Bitonio’s grandma boosts his Pro Bowl chances
Browns left guard BEREA —
Joel Bitonio has an ace up his sleeve in his bid for the Pro Bowl: Jan Akin, his bal- lot-box-stuffing grandmother.
grandma really wants me to go,” Bitonio said Wednesday as the Browns (5-7-1) prepared for Saturday night’s road game against the Denver Broncos (6-7). “She thinks I’m a good player, and she votes a lot.
“She hasn’t given me an update, but she’s retired. She does other things, but she knows how to work the computer, and she stuffs the ballot box.”
Bitonio has yet to make a Pro Bowl, but he was a second alternate last year. This season, his fifth in the N FL, might be his best. ProFootballFocus.com has him ranked sixth among all guards.
“I think Joel has played very well,” Browns offen- sive coordinator Freddie Kitchens said, “and I think he’s had his best couple of games as of late.”
A second-round draft pick in 2014, Bitonio pulled to clear a path for wide receiver Jarvis Landry on his 3-yard touchdown run and 51-yard rush in Sunday’s 26-20 win over the Carolina Panthers.
“I felt like I played really well,” Bitonio said, “and I thought we had some good plays where we got out on a couple runs and led the way.”
PFF ranks Bitonio as the second-best pass blocker among guards, behind only Browns right guard Kevin Zeitler, who’s tied for eighth overall in the website’s overall grades for the position.
It wouldn’t come as a surprise if either Bitonio or Zeitler made the Pro Bowl for the first time. Rosters will be revealed Tuesday. They are determined by the consensus votes of fans, players and coaches.
“It’s something you’ll look back and appreciate,” Bitonio said of possibly being selected. “But, right now, we’re trying to win games.”
And Akin is rooting for her grandson. The resident of Durango, Colo., will be at the game this weekend in Denver.
Rarefied air: Browns interim coach Gregg Williams said he believes having a young team should help the Browns deal with Denver’s altitude. The Browns were scheduled to travel to Colo- rado on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to adjust to the elevation ahead of Saturday night’s game. They’ll hold a practice today at Broncos Stadium at Mile High.
“We’re going to go out there early enough to where the acclimation factor is beneficial to us,” Williams said.
Browns cornerback TJ Carrie played in Denver in each of the past three seasons as a member of the Oakland Raiders.
“It’s very real,” Carrie said of the effects of playing in the thin air. “It’s something that can catch you off guard, catch you winded. It some- times creates multiple substitutions because players are drawn out and tired.”
Carrie explained he’s bracing for the Broncos to use a hurry-up offense in the first half because the Browns aren’t accustomed to the Mile High City.
“So we’ve definitely got to stop them early,” Carrie said.
Rough road: The Browns had almost no time to cel- ebrate breaking a 25-game road losing streak.
Storming to a 28-0 lead at Cincinnati the last Sunday in November was followed by trailing 23-0 at Houston the first Sunday in December.
No worries, linebacker Joe Schobert said, declar- ing the team heads for the mountains in the right frame of mind.
“We’ve won three of the last four [games],” Schobert said. “The confidence is as high as its ever been since I’ve been in Cleveland.”
The Broncos’ last home game was a 24-17 conquest of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 25, on the heels of home losses to the Texans, Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs, all by four points or less.
— STEVE DOERSCHUK, CANTON REPOSITORY
CleveENGLEWOOD, COLO. — land interim coach Gregg Williams warned his offensive linemen this week that Von Miller anticipates the snap as well as any pass rusher in the NFL.
“Oh yeah, you see that a lot, man. That’s what he gets guys (on). He uses that to his advantage because a lot of guys panic as far as getting back,” said Browns right tackle Chris Hubbard, who will try to keep the Broncos’ star linebacker off quarterback Baker Mayfield this weekend.
The Browns (5-7-1) meet the Broncos (6-7) in a rare Saturday night matchup of teams technically still alive in the AFC playoff hunt.
Miller’s timing can sometimes be a tad off, like it was last weekend in his foiled return to Levi’s Stadium, where his two strip sacks of Cam Newton led the Broncos past the Panthers in Super Bowl 50.
Three times he was fooled by third-string quarterback Nick Mullens’ hard count, twice on San Francisco’s final possession of the first half, a 72-yard touchdown drive aided by five defensive penalties that gave the 49ers an insurmountable 20-point halftime lead.
Miller was summoned to the sideline for a tongue-lashing from his coach after his third infraction, and he was just as hard on himself after the Broncos’ damaging 20-14 loss, saying his trio of flags was “just flat-out ridiculous.”
This week, coach Vance Joseph and defensive coor- dinator Joe Woods reiterated that Miller is too good to risk jumping offsides by trying to time the snap instead of just bursting across the line when the center snaps the ball.
“At some point you’ve just got to go on the ball,” Woods said. “For him to get that many offsides, it was unnec- essary.”
Miller said timing his jump is a big part of his game and the underlying reason he’s been able to:
— Tie Simon Fletcher’s franchise record of 103½ sacks, counting the playoffs.
— Collect 13½ sacks this season, three behind league leader Aaron Donald.
— A nd team up w ith Bradley Chubb to form the league’s most productive pass-rushing duo.
“I mean, yeah, I was upset about it but at the end of the day, if I’ve got 97 (regular season) sacks, probably 80 of them came off of getting a great jump,” Miller said Wednesday. “So, yeah, I jumped offsides. But quar- terbacks throw interceptions, too. It’s not like you tell them not to throw the ball down the field no more. It’s just part of the game.
“That’s just something that I’ve worked on and I guessed wrong. Like I said after the game, I’m a gambling man. I like to gamble. Sometimes I gamble big and win ... and sometimes I don’t.”
With a career-best eightgame sack streak going, Miller is loath to hold back even if his coaches want him to rein in his gambling ways.
“I’ve been on a great streak of really being in tune with the snap count and really being in tune with the offense for about five, six weeks now. So, I’m not going to change it up,” Miller said.
Asked how often he guesses right for every time he guesses wrong, Miller said, “I’ve got, what, five offsides? And I’ve got, what, 13 sacks? So, I mean, that’s a pretty good ratio if you ask me.”
Miller said he might have been too eager last weekend because he was one sack from tying Fletcher’s franchise record and returning to the site of his Super Bowl MVP performance.
Given his flags last week, Miller’s sure Mayfield will try to draw him offsides, too.
“I’m sure they’ll come in and give us a lot of hard counts. We’re playing at home, so I don’t know how effective that’ll be,” Miller said. “I mean, I’m a gambler, too, so I’m not going to do the exact same thing that I did last week. Of course, I’m going to change it up. But that’s part of my game. I never change it too much.”
Hubbard said the crowd noise at Mile High Stadium will certainly give Miller an edge.
“That crowd is always loud and the stadium is always rocking. So, he has that advantage,” Hubbard said. “But my advantage is to get off the ball fast.”
Miller’s, too.