Johnny Manziel could be inactive for Browns on Monday night

Manziel’s promotion to starter for the rest of the season was the story of the bye week.

Pettine admitted that he was very disappointed in Manziel following the photos.

“Josh McCown is our starter”, Pettine said. “I can’t stand here and say it’s not – whatever word we want to use – disappointing, frustrating”. However, after he tried to use an excuse that a 3 grader would attempt to make when hiding a bad report card, there was literally no way the team could even remotely consider anything but benching him.

“You lose trust in buckets”, Pettine said, “and you regain it in drops”. “This is a decision that I know for him in particular stings in the short term”, Pettine said.

“Whether you’ve played two years, 12 years, 18, you have to prove every day that you still can do it and you can play at a high level and compete”, he said. I can’t emphasize the importance of the trust and the accountability piece.

McCown also completed eight passes for 139 yards and a touchdown to tight end Gary Barnidge in the game against the Ravens last month. He leads the National Football League with a 137.3 rating on third down.

“I’m just excited – seriously – I’m excited for him”, Harbaugh said. “It wasn’t like Josh lost his job”. We’re a long way from the end of the season. This week the former Texas A&M star Quarterback was benched by the Cleveland Browns for pretty much putting himself in the spotlight again. But McCown, despite sympathizing with Manziel, is excited for another opportunity.

The Ravens still have six games in their regular season schedule and will start life without Flacco when they take on the Cleveland Browns on Monday. Running will not be much better since everyone knows Baltimore will lean on the running game. To make sense out of just what will happen Monday night, we went to our writing staff, to see what they thought would happen under the lights in Cleveland. “I’m not going to lie”.

“I think all of us as people, myself included, we all are a work-in-progress every day”.

McCown said he’d draw energy from celebrating Thanksgiving and reflecting on his blessings. “You have a player that, I think we can all agree in this room, has come so far from a football standpoint in the product he put on the field from a year ago to go out and play that way on the road against a very good Pittsburgh Steeler defense. And it was something that, it’s regrettable but, we feel we had to do”.

Before his chalk talk session began, Gruden spent time with The News-Herald answering an array of questions, majority about Manziel. Baltimore is 13-2 straight up against Cleveland over the last 15 matchups and 6-1 straight up and against the spread in the last seven meetings in Cleveland.

The game between the Baltimore Ravens and Browns under the lights on November 30 could be labeled “Last Man Standing” if another television show didn’t already have the same title.

“Certainly a lot of things will get discussed, but I won”™t go into the details,” Pettine replied.

Motivation shouldn’t be a problem for two teams all but eliminated from playoff contention. Baltimore learned this the hard way in Week 5 when the Browns scored 24 points in the second half and overtime to beat the Ravens. I don’t think anyone will be more proud than I am. Since the rivalry began in 1999, Cleveland has only swept in 2001 and ’07.