Cleveland Browns Impossible to Ignore After Big Thursday Night Win

Don't look now, but the Cleveland Browns are in first place in the AFC North. 

The 6-3 Browns just stomped the Cincinnati Bengals 24-3 in yet another unwatchable Thursday Night Football game. Quarterback Brian Hoyer completed 15 of 23 passes for 198 yards. It wasn't an incredible night, but it was a competent performance alongside a rushing attack that totaled 169 yards between the Browns' three running backs. 

The defense, though, was the star of the show against the Bengals, forcing Cincinnati into four turnovers, one of which sent Jeremy Hill to the bench. The unit held the rookie running back to only 55 rushing yards just the game after his explosion onto the NFL scene in Week 9. 

This Browns team demands to be noticed. 

Don't say: "Well, it's just the AFC North," either. The AFC North is the only division where the last-place team (the Baltimore Ravens at 5-4) is over .500. The division is not only competitive, but the Browns' schedule doesn't look any more difficult with games against Houston, Atlanta and Buffalo coming up in the next few weeks. 

There's a new sheriff in town in the AFC North, and also in Ohio. 

Head coach Mike Pettine has this team playing at a level and in a way that the Bengals pray Marvin Lewis can get his club to match before they foolishly extend him again. Meanwhile, Hoyer has perfected the "get out of your own darn way" routine that Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton should've learned long ago. 

Pettine is known mostly as a defensive mastermind, and one look at the stat sheet shows that this Browns defense has been anything but masterful this season. The unit entered Week 10 at only 28th in total yardage given up per game. However, it  allowed only 172 points this season, which was sixth in the league. Its point differential of plus-37 was eighth. 

Let's take a small meander over to the turnover stats and see that the Browns' turnover differential entered the week at a solid No. 6, with plus-six. Their 13 takeaways isn't earth-shattering, nor will it make anyone hark back to the glory days of the defensive stalwarts of the AFC North. No, but on a team that takes care of the football, things are looking darn good. 

So, that second and third look at the defense has playoff written all over it. 

Against the Bengals, it helped to have defensive lineman Phil Taylor back from knee troubles, but the straw that is stirring this drink is the linebacking corps led by Karlos Dansby and Jabaal Sheard. These two studs have spent the entire year making offenses pay for daring to come onto the same field as them. 

If any group could lay claim to playing as well as the linebackers, it's the safety tandem of Donte Whitner and Tashaun Gipson. The former is still a valuable enforcer against the run game, while the latter (though he dropped a gift-wrapped interception from Dalton) has been one of the better pass-defending safeties this year. 

The group that deserves the most credit for the Browns' turnaround, though, is on the offensive side of the ball—specifically, the line. Each and every week, I write two previews and then grades that look back at what happened over the weekend. Just about every time I publish one of those columns, the Browns fanbase seems to take the opportunity to bash the offensive line. 

That criticism could not be further from the truth. 

Ageless offensive tackle Joe Thomas is having a gem of a season right now. Pro Football Focus has him as the top tackle this season (subscription required). Moreover, he's arguably having the best year of his career next to rookie offensive guard Joel Bitonio. Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz and right guard John Greco are both playing out of their minds at the moment as well. 

Bitonio said after the game, via Fox Sports Ohio: "We knew if we didn't run the ball well we would have a tough job winning. We got the backs going."

The one weak link—both on the line and perhaps on the entire team—is center Nick McDonald, who has been atrocious in relief of the injured Alex Mack (broken fibula). Honestly, though, teams can hide one poor player on the line, and McDonald held up much better against the Bengals than expected, and certainly better than he did against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

This is a team that is learning how to win on the fly. They're not going to do things perfectly, and there's almost a sense of impending doom looming behind the Browns' impressive record (regression to the mean, if anything else). Speed bumps are sure to be lurking out there, and how the Browns respond to that coming adversity will define their season. 

I'm done betting against them. 

The NFL world has taken the Browns lightly for long enough, and now Pettine's boys are getting revenge.

Michael Schottey is an NFL National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report and an award-winning member of the Pro Football Writers of America. Find more of his stuff on his archive page and follow him on Twitter.