CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns have apparently decided that being 11.5-point underdogs against the Baltimore Ravens isn’t challenging enough. They’ve chosen to make things even more interesting by throwing some verbal kerosene on an already heated AFC North rivalry.
In a week that should have been dominated by talk of Joe Flacco’s return to Baltimore and the controversial 30th anniversary celebration of the Ravens franchise, Browns players decided to create their own storylines with some bulletin board material that has reverberated throughout Baltimore’s locker room.
As Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot revealed on the Orange and Brown Talk podcast, “There was some trash talking that came out of the Browns locker room yesterday and today. Now, yesterday it was Jerry Jeudy. When he was asked about the Ravens secondary, he said ‘No challenges.’ And then today I asked Grant Delpit about how hard it is to take down Derrick Henry. Innocent question, right? Not a leading question. And he said ‘Not hard.’”
Those four simple words — “no challenges” and “not hard” — have already gotten back to the Ravens, with Henry responding, “We’ll see on Sunday.”
This is precisely the kind of verbal sparring that has Ashley Bastock, another Browns beat reporter, concerned: “And after these last two days, all I can think is, man, the Browns just handed the Ravens some bulletin board material right back ... these four little words, I’m like, oh my goodness, this has just gotten verbally chippy all of a sudden. And it’s not in a way I expected.”
What makes these comments particularly risky is the position they put the Browns in. An 0-1 team facing a motivated Ravens squad that’s also trying to avoid an 0-2 start has now painted targets on their backs. If Delpit finds himself on the receiving end of a signature Henry stiff arm, or if Jeudy struggles with drops against Baltimore’s secondary, these comments will look particularly foolish.
Yet there could be method to this madness. Cabot suggests this might be a calculated move by Delpit: “I think he’s up to something. I think he wants to put a target on his own back so that he has to come out and have the game of his life and show up on that football field. That’s what I think is going on here.”
The Browns enter this game feeling disrespected, not just by the point spread but by the Ravens’ celebration of the franchise’s 30th anniversary — a particularly sore point for Cleveland fans who remember the team’s relocation. Perhaps these comments are an attempt to channel that disrespect into motivation.
Film analyst Lance Reisland believes the game will be much closer than the 11.5-point spread suggests: “I’d be absolutely shocked if they’re not in this game. I have them losing 24-21 because of Lamar Jackson. But this game comes down to the end and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Browns have a chance to win.”
For Cleveland to pull off the upset, they’ll need their trash-talking defenders to back up their words. Delpit in particular could play a crucial role as a potential spy on Lamar Jackson, according to Reisland: “I see the Browns using, still crowding the line of scrimmage and then using Grant Delpit as that spy, as a guy who, he’s athletic enough, he’s fast enough.”
Sunday will reveal whether the Browns’ trash talk was brilliant psychological warfare or a catastrophic miscalculation. Either way, it’s added another compelling layer to what was already one of the NFL’s most intense rivalries.
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