BECOMING BROWNS FANS

Santa baby! Slip wins by

Let’s go Browns, and let’s go Colts. The Giants’ players won’t be draft board watching this Christmas weekend, but their front office, fans and prospective general managers and head coaches sure will be. And wins by both Cleveland and Indianapolis help Big Blue.

The Giants (2-12), who would pick No. 2 in April’s draft if the season ended today, still have a chance to jump Cleveland for the No. 1 overall pick but also could slide back behind Indianapolis into No. 3 or worse.

It all depends on the results of Weeks 16 and 17, and not just whether the Browns (014), Giants (2-12) and Colts (3-11) win or lose. The entire league’s schedule could impact the draft order, because if two teams finish with an identical regular season record, the tiebreaker is strength of schedule.

So if the Giants and Browns both finish 2-14, the No. 1 pick will go to the team that played the schedule with the lowest winning percentage. The same goes if the Giants and Colts both finish 3-13: the team that played the schedule with the lower winning percentage will be awarded the higher pick.

This is assuming that the Giants finish with only two or three wins on the season and don’t beat both Arizona on Christmas Eve and Washington on New Year’s Eve to finish 4-12. If they do that, they could topple into a logjam of current four-win teams that currently includes the Houston Texans, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers.

So here are the scenarios, starting with the No. 1 overall pick:

Cleveland hasn’t clinched the No. 1 pick yet because if the Browns and Giants both finish with 2-14 regular season records, the Giants conceivably could have the weaker strength of schedule and therefore get the higher pick and bump the Browns to No. 2.

The odds that Cleveland wins both of its next two games aren’t great, and that’s the only way the Giants can get the No. 1 pick. The Browns are on the road at the Bears and Steelers, and Pittsburgh probably won’t be resting players in Week 17 because at that point, the Steelers likely still will be playing for something: either challenging New England for homefield advantage or fending off Jacksonville for a first-round bye.

But if the Browns somehow do win both games and the Giants lose both of theirs and both teams finish 2-14, it’s on to strength of schedule. And the Giants still can win that tiebreaker.

Entering Week 16, the Browns’ full slate of opponents have a .513 winning percentage (115 wins, 109 losses). The record of the