Browns’ Ray Farmer attended Alabama-Texas A&M to scout Johnny Manziel
September 16, 2013Tribe Weekend Recap: “Its All Happening!”
September 16, 2013Who caught your eye? Did someone stand out? Who blew it? Thatâs what were interested in this morning. Winners and losers.
Good grief.
That was a pretty ugly display of football Sunday. At least from the offense. Let’s get it started.
WINNER: Jordan Cameron. The Browns tight end caught five passes for 95 yards. Cameron is looking like a legit NFL tight end, which we just didn’t know entering the season. Unfortunately, he was about the only positive thing on the offensive side of the ball.
LOSER: Greg Little. Little was targeted 12 times and had four catches. Officially, Little has only been guilty of two dropped passes. Those who have watched both games this year know better. Can anyone name a WR that got drastically better at hanging on to the football after his third year? I’m losing hope for Little.
LOSER: Brandon Weeden. I am certainly not trying to insinuate that the struggles of the offense are all on Weeden. I think we all could see that wasn’t the case yesterday. I’m saying that Weeden is losing his chance to prove anything in this league. He could have been better. The line could have been better. The receivers could have been better. Bottom line is that the Browns lost and the offense stunk, and he’s the quarterback.
LOSER: Coaching staff. Man, I really hoped I would be done putting the coaches in the Loser column after last year. That was ugly. What in the world is the problem with getting plays into the huddle? Three delay of game penalties? On big third downs to boot? Not utilizing Trent Richardson on key third downs? Oof.
WINNER: Barkevious Mingo. He didn’t have a spectacular game neccesarily, but you have to love him getting to the quarterback on his first snap on defense. Nice. Keep working.
WINNER: Billy Cundiff. Hey, he was the only Brown to score. He hit a 51 yard field goal in a pretty hostile environment. Credit where it is due.
Alright, it’s your turn. I saved plenty for you.
78 Comments
Loser: Browns fans(not the fans, but what we are subjected to). This is unwatchable football. From the DOG penalites after injuries, to missed receivers, to dropped passes.
Milk Polk’s Factory of Sadness video was posted on YouTube Nov 7, 2011. Every single point he made in that video still applies as of September 16, 2013.
Mike Polk’s Factory of Sadness video was posted on YouTube on November 7, 2011. Every single point he made in that video still applies as of September 16, 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRBDMMVctu8
Winners: Defensive front 7- Mingo and Bryant were making plays all day plus Sheard was also being a force in the pass rush. That and Rice was pretty much neutralized.
Jordan Cameron- It’s nice to have a pass catching TE, but most of his yardage came on the one early pass play. He needs more catches.
Neutral: Taylor and Kruger- the former let himself get too provoked on the retaliation after Rice spat on him and the latter wasn’t as prevalent (maybe because Baltimore focused on stopping him).
Losers: Skrine/Owens- This will be a constant until they actually step up and stop guys. The first half wasn’t too bad though for them though.
O-Line- Rarely would these guys be called out as a unit, but they looked like they couldn’t stop the Rats pass rush. Perhaps getting Lauvao/Pinkston back will help the unit.
Greg Little- not calling out the WRs as a whole since Bess was solid if not spectacular, but Little wasn’t making those harder catches that an NFL WR should make.
Josh Gordon- being suspended for being a dunce and not learning has to have affected the team right?
Agree with all points, Rick, but I’m more enthusiastic about Mingo.
I wanted to see him jump off the screen, and did he ever. His very first NFL play was a sack where he blew right past the o-lineman. Ravens were called for a penalty on a punt because he blew past the line so fast the safety protector tackled him to prevent the easy block. He ran down running plays from behind. He was stood up a few times but the motor is as advertised.
One more loser: Paul Kruger. After all the avenging, mad-dog-meat-market talk he had a very quiet afternoon, and they could have used some impact plays in the two TD drives.
Sorry, one more: Mitchell Schwartz had as bad a day pass blocking this week as Cousins did last week. Brutal brutal brutal, both on speed rushes and bull rushes. Regression here.
Losers: Coaching Staff. This team is soft, uninspired and undisciplined. I understand the personnel lacks playmakers on offense but how many times have we seen new coaches come into this league and improve on what they got with toughness, discipline and execution. If we have no receivers, why are we so often out of the shotgun 4-wide? We have to play to our strengths and show more desire to win games.
I am happy about Jordan Cameron. I thought the defense looked OK. I was happy we didn’t get blown out.
LOSER: Tom Heckert, Jr.
– Little can’t catch (or drive), TRich looks pedestrian, Skrine can’t cover anyone, Gordon can’t stay on the field, something happened Schwartz (Cousins?) and he’s terrible right now, Obie is our FB b/c Marecic was so bad, Weeden is a 30 year old average QB at best (and that’s being incredibly generous).
…Obviously, you can explain away a lot of these things, but that huge collection of talent is quickly looking very untalented.
Loser – Lombardi for failing to get a CB, FB, and kick returner when we needed them they day he stepped into the building. I’m officially saying that they are intentionally dogging this season to evaluate players and get a better draft pick. OF course, if that’s not the case, the only other explanation is that they are incompetent.
I mean really. How is this any better than 2011-2012. This team is horrible.
Also, Heckert’s 2011 draft is starting to look worse and worse as little is falling into the bust category. The only thing he is doing better than MoMass is not getting injured.
I forgot to mention only passing from the shotgun and running from under center. it was clear that Baltimore saw that too.
Winners: The run defense, Mingo, and Cameron. Ray Rice was a non-factor, and Mingo and Cameron played well.
Loser: Everything else, starting and ending with Weeden. I have been defending him since day 1. I wanted to give him a fair shot and give him some time to develop. I’m done. Yesterday sealed the deal. You can blame the o-line if you want, or the WR (Little was admittedly bad). “But he had a good completion % and over 200 yards and not INT’s”, you say. So what. At some point, if you are going to be a QB in the NFL, you have to step up and make plays. Even when the odds are against you. Even (especially) when things go badly. When the protection is perfect and the WR’s are open, he can deliver the ball (usually). That doesn’t happen in the NFL very often. You have to be able to beat the blitz when they bring it. You have to be able to be able to anticipate and “throw people open”. You have to make the team better. He is simply not doing that.
We scored 6 points. 2 field goals. One of them was a 51 yarder. That means we were inside the Ravens 34 yard line once. ONE TIME. ALL DAY. This is against a defense that gave up 7 (SEVEN!) TD passes 10 days earlier. The Ravens defense isn’t that good. Its a shell of it’s former self. And we scored 2 field goals. This is completely unacceptable. I’m not saying Weeden need to be the next Peyton Manning. I’m not saying he needs to great. I’m not even saying he needs to be that good. Just be average! If our QB play was just average yesterday, we win. We might have won last week too. Add to that the missed wide open pass to Ogbannaya and the 3 absolutely embarrassing, inexcusable delay of game penalties (I don’t think I’ve even seen that in High School), and I have seen enough.
All this being said, I would like to give him one more chance with Gordon back to see if that results in some miraculous transformation. But I feel comfortable in saying that won’t happen. Joe Flacco (who is mediocre himself) took an offense with a bunch of no-name WR’s and a 2nd string TE, that was made one dimensional by the Browns run defense, and still found a way to eek out 2 TD’s and win the game. We scored 6 points on 2 FG’s Sorry that just doesn’t cut it.
Next man up. (That goes for everyone else on offense too.)
Loser: Norv Turner. I don’t like giving the whole coaching staff the “Loser” tag, because the defense has looked very solid, especially against the run.
But the offense has just looked awful, and unimaginative. Have we run a single screen pass this year? Or a single draw play? I don’t remember seeing either one yesterday, and it might have been nice to try out with the Ravens D teeing off on the pass rush in the second half.
My Heckert assessment is also souring. Richardson looks like a good player but not a franchise one. His broken tackles result in 14 yard runs, not 40 yard runs like young versions of Jamal Lewis or Jerome Bettis, and you didn’t need to trade up to #3 overall to get such a player. He doesn’t appear to have that fifth gear. Little was a needless risk high in the second round. Given that Gordon has apparently never stopped failing drug tests even for one season through college and the pros, in retrospect it seems like a GM desperate for just one playmaker.
I won’t assess blame for Skrine – he was a 5th rounder. That he’s in any version of a defense makes that pick a hit, not a miss and it’s not his fault they’re playing him out of position. If Marecic was a dice roll, so was Cameron. And the QBs – let’s not go there. I’d only say that I believe Colt and Weeden were mainly Holmgren’s picks. He said he would influence the QB picks and we have no reason to doubt he did.
Like I said, you can explain some stuff away, and likewise you can find positives (Taylor, Cameron).
But all things considered, the guy who many people I know treated as an untouchable football god is looking very human.
Losers:
Haslam – Legal issues aside, putting this product on the field in his first year as owner while his team is 30M under the cap sends a terrible message.
Weeden – Not finishing the game looks bad, even if he had a good reason. If he misses any significant time due to injury, he may never see the field as a starter again.
Offensive line – this does not look at all like the same line we had last year.
Offensive coaches – our new offense looks as Jurassic as the old one.
Winners:
Cameron – without him we have an expansion team’s offense.
All Browns fans who enjoyed a nice Sunday afternoon by means of the DVR. I was able to get through this game in under 45 minutes, which still seemed too long.
Defensive front seven and coaches – Holding Flacco and co to 14 points is pretty darn good.
Mingo – for showing up on the stat sheet.
Trich – At least he was a more significant part of the game plan. I thought he did ok considering our near total lack of blocking.
Indians – they may be the only Cleveland team playing meaningful games in October.
What a pitiful, pitiful team.
Kokinis/Mangini picks made us all ready to venerate someone competent, even marginally so. I was definitely guilty of that.
And we all loved Phil Savage for a while.
The Zombie offense.
I was thinking the same thing. “Did you happen to see that [Insert NFL team 1]/[Insert NFL team 2] game today? It’s like they’re playing a different sport than you are! We don’t expect you to win the Super Bowl, we just want you to look better than a Division 3 high school team!”
winner: Ray Horton
He made the best out of what he could with the defense and held the Ravens to 2 touchdowns. He doesn’t have much secondary to work with and kept Flacco from making a large amount of big plays.
Loser’s Coaching Staff ::: we switch coaches so often and always seem to be the last “new HC to get a NFL win”
Trestman 2-0
Reid 2-0
McCoy 1-1
Chip 1-1
Marrone 1-1
Arians 1-1
Chud 0-2
Bradley 0-2
Between Chud & Bradley to get off the schneid now (Marrone, Arians, & McCoy all got their first win yesterday). Sigh.
zombie’s make progress though. they may be wandering around, but they make progress towards getting new brains to eat and tend to do things together.
what about our offense looks together or progressing towards a goal?
The Ravens rushed for 93 yards and a touchdown. Maybe we have different defitions but I wouldn’t call that neutralized…
Can someone please call Kerry Rhodes? Or Kerry Collins? Or Arthur Rhodes? Or my grandmother? We need playmakers.
I wanted Trestman!
I wouldn’t include Reid and Arians. While both are “new HCs”, Reid simply changed locations and Arians was the de facto HC of Indy all last year.
Your point remains, however.
meant more “new HC to the team” rather than “1st time HCs”
but, now you have made me even sadder realizing that all but Reid are really 1st time NFL HCs as well (as Arians had it thrust upon him and this was the first time putting his overall stamp on the team’s offseason, preparation, et cetera).
I’m a winner again. Sunday hours saved not watching the Browns: 8+
Welcome to the Heckert party pal! đ
Well wasn’t that last one season to remember under Philly? There have been so many FO changes that they’ve all blurred together for me now.
The Browns defense has been stellar but neither team they’ve played thus far have been exactly offensive juggernauts. Still, based on the way the Browns offense has played the defense has done well. I wanna see what they do against my man Adrian Peterson. They shut little Ray Ray down but lets see what they do against the guy who should have been a Cleveland Brown and been drafted #1 as a RB.
I just posted a link to a story about Kerry Rhodes on why he is still unemployed. It’s in the “While we are waiting” section. Oh and Rhodes is working out for the Giants today reportedly.
8 hours? A normal game lasts 4.5 hours heck Browns games are usually decided by the third quarter which means 3.5 hours max!
Agree and disagree with this one. As of the middle of the 3rd, the Ravens also hadn’t gotten past our 34 yard line and had missed that FG. The problem for the Browns is that *none* of our WRs that played yesterday can beat man coverage. Yes, you have to throw people open, but how can you do that if they can’t beat man-to-man, ever? We need better blocking and we need a legit WR.
That all said, I’m afraid that Weeden can’t throw a touch pass or lead. He throws darts into zones, but he can’t lead a guy – see that throw to Ogbi as a prime example. More and more I think of him as a pitcher playing QB.
I’m still bullish on Hardesty being his worst pick. We traded up for a backup RB with a history of knee problems.
I actually liked many of Gannon’s comments getting another ex-QB beside Bernie to talk from their history was a nice change.
Gannon’s comments about how slow and methodical Weeden is my problem. It’s true. It’s probably why the offense looks junior highish or better yet like it’s running in slow motion. Weeden had what at least two delay of game penalties alone.
Granted the WRs suck for the most part and the OL has really taken a step back but I’m afraid Weeden lacks the mental abilities to play the position. He is what I called him on draft night, Derek Anderson 2.0. Size, strength, arm but no football intelligence.
Very true + the moves he made to be in the position to draft many of these guys. I’m still bitter about all of the trading down moves Heckert made during his tenure.
WINNERS:
Front seven (and all their subs), especially Mingo (who almost had a punt block, too!) and Robertson.
Buster Skrine, who showed he actually can cover guys if his own guys don’t get in the way (coughOWENScough).
Weeden when he has even a little time and is throwing to a location (see below for Weeden the Loser). He actually did a really solid job (except for the below) and even his incomplete passes were mostly drops and wise throwaways.
Josh Gordon. God, he’s the only hope to salvage Weeden and this offense. (And Shaun Lavauo, too.)
LOSERS:
O-line, especially Schwartz, Cousins (does he count as an O-lineman?), and yes, Joe Thomas. Is it just me or is Thomas looking very human this year? And can *anyone* run block?
Weeden when he throws a lead pass. He’s a pitcher – all zip and aim to a target, no touch or ability to throw a lead pass. That’s the part of his game that should most trouble people, not the stuff that mostly isn’t his fault.
Greg Little. Ugh. If he can’t catch but does most other things right, and Trent dances too much but catches great and is great open-field, why not try Trent at WR and Little at RB? Can’t be worse than what’s happening now.
Chris Owens. I’d love to see how many times he was targeted and what the outcome was this week. If it’s like last week, cut him.
Joe Haden’s tackling. He’s never used his hands to make a tackle, always launching shoulder first, often almost missing. This will cost us a crucial TD one game. It’s the biggest flaw in his game; the only other one is he never seems set and this costs him on in routes because he seems a step behind. Perhaps I’m being unfair, but that’s what is keeping him from the elite of the elite at CB.
Coaching. The delay of game penalties can’t ever happen.
I can’t see how he’d have started any different based on the personnel. I’m not ready to throw Chud under the bus just yet because I like the fact that he has not one but two real life coordinators. The underlying problem is the personnel isn’t good enough. Based on this past summer and draft it looks like that won’t be changing anytime soon either.
LOSER: Barkevious Mingo. He should have had that blocked punt
Ran for 99 yards on 28 attempts, a worse average than Trent Richardson
Not to mention the guy that started over him was still on the board. What was his name again? Arian something…
Never thought I’d see a guy with worse hands than Braylon.
You have to add TJ Ward to the LOSER column. He consistently misses tackles and runs himself out of plays. It was magnified against Baltimore. Watch the tape. He is terrible. I’d rather see Bademosi roaming back there, he has the size and the hustle.
I’d have to look it up…I’m sure that guy is out of the league, selling insurance or something. I stopped going back and looking who was on the board when we made our indefensible picks after we picked Robiskie with a fella named LeSean McCoy still on the board. Good times.
That was between Rice and Pierce. Browns had a harder time stopping the latter.
he’s a moron. and i mean that in the literal sense. I’m not trying to be mean.
I thought this offense was going to be more competitive, but it looks flat. Weeden will end up falling on the proverbial sword, but lack of a true #1 WR, a FB, and injuries at RG have hurt this team; not to mention forgetting about T-Rich completely in the 4th quarter. Obi is supposed to be the backup RB NOT a FB (and there are plenty to be had in FA). Little looks like he’s trying to be cut from the team with his actions on and off the field. Norv might just have to get much more creative with the play-calling.