The Browns are winning the numbers game in the Wentz deal...if you don't count Sundays -- Bud Shaw's Spinoffs

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Saw a guy in my coffee shop Friday wearing a brown hoodie with orange lettering across the front.

"Analytics," it read.

He was talking on a headset and laughing. No way to confirm if it was in response to somebody saying Carson Wentz isn't a Top 20 quarterback.

* Washington head coach Jay Gruden, who faces Wentz and the Eagles in Philadelphia, praised Wentz as a franchise-changing quarterback before saying, "I don't know how he got to Philadelphia. And I'm very upset about that."

Get in line, Gruden. It forms over there behind the guy with the "Analytics" hoodie.

* The Browns turned the No. 2 overall pick they traded Philadelphia in 2016 into nine players, with a pair of 2018 picks to come.

That's impressive. More so if you believe the only way to rebuild the roster - Hue Jackson once told us he thought the more accurate word was "retool" - was to completely strip it down and restock it by implementing a cutting-edge "process" that would be the talk of the NFL.

For now, based on this regime's 1-21 record, the Browns are exactly that.

* So Danny Shelton danced after tackling Houston's Lamar Miller for a three-yard loss in Houston last Sunday while the Browns trailed 24-3?

Hue Jackson is getting some flak for saying he didn't have a problem with Shelton's celebration.

You're about to be 0-6. You might not see a win until Christmas Eve for the second straight season. That might not seem like a good time to celebrate a tackle for loss. But I'm with Hue. Any sign of a pulse beats the alternative.

At this point, if I'm a Browns player at midfield and we win the coin toss, I'm grabbing my teammates and re-enacting "A Chorus Line."

* Seth Walder of ESPN Analytics reports the Browns quarterback rating of 21.9 is the fourth lowest in the Total QBR "era." That dates to 2006.

That puts DeShone Kizer and company alongside the 2007 San Francisco 49ers (Trent Dilfer), the 2008 Raiders (Jamarcus Russell) and the 2010 Panthers (Jimmy Clausen).

Without analytics, you'd have to settle for the undocumented conclusion that the winless Browns quarterback room isn't getting the job done.

* Kizer's take after his benching and reinstatement is that sitting out stoked his competitive fire. If he needed that stoking five-and-half games into his NFL career, something is wrong here.

Maybe that's what happens when you hand a rookie a job without making him outplay a veteran quarterback in training camp.

Or in the case of Brock Osweiler, a veteran quarterback you plan to keep.

* The Browns travel to London next week to play the Minnesota Vikings. Will be interested to hear what the players think of the experience.

One dissenting vote on international games comes from Rams running back Todd Gurley, who said, "This London, this Mexico City stuff, it needs to stop."

The Rams are the "home" team Sunday in London against the Arizona Cardinals. They spent six days in Jacksonville after Sunday's 27-17 win over the Jaguars instead of returning home.

"It's cool playing over there, don't get me wrong," said Gurley.

Too late. We got you.

* A Florida man, upset with players kneeling during the anthem to protest social injustice, hired a plane to fly over the stadium during the Rams-Jags game  It carried a banner:

"Be American. Boycott the Jags and the NFL."

"I have a right to protest," Terry Smiley said.

Un-ironically.

* No word on whether Smiley will fly his plane over the homes of fans who visit the restroom or slosh down beers while talking to each other during the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner."

But probably not.

* One game into the NBA season, Newsweek.com asked whatever the opposite of a burning question is.

"Will LeBron leave for L.A.?"

Nothing will make you want to say "Uncle" faster, not even a Stipe Miocic submission hold.

* Bob Knight has let it be known he doesn't want to be included among the sculptures planned for Assembly Hall on the campus of Indiana University.

The school is commemorating its five national titles as part of remodeling of the basketball arena. But Knight has refused to participate in anything Indiana basketball related because the university fired him in 2000.

Knight told Dan Patrick in March he still cherishes the fans but wants nothing to do with the administration officials who canned him.

"I hope they're all dead," Knight told Patrick, who said some of those people had actually passed away.

Knight: "I hope the rest of them go."

The school complied with his request.

Not to feature him in a sculpture I mean.

* What's up, Knight?

* The Los Angeles Lakers and rookie Lonzo Ball opened the NBA season with a lopsided loss to the L.A. Clippers.

Clippers stopper Patrick Beverly hounded Ball all over the court, knocking him down once. Ball finished with six shots, three points and four assists in his NBA debut.

Beverly apparently glared at LaVar Ball sitting courtside more than once but the father waited until after the game to react.

"He's nobody," LaVar Ball said of Beverly. "He's talking to Big Baller. ... Who is Patrick Beverly?"

The long answer: An All-NBA first-team defender of whom Magic Johnson said Thursday night, "Patrick Beverly is no joke."

The short answer: your son's worst nightmare.

* The answer by numbers: Beverly was plus-20; Ball was minus-14.

* ESPN.com's story on how Waffle House on game days is a Southern football fan tradition turned up this quote from a Georgia follower: "I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who didn't eat at Waffle House."

I spent a night in Athens, Ga., many years ago when the Bulldogs were one of college football's undefeated teams. I checked out the juke box in a packed bar (I was there for research).

Two selections caught my eye:

"Give Herschel Walker the Ball Part I."

"Give Herschel Walker the Ball Part II."

In Athens, you wouldn't want to be friends with someone who questioned what exactly was left unsaid after Part I.

* The Dodgers have ended a 29-year World Series drought. You may hear this once or twice when the Series begins next Tuesday.

If the Yankees are the opponent, you may also get the idea the Yankees and Dodgers invented baseball and have graciously shared their World Series destiny with other organizations over the years.

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