With the Cleveland Browns having big goals for the 2021 season, everything around the AFC matters to the team. Obviously, the team has to take care of winning football games themselves before conversations about the AFC North and AFC overall titles really begin to take hold.
That doesn’t mean we can’t keep track of the conference week to week to get a feel for what the competition for the playoffs and, perhaps, in the playoffs might look like. Much like years gone by, when tracking who was competing for high draft picks was an art form often reviewed in written form, Cleveland is interested in the rest of the conference.
This time it is more about the top of the conference than the bottom.
After a Week 1 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs, the Browns bounced back with a 10 point victory over the Houston Texans. Very quickly, parity is reigning supreme as only two teams in the entire conference are undefeated, both from the AFC West but neither the Chiefs.
While the opening weekend loss stings, the rest of the AFC has mostly had its own ups and downs. Time to go around the horn and check in on the conference after Week 2: