Former Browns OL Joe Thomas believes Cleveland will go 5-1 in AFC North in 2019

With more than three months to go until the start of training camp and the NFL Draft now behind us, we enter that period on the football calendar where wild speculation and baseless opinion draw center stage even more than usual. Top 100 list from multiple outlets are likely not too far away and absurdly premature 53-man roster projections are already doing the rounds.

And while sharing all of these dubious offering from the national media with BTSC readers seems like cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention the loss of brain cells for the person who has to write it, there will be times when some observations are just so ridiculous they deserve to be mocked in a formal setting like this.

Throwing his hat in the ring as an early candidate for ‘prediction least likely to come true in 2019’, former Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Joe Thomas had a go at predicting the outcome of every game on the Browns’ schedule on Tuesday, the result every bit as absurd as you might imagine it would be.

Not only does Thomas envisage Cleveland ending the year with a winning record for the first time since his rookie season of 2007, he also appears to believe that the Browns will go 5-1 in the AFC North, sweeping the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals and splitting the series with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Should the Browns achieve this feat, it will be the first time they have ever gone 5-1 in the division since it was renamed the North in 2002. Under the old title of the AFC Central, you would need to go all the way back to 1987 to find the last time Cleveland managed this mark.

The Browns have not swept the Steelers in a single season since 1988 and their last sweep of the Ravens came in 2007. Prior to the 2018 season, Cleveland had not beaten the Bengals twice in the same year since 2002.

Clearly buoyed by the Browns best divisional record in 20 years last season at 3-2-1, Thomas had never seen his former team come close to that feat since his rookie season when Cleveland went 3-3 in the AFC North, but it would appear that he has been drinking far too much Kool-Aid this offseason.