Adam Caplan breaks down second viewing of Browns vs. Eagles
September 11, 2012Indians 2, Twins 7: The Ineluctability of Pythagoras, the Wisdom of Beckett, and Other Notes on an Interminable Season
September 11, 2012
As Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison discussed the goings on of the first week of the NFL regular season, with the entire NBC Football Night in America staff awaiting the kickoff between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos, live from Whatever Corporation Field at Mile High, the two well-respected and suit-clad gentlemen offered up who their “winners” were as judged by the opening week’s festivities.
With Dan Patrick listening on, Dungy offered his winner: Dan Snyder, the always-spending owner of the Washington Redskins. Harrison would follow up with his nomination: The Atlanta Falcons.
Both winners were very deserving. The Redskins would drop 40 points on the New Orleans Saints, Super Bowl hopefuls amidst the chaos within the suspended coaching ranks, largely led by their rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III. The Falcons would match the ‘Skins’ total by putting up 40 points on the Kansas City Chiefs, a team some pundits have picked to win the AFC West, largely led by their quarterback in Matt Ryan as well as their second-year wide receiver Julio Jones. Both “winners” very deserving, and both being dubbed as much large in part to the Cleveland Browns.
Winning, at least in sport, is often a zero-sum game; every winner has a loser sulking off of the field while the victor celebrates, levels of anguish varying based on the path taken to the final outcome. As the Redskins and Falcons improve dramatically with their high-powered additions, it may not necessarily be the Cleveland Browns who lose — though they did just that on Sunday, in typical yet epic fashion — but the perception of history and the subsequent fallout will shine such a light. With in-game cut-aways and Redzone Channels and Fantasy Football in-game scoring, we are all privy to what’s going on outside of Cleveland. And what went on this past Sunday merely added salt into the would-be rebuilding wounds.
It was the Browns who offered up the sixth-overall selection to the Falcons, allowing them to add yet another weapon to an already vaunted offense. In return, the Browns received what amounted to the presently injured defensive tackle Phil Taylor, wide receiver Greg Little and quarterback Brandon Weeden. Chalking Taylor’s injury up to poor luck is undoubtedly acceptable, but the Weeden-to-Little combination has, through the sample size of one game, offered nothing but a ball deflecting off of the neck of the receiver and into the hands of the opposition. Jones, meanwhile, hauled in six balls, collecting 108 yards and two touchdowns in the process.
Weeden’s impact crosses over to that of Snyder and his winnings as he joins rookie running back Trent Richardson on the “this” versus “that” scale.
Just this week, it was reported that Snyder, upon completing the trade which would net his team the second-overall selection and the right to land Robert Griffin III, hosted his front office in what was dubbed a celebration. In the Bahamas. While the rest of the nation, and a good chunk of Cleveland, attempted to tell themselves that the Redskins lost that deal due to cost, Snyder was dumping Vueve Clicquot down the gullets of his staff like it was the Rich Kids of Instagram. If Snyder was watching this episode of Football Night, he was undoubtedly doing so from a hot tub, surrounded by grapes and cigars and women of various descent, all wearing “Griffin” jerseys, but barely. Compare this to Randy Lerner who was likely on a couch1, wearing sweatpants, and engorging himself with bar-b-que Pringles, wondering why, despite the armor-like canister, half of the can is full of broken chips as he dusts the shards of flavoring off his bare chest.
The Browns were nothing but competitors for the rights to obtain Griffin III, with the technical “other side of the coin” being the St. Louis Rams (who also lost during the final minute of their respective contest), but try telling that to the 70,000-plus who forked over a portion of a paycheck and their Sunday to watch the picks that would have been used amass a 5.1 passer rating and 39 rushing yards on 19 carries. Again, only one game. But again, Griffin was the only rookie quarterback to lead his team to victory, throwing, running, and even blocking — and he looked very, very good while doing it.
Those who are still in support of either or both of the draft day deals2 will point to time — after all, most trades are judged after an arbitrary three-year holding period. Typically, this process unfurls when there are multiple years of draft selections are involved and we have to see just who the other team landed with those very selections. In Cleveland’s case, however, three of those first-round picks are already on the roster, this year’s being provided the exact same starting point as Griffin III with Taylor, Little and Jones having the same. Just as one cannot judge a trade right out of the gate, we certainly cannot use one week of football to throw our hands up on this iteration of the Cleveland Browns rebuilding process.
On Sunday night, on a national stage, Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison were asked to provide their winners for the week, and they were just that — one week, with no history or cost or outlook taken into account. Disappointments were also discussed, but no specific losers were mentioned with regard to flip side of those being praised. But as each additional week unfolds, potentially bringing additional wins by the Redskins, additional 100-yard days by Jones, and yet another loss by the Browns3, the arguments to the contrary of what the Browns did (or did not do) will ring exponentially louder in the city of Cleveland.
The costs become ancillary once winning is involved.
34 Comments
1. RG3 is obviously a much better prospect than Weeden, but it’s not our fault he’s not in Cleveland. Holmgren and Heckert just got outbid. In 6 years or so, when Griffin has no other first rounders on his team, we’ll see if it was still a good deal.
2. Would Julio Jones be nice on this team? Sure. But Julio Jones in Cleveland would not be the same as Julio Jones in Atlanta. He’s far more valuable to the Falcons because he was the last piece their offense needed. In Cleveland last year he would have been another wasted weapon.
3. As you said, it’s way too early to pass judgment on these issues.
4. A more important point to consider is that the Browns FO has made justifiable moves on paper, but the success rate appears to be far below league average on these types of moves.
“Compare this to Randy Lerner who was likely on a couch , wearing sweatpants, and engorging himself with bar-b-que Pringles, wondering why, despite the armor-like canister, half of the can is full of broken chips” has to be one of the greatest lines ever written on this site. Thanks for the laugh because that is the only thing we can really do with this team, laugh.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda sounds familar unfortunately it’s just another miss in the long line of misses over the past 14 years. It’s unfortunate Griffin had to shine while Weeble melted down in their debuts but that’s how it goes people should have expected it.
As far as being outbid that whole thing with the Rams was sketchy no matter how it turned out the bigger issue I have is that I feel this football team came late to the Griffin party. By this I mean they were never hot on his trail like Washington was and therefore I question whether the “bid” they put in would have ever been enough. I think they put an offer in which was probably not the best they could to do and this way they could always say, “We tried it just wasn’t enough.”
Lastly going out and signing Garcon was another nice move by Washington. It gave Griffin another target and it sure paid dividends in game one verse New Orleans. Meanwhile in Cleveland your rookie QB has the likes of Greg IronHands Little, Josh Doobie Gordon and the rest to help him. And lastly the offensive braintrust of Shurmur and Childress to coach that rookie QB.
I’m not salty about Robert Griffin. The Browns tried. I still think that the amount the Skins paid for him was too high and that it will negatively affect the team in the coming years.
I am officially salty about Julio Jones. Weeden-Little-Taylor are worse than he is. I think Taylor will be a fine player. I am losing faith in Little more quickly than I like to admit. And Weeden is…well…it’s best to keep my mouth shut on that one…WFNY is a family friendly site, after all.
Is it time to call “Emperor has no clothes” on Heckert? Even one game in the picks this year of Richardson and Weeden look extremely questionable at best. About Weeden nothing more needs to be said. But I just wonder why you are shredding a top 5 pick on a running back when this is an extremely marginalized position in today’s NFL. AND when you have a suspect O-Line (same as it ever was). AND when you are throwing a rookie QB into the fire with almost no experience at WR.
So your RB (IF HEALTHY) will just about by definition be the sole offensive option and will be looking at 9 defenders in the box on each play.
And by the time this latest rebuilding phase is kicking into gear the guy will probably be past his usefulness due to the extremely short shelf-life of NFL running backs.
This was an extremely puzzling draft in April and looks like a disaster more and more each day
Truly that entire paragraph was poetry.
I think point #4 is your best one.
I still wouldn’t want Garcon on the Browns. He was 4 for 109 w a TD.. and the TD was on an 88 yard reception.
Ray Rice was absolutely shredding Cinci last night, TR should be licking his chops.
I didn’t say the Browns should sign Garcon I was simply providing an example of how Washington added a veteran WR with the intent to help their rookie QB. That 88 yarder was a nice play on both ends Griffin kept the play alive found Garcon who turned about a 18 yarder into an 88 yard TD running away despite a bad foot. Lets see how many games if any it takes for that to happen here.
Just a wee bit of difference between Baltimore’s offense and Cleveland’s wouldn’t you say? Rice was a top two RB last year he’ll be doing that to alot of opponents.
Yes, the Bengals D won’t dare stack the box to stop Richardson for fear of Brandon 5.1 QB Rating Weeden throwing it on them.
They also aren’t Philly’s D
That’s 1 TD and 70 yards more than any receiver on this team had Sunday.
I’m not saying we should have paid him what WAS did, but failing to add a known receiving commodity to a rook QB was a mistake.
Win.
Meh. We fooled them ALL. All these trades were just a wiley ruse, and have put us in the perfect position for Matt Barkley.
Genius!
Meh. We fooled them ALL. All these trades were just a wiley ruse, and have put us in the perfect position for Matt Barkley.
Genius!
What would Julio be with Colt McCoy throwing to him on our offense? I’d like to think he’d be good, but certainly not as good as Matt Ryan throwing to him in Atlanta’s offense with Roddy White deflecting the attention and Tony Gonzalez making defenses pay for cheating too much to the WRs.
the problem was the asking price was really silly this offseason for veteran WRs.
which WR would you have liked to add for the deal signed? (Lloyd perhaps but he stated that he would take a below market deal to follow McDaniels and then took a below market deal to follow McDaniels)
There’s more “what ifs” in this than an Indians PR campai–oh, never mind.
Sure, we might have landed Griffin, but there is absolutely no guarantee that he would have performed for Cleveland the way that he has (in one week) for Washington. Indeed, the evidence of the last 13 years tends to indicate that he would flame out, have a 5.3 QB rating, or acquire a staph infection.
Moreover, even if we had landed Griffin, what would the cost have been? Schwartz may not be the best RT ever, but who’s to say that we wouldn’t still be trotting out ol’ Hinge-Arms St. Clair? Who would be carrying the ball? Would we even have Gordon (for what it’s worth)? And what would we have missed from the 2013 Draft? All of which takes me back to (un-numbered) point number 1, above; i.e., Griffin was not guaranteed to be a stud here, and likely wouldn’t be.
I like to hand-wringing as much as the next guy (I have the misshapen fingers to prove it), but I do believe that I’ll forget what’s behind and look toward what’s ahead on this issue, however bleak the “ahead” might be (and appears to be). Can’t change the past; can only look to the future.
With all do respect (ever notice how when that phrase is uttered, disrespect normally follows immediately thereafter?), the Browns lost once on Sunday – not 3 times – and we have a game in Cincinnati in 5 days.
Cup = half full.
Oh yeah? And who would have thrown to him? He’s at best a #2 probably a #3 legitimately. Why do we need another one of those?
you think Julio Jones is a WR3? I guess so is Mike Wallace and Demytrius Thomas too?
he’s not Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, AJ Green. But, hard to say he is not very good and a legitimate starter (WR3 would be considered a backup WR).
THANK YOU. It was one game. And after that game we are so certain that Weeden is a bust, nothing Phil Taylor or Greg Little did last year means anything, RG3 is the greatest player of all time worth 3-4 #1 picks, and Julio Jones is the next big thing (despite having comparable numbers to Little last year while being in a MUCH better offense).
I can’t help but wonder if Indy and Cleveland swapped fan bases, would we all be complaining about Luck (3 INTs) and asking for Kerry Collins back?
I was talking about Garcon not JJ.
Have to admit, I look at Julio’s stats each week with envy. He was exactly what the Browns needed, and we passed. How would last season (and McCoy’s performance) been different? Right now the trade is Julio for Phil Taylor and Casey Weeden with McCoy on the bench. Hopefully, Weeden will make this trade worth it. But right now, it could be one of those seminal moments that defines Browns futility.
re Weeden:
It was one game, and I totally get that. BUT. Has 3 shown anything that has made you think “This could be the guy” in wk1 or any of the pre season games? He hasn’t for me, and IMO, that’s a big problem.
Brilliant… couldn’t agree more. I think that if we take a hard look at statistics, that we would find that the probability of having a worse offensive performance next week is next to impossible.. so we have that going for us. AND If the offense CAN produce an even worse game than last week, then we can all hold hands as we jump off the Thelma and Louis cliff together…
GO BROWNS!!
ugh. not sure how I got that mixed up. I apologize.
No one else is going to need a qb! We could porb trade down from 1
The rookie QB we drafted as I stated in my previous comment. Read before you hulk out.
We are below the cap with deep pockets and club friendly deals all over the place….except for the Gocong contract, yeesh.
Throwing a rook QB out there with no vet to back him up and a receiving corp of Little, MoMass and Gordon (who shouldn’t even be seeing the field right now) is a mistake. He needs a veteran somewhere on the field of offense to sound to because we all know he can’t turn to Shurmur.
Compound everyone in the front office telling us he is better than Colt, he’s got a big accurate arm, he is mature, he can handle the big stage, he’s had a phenomenal camp and is ready for the regular season.
It’s more than easy to understand why fans are on edge.
You also have to take into account we were switching from a 3-4 to 4-3 and the only notable lineman under contract was Rubin.
glad to see you are giving this young team the proper time before giving up on them