2016 Browns Preview: Running Backs/Fullbacks
August 26, 2016Cleveland Browns save cash, cut Paul Kruger
August 29, 2016The Browns’ third preseason game was not pretty for Cleveland, losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-13 on Friday. The Browns were led through the air by Robert Griffin III, completing 8 of 14 for 119 yards and one touchdown. On the ground, Isaiah Crowell led the rushing attack with eight carries for 39 yards. And on the receiving end, Josh Gordon was the leading target, catching two passes for 87 yards and a touchdown. The Browns first team played for a half, losing that period of the game 27-10. There was a lot of bad in the game, with a few bright spots through the gloom.
Let’s start with the bad. The first team defense as a whole was just plain ugly. In the first half, the defense allowed 20 points to the Bucs, including 305 yards of total of offense. Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston dominated the Browns defense, completing 16 of 25 passes for 259 yards and two touchdowns. The Browns were unable to put any pressure on the young quarterback. Winston had all day to diagnose the secondary and find his man downfield. When the Browns did get some pressure, Winston calmly evaded the rush and made a play.
The secondary was not horrible, but it was not good either. They were forced to cover for extended periods of time, which made them no match for Winston. The run game didn’t get destroyed per usual, but the Bucs offense was so successful through the air that Tampa Bay did not need to attempt many rushes, carrying the ball just 14 times in the first half. The Browns defense was hard to watch.
Along the same lines of the defense, the Browns offensive line wasn’t very good either. In the first half, the Browns allowed five sacks to the Bucs defense. It wasn’t just one spot that was vulnerable to the Bucs pass rush. Browns center Cameron Erving was inconsistent yet again, showing promise one play, then looking completely foolish on the next snap. Austin Pasztor was not great, getting beat on multiple instances. One of the scarier things was when Joe Thomas left for the night. The Browns offensive line was porous after that. Dan France came in and was unacceptably bad. It showed the nightmarish reality it would be without Thomas on the left side. The Browns need to get this shored up so Robert Griffin III can stay healthy.
#CenterWatch 2 https://t.co/R95bb9Lvyl
— Anthony Y. (@hunkura) August 27, 2016
The last big negative in the game was penalties, which head coach Hue Jackson mentioned heading into halftime. The team hurt itself on multiple occasions in the first half with penalties on both sides of the ball. The line was called for several holding penalties. The defense was also administered penalties in the first half. The team is not good enough to overcome these penalties.
There were some bright spots from the Browns first team units. The biggest one was receiver Josh Gordon. Getting his first action of the preseason, Gordon caught two passes for 87 yards and a touchdown. He showed his physical superiority over the Bucs defense on the touchdown pass, giving Browns fans dreams what could be. He was good in his first appearance back in live action.
.@RGIII to @Josh_GordonXII.
AGAIN!They connect for a 43-yard TD pass! #CLEvsTB https://t.co/V79aAfWCip
— NFL (@NFL) August 27, 2016
The Browns run game was solid in the first half. Isaiah Crowell rushed eight times for 39 yards, while Duke Johnson Jr. rushed three times for 22 yards. Both backs averaged over four yards a carry. Crowell looked decisive and quick to the hole, while Johnson showed off his elusiveness and speed. There is some hope that the team will have a run game to rely on this season.
Here are some other notes from the game:
- Robert Griffin III was solid. He was able to make some big plays through the air. He was once again cautious, sliding on multiple occasions to avoid the big hit. But, he did hold onto the ball a little too long, causing some sacks to occur.
- The play by the inside linebackers, especially Demario Davis and Christian Kirksey, has been lacking. Their best asset, speed, has not helped them much in coverage, allowing passes in their coverage areas. They are not making many plays in the backfield either.
- Emmanuel Ogbah has some nice rushes off the edge, showing off good hand usage and speed to get around the offensive tackle.
- Paul Kruger needs to turn it up. He has provided very little pressure so far in the preseason and Friday’s game was more of the same.
- Danny Shelton continues to be an invisible player on defense. He has just not made the jump yet from his rookie season.
- Corey Coleman seemed like he never was able to get into the flow of the game. He looked like a player coming off an injury and who has not played in live action in quite some time.
- The biggest thing to take out of this game is this: The Browns defense will be hard to watch, but the offense will be fun to watch with some big play possibilities.
18 Comments
Care Bear…sigh, don’t feel bad, big boy football may just not be for you.
Didn’t Shelton force a fumble?
This team is absolutely horrible. They’ve been bad for so long I found myself thinking ” Why do they even continue to take the field?”
“They are who we thought they were…..” rest in peace Denny.
That certainly wasn’t great, but I will remain on #TeamSunnySide. The defensive pressure needs to be better, but I thought they did have some good moments where Jameis Winston was just better. If that kid can keep his nose clean, he’s going to be a special player. There were at least three plays where the Browns had pressure in his face and he just stepped into it and threw to a spot where his giant wide receivers could catch it.
We should probably also note that the run defense was much better. Shelton even had some moments where he pushed back his counterpart (progress!)
On offense, the deep ball was on again, and that is always fun to watch, but RG3 needs to get the ball out quicker. Most of those sacks occurred pretty late in the play because RG3 was indecisive as to where to throw. And that’s the warning my Redskins fan friends issued when we got him. When he doesn’t get the ball out quickly, bad things happen. Hopefully Hue addresses that.
Did anybody hear Corey Coleman’s name called once?
Ugh what a mess. Prepare yourselves for a long season.
This was posted on a paid board over on OBR. Thought you guys might get a chuckle.
“A quote from Demario Davis on the Browns’ defense:
“The thing I see is that we have a long way to go,” Davis said. “We’re doing some things well, but there is still tremendous room for improvement just in the run game, in the pass game and creating turnovers and getting after the quarterback in the red zone, in short-yard situations, just tremendous room for us to get better, which is good. You want to be able to improve and the good thing is it’s not Week 1 yet. “We still have time to get it right, but that window of opportunity is closing,” he said.
OK, so a veteran starter on defense is admitting “we have a long way to go” and “the good thing is it’s not Week 1 yet”. Finally, we get some honesty rather than the usual cliches.
Davis listed the areas where the defense has “tremendous room for improvement” (as opposed to “We could still improve a little but we’re pretty damn good):
– the run game
– the pass game
– creating turnovers
– getting after the QB in the red zone
– short yardage situations
Sounds like they’re OK in non-short yardage situations as long as the opponent is not passing or running. I take it they’re pretty happy with their defense against fumbled snaps.
The bright side is there is still time to fix all this but the window is closing.”
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Is it too late to submit “The Sieve-land Browns” as our defense’s moniker for the season?
Nope.
With the way this OL plays they better keep McCown around because Griffin will be lucky if he makes it to game 5.
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So I don’t really agree with RGIII holding onto the ball to long, but it made me think about what I didn’t like, and I think I’ve spotted RGIII’s biggest area of weakness in this game (I think this may be a big issue that takes time to improve, but isn’t completely hopeless). I’ll call this Efficiency of Motion.
Efficiency of Motion is using small movements to adjust your position in the pocket (or just outside of the pocket) to buy yourself time. When a QB slides to the left and takes one step forward, all while keeping his eyes down field to make a throw, this is an Efficiency of Motion play. When a QB abandons a 7 step drop, climbs the pocket early and moves to the right where the daylight is, that’s Efficiency of Motion. The most subtle versions of this can be just one step to the left or right which can throw a pass rusher out of the play (This is how the Mingos of the world end up running full speed past the QB). In a sense, it is part of scrambling abilities, but is a bit of a misnomer in this way. Many athletic quarterbacks are actually poor at this (think Michael Vick), while many classic slow guys excel at it (think Brady, Manning, or Matt Ryan).
So the reason I think Efficiency of Motion is important is that in the NFL you just do not have 100% clean pockets very often. And if a QB really does throw the ball away every time he sees a formidable pass rush on the play, they will just be throwing it away too often. There are times when the entire offensive line breaks down and you really should throw it away, but in most plays there is imperfect protection, yet a chance to navigate the backfield and move the pocket for a few extra seconds to make the play. This creates a great number of opportunities to connect with an open receiver if you can do it while keeping your eyes down field.
Back to RGIII, I felt he has been hit or miss with Efficiency of Motion this preseason. I saw him make a play or two versus Atlanta this way, but he just completely failed at it in this game. He would just do the five or seven step drop as designed, failing to adjust to the pass rush. This, I think, is his main contribution to high sack totals in this game, not holding on to the ball too long (obviously the O-Line has alot of the responsibility of these sacks, but they don’t have ALL of the responsibility of them).
As an aside, it occurs to me that this could be the part of “Reading the Defense” that RGIII needs to improve. People seemed to talk as if he was incapable of going through progressions, and didn’t understand offenses or defenses. I’ve found him completely competent at making quick reads and correctly going through progressions every time a play is blocked well. Still, there is an issue for RGIII at reading defenses, which it is more about navigating a pass rush than knowledge of offensive and defensive schemes.
Now you’ve really done it. He’s angry.
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Wait, wait, I saw something nice: Josh Gordon’s give-and-go move past the corner on his first catch, and his veteran push-off/athletic TD catch. Hall of Fame-level talent trapped under a glass jar by that ten cent head. But no complaints, he’d never have been a Brown if that wasn’t the case.
What I see so far is as bad a talent level across the board as we’ve had since maybe 2000. Friday night showcased some clever formations on both sides of the ball but few players with the ability to exploit anything. The sole physical mismatch on the entire squad is Gordon and Pryor. Poor Chris Tabor is trying to teach basics to dozen new guys who apparently don’t know nuthin’ bout this kicking team thing.
If the coaching is as excellent as people want to believe maybe we’ll have a watchable albeit losing team by year’s end. They’ll win a few games when opponents watch the tape and can’t talk themselves into taking Griffin and cast seriously. The key, as always, to Berea ReBuild #12 will be the competent identification and procurement of on-field talent. Two first rounders and two seconds next year – hell, 5 first-rounders next year- will be as meaningless as in the Banner/Lombardi Era if Sashi is only a kinder, gentler Banner, an exec who mistakenly fancies himself a personnel guy.
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