns hold their first-round pick in 2027." And Jack Duffin has the math: the pick is currently No. 10, and would be No. 5 if the Eagles hadn't, in Jack's word, "bottled" their Week 4 game against the Rams.
So the question I wanted to wrestle with this morning: does it continue?
My honest answer is probably not all the way, and I hate saying it. Barnwell makes a good case that a lot of this is bad luck. The Rams are sixth in the league in pressure rate but turn under 10 percent of those pressures into sacks, second-worst in football, and that won't hold with Aaron Donald in there and Myles eventually back. They've recovered four of 13 fumbles in their games. They're 1-3 in one-score games. And the schedule softens. CBS Sports has them at the Raiders, home against the Chargers, at Washington and at Arizona before their Week 11 bye, and favored in all four. Vegas has them as 5.5-point favorites in Las Vegas this week.
Then again, no team in the Super Bowl era has had a losing record after six weeks and won its conference. ESPN's FPI has dropped the Rams' playoff chances from 83.1 percent to 35.3, with less than a 1 percent chance of winning a division where San Francisco improved to 6-0 last night. After the bye, they get the Packers, Chiefs, at San Francisco, Cowboys, at Seattle, at Tampa and Seattle again. That's not a soft finish for a 38-year-old quarterback and a kicker to be named later.
Here's the part that matters to us. Non-playoff teams pick 1 through 18. If FPI is close, there's about a two-in-three chance the Rams miss the playoffs and that pick lands in the top 18. If they sneak in as a wild card, it slides into the 20s. If the wheels really come off, we're talking about a top-10 pick in a year the Browns are shopping for a quarterback, and Mel Kiper just told Arch Manning to "go back to college for another year." If the shelf of available quarterbacks gets thinner, the extra first gets more valuable.
Which brings me to Marktroy's Watercooler thread: "The Rams will want Jeudy with Adams gone. Do you trade him?"
No. And not only because Monken said Monday, "We're better with Jerry than we are without Jerry," or because Daryl Ruiter notes Jeudy has helped win half the games that were on the line late. The last thing I want to do in October is sell the Rams a receiver. If Les Snead calls, Andrew Berry should let it go to voicemail.
So I'll be rooting for the Raiders on Sunday, which isn't something a Browns fan of my vintage says lightly after Red Right 88 was burned into my 17-year-old brain. I'm not rooting for anybody's hamstring. I'm rooting for Las Vegas. That's as low as I'll go.
44 YARDS, NOT 45: Monken on the first half against Baltimore: "I don't want 45 yards at halftime; maybe, I guess it's 44. I better not tack on a yard there." Scott Petrak has the numbers: Watson has been sacked a league-high 24 times and thrown only two interceptions, and his four fourth-quarter scoring drives tie Josh Allen and Bo Nix for the league lead. Watson: "One of these weeks it's going to click." I'd settle for the first quarter.
The Browns open as 1.5-point favorites at Tennessee with a total of 36.5. Vegas has watched our first halves. Monken says it's too early to tell on Mason Graham, Dylan Sampson, Quinshon Judkins, Mike Hall Jr. and Grant Delpit, per Fred Greetham.
QUICKLY: Fred has Monken on the "connected" defense, John Taylor has his Monday Morning Postmortem, and VIPs get Jack Duffin's Stock Up/Down and Sam Penix’s Watson accuracy charting. Jalen Hurts is out for the season with blood clots in his lungs, and our Crap Pile folder is already full of Shedeur-to-Philly speculation with nobody credentialed attached.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS! (And go Raiders. Just this once.)
OBR GOODIES
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Todd Monken says the Browns Defense is 'Connected', Playing with 'Physicality', 'Elite Effort'
Cleveland Browns Deshaun Watson Accuracy Charting Week 6 Update (VIP)
Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 10/19/26: Mysterious Patterns
FROM THE FORUMS
THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
Prime Video unveiled the new trailer at New York Comic-Con, and the eight-episode series lands Nov. 25. This time the replicants won the uprising and run the show, and they're the ones hunting humans. Michelle Yeoh plays Olwen, a fading replicant Blade Runner, who teams up with Hunter Schafer's Cora, a human on the run. Space.com is excited about the off-world planets and starships, and I'm excited about Michelle Yeoh in anything. It's set in a gloomy Los Angeles at the edge of the 22nd century where nothing goes right for the people in charge. Prime Video says it's fiction. I've been reading about the Rams all morning, so I have my doubts.
WRAPPING UP
When not reading Bill Barnwell's Rams autopsy for the third time, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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