Ohio State releases trailer for game at Maryland
November 11, 2016Another Milestone for LBJ: Cavs vs. Wizards, Behind the Box Score
November 12, 2016The real problem with talking about the Cleveland Browns right now is that nothing actually matters. This season has been lost for a long time and even things that could matter in the future aren’t much worth talking about because the Browns are now 0-10 and likely headed for 0-16. I don’t even want to talk about them or watch them or think about them, but this is kind of the lot I’ve chosen for myself with the website. So, let’s talk about some Browns things even though none of it might actually matter.
Jamie Collins appears to be good at football…
Jamie Collins got his first sack with the Cleveland Browns and he was untouched through the middle. The degree of difficulty didn’t seem all that high, but Collins pops off the screen compared to many of his defensive counterparts in “color rush” white.
The first sack as a member of the Browns for @j_collins91. #CLEvsBAL https://t.co/zBHRI5zJSt
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) November 11, 2016
Defensive stats are misleading, but Collins finished the loss to the Ravens with nine tackles – seven solo – with a sack and two tackles for loss. For a guy in his second game playing with all new teammates, it’s pretty apparent that he’s got a certain skill level and capability beyond what some of his teammates have.
Yet again, this might be meaningless to think because we have no idea if the Cleveland Browns will be able to get him signed into the future.
Hue Jackson’s QB decisions don’t matter…
The jokes write themselves really. When asked about his decision to bench Cody Kessler for Josh McCown in the second half of the Baltimore game, Hue Jackson told the media, “I wanted a spark.” What he didn’t bargain for was Josh McCown bringing not only a spark but a gas can leaking all over the place. McCown was the definition of disaster, giving the Browns drives of interception, three-and-out with a non-lost fumble, another interception, another fumble but lost this time, and another three-and-out. He lorded over a 6-point deficit and helped turn it into a 21-point deficit in a big hurry.
I don’t really blame Hue Jackson, however. You can’t guarantee results, and these results were bad, but Cody Kessler was dinking and dunking like crazy. We don’t know what plays were being called and where Jackson wanted the ball to go, but presumably it was someplace to aim for more than the 5.1 yards passing average that Kessler had amassed through the first half and the first drive of the second half.
Josh McCown didn’t succeed, but he did try to throw down the field. In the first game against Baltimore this season, McCown threw for 260 yards and a 7.88 yard average including a long play of 47 yards. You have to think that was what Hue Jackson was thinking about when he made a move.
In the end, it doesn’t matter anyway. Cody Kessler is going to continue to play. He’s also going to continue to be here for the foreseeable future. I’ll be aghast and astonished and astounded if he’s handed the job without serious competition next season – most likely from the draft. Playing Josh McCown seems utterly pointless with how he played, but if he somehow managed to connect on a few deep balls and give the Browns a victory, then it would have been helpful to the psyche of the team including one of the real assets the Browns are definitely counting on going forward like Corey Coleman and presumably Terrelle Pryor.
We have a tendency to focus on the quarterback because it’s the most important position, but they don’t have an important prospect on the roster. Cody Kessler has been a nice surprise, but he’s only nice compared to the dude who couldn’t help but step out of the back of the end zone in pre-season. Josh McCown, Cody Kessler, or RG3? None of these decisions matter regarding the future of the Browns’ QB position.
NFL refereeing makes the game foreign to fans…
I am always very careful when I criticize refs because everyone plays by the same rules and you don’t want to come off like you’re blaming refs for your team losing. However, it’s been liberating in a season where the results don’t matter for the Browns to feel like I have a license to talk about how awfully the game is officiated today without being labeled a sore loser. The crappiness of the Browns somehow makes me a more objective observer. So let’s talk about some of the garbage from last night’s game.
It was borderline, and I understand how it might have appeared to the referees, but Emmanuel Ogbah’s hit on Joe Flacco was not anywhere close to a roughing the passer penalty. In a game where two guys are both moving and the defender’s helmet makes contact with the QB’s shoulder first, it’s just not fair to call it roughing if their helmets happen to touch at all. If Ogbah goes low that’s a penalty as well.
Even worse was the Browns touchback on the Boddy-Calhoun interception that was reversed and placed at the one-yard line. BBC separated from Steve Smith around the nine-yard line, intercepted the ball at about the two-yard line and his momentum carried him into the end zone. I guess they considered the contact that Steve Smith had with him all the way back at the 10 as enough to consider him “touched down” at the one? Jerome Boger used the momentum rule as a reason to put the ball at the one, but the momentum rule is used to make sure something isn’t a safety. Here’s the momentum rule.
“(a) Player intercepts a pass with both feet inbounds in the field of play and his momentum carries him into his own end zone. Ball is put in play at spot of interception.”
So, it would seem that this means the ball should be placed at the one-yard line, right? I actually don’t think so. I think it should have been placed at the one-yard line if the referee had ruled it a “safety.” Because the referee ruled it a touchback, however, I’m unsure how they could have said that BBC was down by contact at the one-yard line. And here we are all looking at something and talking about it like it is a legal case as opposed to a fun, distracting game to take our minds off of the real world. Bring back the fun!
And there are more where these came from. Even if the referees got things right, did they get them right for the good of the game? Was anyone better off that some crazy technicality that defied the vision of fans at home and the referee better off with the Browns starting at the one-yard line after making a great defensive play on Steve Smith and Joe Flacco? Is it more fair or more entertaining or in any way better to the audience at large that might be watching NFL football? Again, the Browns don’t matter and their inability to win one out of their first ten games makes my homerism irrelevant.
However we arrived at this point with the game and its intersection with the rule book and the refs really stinks.
And none of it matters. The Browns don’t matter. None of the QBs matter. Jamie Collins might not even matter. Six more games and we can say goodbye to the worst NFL season in Cleveland Browns history and hello to the draft officially. I think I’m going to need a whole lot more beer.
36 Comments
Good at football = $.
Nice knowing ya Mr. Collins.
Moneyball!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA1vmN-skXo
Man, they are really, really bad… I am generally an optimist, but optimism at this point needs to point to 2 seasons from now, not even next year.
yeah, quite possibly. some good young players, but so many holes. I don’t see how they fill them all (including depth) for 2017.
The refs also ignored the penalties by the Ravens on each of those plays. The roughing the passer play, Flacco was not out of the pocket and threw to absolutely no one. It should have been intentional grounding.
On the interception, Steve Smith gave BBC an obvious shove in the back that actually propelled BBC enough to make the interception. Nonetheless, it should have been pass interference on Smith.
Also, Terrence West kept spiking the ball every run over 3 yards. You know that would have been a penalty if anyone from the Browns did that.
If Collins signs here i will be because the guaranteed $ is so much greater than elsewhere. But how hard will he then play for a team destined for badness for a few years minimum?
Yes, Cody Kessler will play, because all our QBs will play. Because all our QBs get hurt, slowly recover and get to reappear at some point. Because our pass protection is poor and there’s not a running game threatening enough to make a defense hesitate even for a moment on their way to the QB. Because, aside for Stockholm Syndrome at left tackle, the O-line is worse than that in ’99. Wait, maybe I should check PFF ratings before daring to opine thus.
Boddy Calhoun is just such a classic wrestling name.
http://www.wrestlingmuseum.com/images/photos/calhoun-haystacks04.jpg
The next offensive PI called on Steve Smith will be the first.
If BBC had fallen to the ground and dropped the ball it would be considered incomplete, since he has to have possession throughout the catch. So, How could you consider the interception to have occurred PRIOR to him falling to the ground and completing the catch? It’s entirely contradictory.
These officials are so bad – and, again, so are the announcers. They have their own agendas on each play and never speak to what we are seeing on replay which might contradict what was called on the field. Just terrible all around.
Haystacks Calhoun ?? … i grew up on Big Time Wrestling … Pompeiro Firpo , the Mighty Igor , Bobo Brazil , Killer Brooks , the Sheik , Flying Fred Curry & on & on.
… man , i’m surprised i even remembered some of those guys.
it all matters , CRAIG … it all matters. enjoy your beer.
I don’t think they’re related to be honest. They look nothing alike. Still, might as well reminisce about ancient wrestling at 0-10.
I’m very impressed with this site all round, and even more so now that the team is so dreadful. Once I got used to the rules for what one can say and not, I have found it’s one of the best sites I’m aware of covering any team in the NFL. I’m halfway to becoming a Browns fan just because of this site and the people who write and comment here. So cheer up. Even being bad can be done well, apparently.
that’s one big boy … https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52b2b6c7914b5e231988343a143cc7a41c48d10a6012ad8d0ae9d25add9c2c31.jpg
we have all kinds … negative , skeptical , conspiritive , hopeful & way too positive (*raises hand*) … and they are all die-hards … that’s what drew me here as well. how can such a laughingstock of a team have a such great fans ??
and the staff at WFNY rocks … *was that too much sucking-up ?*
We have a lot of practice.
“So cheer up. Even being bad can be done well, apparently.”
Someone get this guy a flyer for Team Sunnyside tryouts
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8900dab85eb7b96a926cbc5a5477ba7b5aeda143d0e49949db2db058db975f1a.jpg
Who ever said we were Browns fans?
https://media.giphy.com/media/Ae7SI3LoPYj8Q/giphy.gif
He must have gotten that idea from all the Browns comments on the World Series message boards.
There can be too much?
Fantastic and thank you for the kind words.
Specifically to the NFL, being dreadful might play into it. Given the NFL’s popularity, it cannot be ignored. So, we have to take the rock out of our paper sack and figure out how to change it into a candy bar.
LMAO !!
I used to joke that the refs thought he was just “so cute cuz he’s so little” being the reason that he never got called for O-PI. Then, he changed his Panthers jersey for a Ravens one and I started being upset by it.
I have a new plan. It may seem a little crazy but bear with me a minute.
We have the assets to pull this off. We have some decent (outside of QB) skill position players on offense (provided we keep Pryor).
We already have two first round picks this year. What we need to do, is make the requisite moves (having multiple 2’s helps) to get three picks in the top 12. From there, we drafy Myles garrett, johnathan Allen and Jabrill Peppers.
Within 2 years we have the best DL on the planet. And, a pretty deep one at that. With Peppers playing the Tyrann mathieu spacebacker role (Mathieu better in coverage, Peppers better in run support), Boddy Calhoun and Haden, we have a not so bad secondary. Keep Jamie Collins and find some more LBs.
Use whatevers left in rds 3,4,5 to get OL. Maybe try and grab a couple more DBs. Hit the UDFAs for RB help. IF (big IF) we can somehow hold on to the #33 pick, use that on a QB who has a: height and B: the ability to keep his eyes downfield while side-stepping a rush. Hue can go from there
These mushrooms are makin me feel kinda funny. At this point, I believe we are entitled to our fantasies
I feel like we need a Cavs column after all this depressing Browns stuff.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4fb3247d628c67a2c06a69ab3eb747bafa7de5679a1b5f8d8b2acfe3ac634ed3.png
…or is that a pedestal?
https://media.giphy.com/media/l2SqeBp51QTM1sy6k/giphy.gif
There’s a “too much” now?
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Can’t believe Ozzie would sign an aging FA receiver to a multi-year deal on the downside of his career. He could have traded down and drafted four rookies instead. Doofus.
Couple of things on the refs.
1. If you are going to call the play dead as a touchback, you shouldn’t be able to review that play. The runner stops because it is a touchback. If live, and it is not called a touchback, the CB is at least at the 15 if not more. He certainly is not going to end up at the 1, and if tackled in the end zone, it goes back to where he initially caught it since it took him in there.
2. There were a few personal foul penalties that were game killers. The hit on Flacco being one of them, i remember another one when Campbell made a tackle that ended up being called unnecessary roughness. There is nothing else the guy could have done there.
NFL is starting to suck, when i say starting to, it is past “getting bad”
Has anyone seen Skulb and Craig in the same room at the same time???
#TeamConspiracy
love it.
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On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
!mj103d:
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