Depending on how the Ravens do tonight against the Pack, the Steelers could have nothing to play for tomorrow or everything. Either way, they will beat the Browns.
The Brown BLog Predicts:
Steelers 24
Browns 17
The Brown BLog are 9-6 season to date predicting Browns games.
I was listening recently to a podcast with Seth Wickersham, who wrote a book about quarterbacks called American Kings, and he shared a small detail that stopped me in my tracks. At one point, Wickersham saw a notepad belonging to Tom Brady. Scribbled on it were affirmations, simple, direct statements Brady wrote to himself. Things like, “You are the man.”
My first reaction, like I suspect most people’s, was disbelief mixed with a little eye-rolling. Tom Brady? The guy with the rings, the records, the dynasty? If anyone on earth should be immune from self-doubt, surely it’s him. Doesn’t the world remind him daily that he’s special? Shouldn’t it be obvious, even to himself?
But the more I sat with it, the more that reaction unraveled.
Unlike almost any other profession, elite coaches and athletes live under a microscope of constant judgment. Even the best of the best are subjected to second-guessing that borders on oppressive. Every throw, every decision, every fraction of a second is replayed, dissected, and criticized by millions of people who have absolutely nothing at stake except their mood on a Sunday afternoon.
I know this impulse well, because I catch myself doing it all the time. Stefanski is a bad play caller, Caitlin Clark should have passed that ball. Aaron Rodgers should have thrown that one away. These thoughts pop out of my mouth as if they are obvious truths rather than armchair commentary. Every now and then, though, the stupidity of one of those remarks bounces off the wall and comes right back at me.
I imagine Kevin Stefanski sitting in the cube next to mine at work and turning to me with the same tone of certainty: “Jesus, John, how could you concede a five percent discount? They were ready to give you the order at list price.” The absurdity becomes clear pretty quickly. I am very glad that selling industrial machinery is not a spectator sport, complete with instant replay and a talk-radio postmortem.
That’s when the point really lands. If I, sitting comfortably on my couch, feel free to nitpick the decisions of world-class coaches and athletes, imagine what it feels like to be the one actually making those decisions, knowing the criticism is coming no matter what. Even Tom Brady is not immune to that barrage. In that context, writing “you are the man” on a notepad doesn’t look silly at all. It looks healthy.
Affirmations aren’t about ego. They’re about anchoring yourself when the noise gets loud. Performance, whether in sports, sales, or life, is always more fluid when it’s built on a foundation of thoughtful self-confidence. Not bravado. Not denial. Just a quiet reminder that you belong, that you’ve done the work, that one mistake doesn’t erase everything else.
That may be the real lesson to take from Brady’s notepad. It’s not that even legends need reassurance—though they do. It’s that all of us perform better when we remember we’re doing just fine. And maybe there’s a second lesson tucked in there for us fans as well. Our favorite athletes might actually perform a little better if we cheer them because they’re on our team, even if they make a mistake.
So while I have made a sport out of second guessing Kevin Stefanski I am also old enough to know, when it comes to football he is the expert. And after six years of winning and losing, he is as well positioned as anybody on earth to make the next 6 years good ones.
So call it an early New Years resolution, but I hope the Browns keep Coach Stefanski and I hope in spite of the legions of folks in the peanut gallery, that Kevin Stefanski reminds himself every day that he's one of 32 people on earth so qualified that he gets to lead an NFL team into battle every Sunday.
Confidence, it turns out, is not something you achieve once and keep forever. It’s something you practice. Sometimes with a Lombardi Trophy. Sometimes with a pen and a simple sentence written to yourself: you are the man.
The long-term success rate in the NFL on two point conversions is around 50%. The Browns, when they were down 14 vs the Titans last week, decided to go for 2 after a touchdown. Why not, the data says odds are if they attempt a two point conversion twice, they will score 2 points and if they were successful to get the first 2 they can win the game with an extra point.
I’d like to point out the problem with Browns analytics: that two point success rate is largely being achieved by experienced players when you look at the success rate across the entire NFL the athletes that score are experienced quarterbacks, wide receivers, running backs & tight ends
Obviously, if you put a high school team out there, the success rate in the NFL would be 0%, and if you put NFL rookies in all of the key spots on a two point play, it stands to reason the success rate is going to be significantly less than 50%
Statistics can lie, and when it comes to the Browns analytics they do
I am excited once again to root for the Browns.
Why? Shedeur Sanders.
Pundits abound with opinions about what makes a great QB. They site this or that statistic, they take one play and draw conclusions.
Here is what I see about Shedeur: He wins plays and every single time he lines up behind the center to throw the ball, he's trying to win that play. When there is man coverage, Shedeur recognizes it and looks for a mis match because he wants to win plays. Winning plays means winning games and sometimes it means making mistakes. What Sanders will learn with time is that an interception is not the end of the world if you make that risk when you're on the opponents side of that field. That's as good as a punt so long as you win the risk more than you lose and with Shedeur Sander's accuracy, he is going to win a lot more than he loses.
He has another characteristic that winners have. Sanders does not give a sweet shit what other people think. He's authentic and that makes him a leader. It also made him into a fifth round draft pick because the lilly white draft rooms of the NFL even in 2025 fear a young minority who won't kiss their ass.
My gut says the weather tomorrow is going to hold scoring down and in a game with artic conditions, good leadership combined with winning a few key plays can make all the difference in the world.
The Brown BLog Predicts
Shedeur and his Browns 17
Da Bears 14
The Brown BLog is 8-5 season to date predicting Browns games.
- Going for two points down 8
- Running a trick play, needing two points to tie the game
And
How any NFL coach or GM could look at Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders and decide that Gabriel is better just blows my mind
Where would this team be if Sanders was developed from the first day of training camp?
