Second Verse, Same as the First?
November 18, 2008WFNY: Supporting the Troops
November 18, 2008Another game, this time a win, but nearly the same feeling. Â I don’t know if I am completely emotionally divested from this team because of their record, but I took almost no joy from last night’s win. Â As was pointed out by WFNY regular The Bambino in the chat last night, you can NEVER root against your team. Â And I don’t root against the team. Â At the same time, I hope these wins don’t add up to a Romeo Crennel stay of execution at the end of the season. Â I hope history isn’t rewritten to the point that Romeo gets another chance due to injuries and a tough record. Â The fact is that Romeo is a popular likable guy in the locker room, but a very poor manager of this team.
Anyway, I will try not to get too bogged down in negatives because I am sure a lot of you want to savor this win.
On with the bullet points…
Â
- Jerome Freaking Harrison. Â Yes, I put a period at the end of that sentence. Â Jerome Freaking Harrison should be the subject, the verb, the adverb and the adjective all in one. Â When I say those three words it should speak paragraphs and novels. Â 101 yards from scrimmage last night. Â Oh yeah. Â And he only had FOUR TOUCHES.
- Jamal Lewis is a warrior. Â He is the heart and soul of this team. Â He has been a wise sage to the other running backs on the team. Â As Fred Taylor splits time with Mo Jo Drew, it is time for Jamal Lewis to split time with Jerome Harrison. Â If J Lew plays the first set of downs and gets a first down, bring in Jerome Harrison. Â The only thing better than a change of pace back from series to series would be a change of pace back in the middle of a drive. Â Other teams do it very successfully. Â Make it happen. Â I put this squarely on Romeo.
- Shaun Rogers can not be contained by a box score. Â The box says he had 6 tackles, 5 of which were recorded as solos. Â Doesn’t nearly speak to the dude’s effectiveness last night. Â Rogers tipped the first interception and they had to hold him on basically every play. Â Terry Pluto’s article this morning pointed to the missed holding calls, and Romeo’s lack of fire toward the refs with regard to them missing holds on Rogers all night long. Â I hate to do this to you, but just think about how Mike Tomlin would have reacted. Â That is what a head coach should be for his players.
- SIX… SIX Braylon DRRRRROPS… AH AH AH. Â I know his line in the box looks kind of impressive, but much like the whole game, does it feel to anybody like Braylon had a good game? Â The Browns are still leaving a lot of plays on the field and it probably starts with Braylon. Â (In the interest of fairness, maybe it wasn’t six, but still it was more than enough.)
- Josh Cribbs with a rushing touchdown, attacked the goal line like we haven’t seen anyone do all season. Â There is nobody in the game of football who can say they play with more determination than Joshua Cribbs. Â Some may equal him, but nobody surpasses him.
- Despite Andra Davis and Wimbley catching interceptions, the linebackers didn’t have a good game. Â The entire second half it seemed that they were unable to get into the right holes and when McGinest and company DID get a hand on Marshawn Lynch, he squeezed through for what seemed to be at least 7 yards every single time. Â Lynch finished the game with 119 yards rushing and 58 receiving and one receiving touchdown. Â Lynch is good, but not that good. Â We are learning that aside from Shawn Rogers, Eric Wright, Pool, Jones, and potentially D’Qwell Jackson the Browns are quite thin on defensive talent. Â I am looking at you Wimbley, Andra Davis, Willie McGinest et al.
- Speaking of which, did anyone notice the MNF team talking about Willie McGinest and saying what a good year he was a having? Â Yeah. Â Wait, what? Â Willie McGinest is having a good year? Â A defense that has given up fourth quarter leads and seems unable to stop anybody has a player who is 76 years old and is playing well enough to put off retirement? Â Really? Â I hate all the stupid platitudes that get spewed during the course of any NFL game, but this was coming out pretty thick. Â (TK NK!)
- On to the use of time outs. Â DP emailed me a bullet on this and he and I are in agreement completely even though Rick thinks we are stupid. Â DP had this to say. Â “I understand the use of the TOs on that last drive, given the situation. You have to assume that Buffalo is making the FG. You just have to. As someone pointed out in the live blog, if we hadn’t used our timeouts, the kick goes off with 3 seconds left or something. He missed, obviously, so it’s a moot point. But still, I’d rather have a chance to do *something* at the end, had the kick been good.” Â I agree with DP. Â They were already in field goal range. Â You HAVE to play for the chance to get the ball back. Â You already gave up the 24 yard run that put them in field goal range. Â Which brings me to the next bullet.
- Special teams coverage was atrocious. Â Decision-making in the special teams game was ponderous. Â The Browns got burned on kickoffs. Â They squibbed it once because they seemingly learned that they shouldn’t give these guys a chance to return the ball. Â Then after scoring a touchdown, they kick away and give up a return TD. Â WHY? Â Romeo. Â Yes you. Â WHY?
- A non-sarcastic kudos goes out to Romeo for finally using the challenge flag and being right. Â Just because they give you challenges doesn’t mean you have to use them and waste timeouts being wrong. Â Even before the replay, I decided that it was a good challenge no matter what. Â Even if Romeo had been wrong, it was the perfect opportunity to toss that red flag. Â Thankfully it hadn’t gotten lost in many of the nooks and crannies (IE skin flaps) where Romeo might not have been able to pull it out of. Â And credit to our horrible head coach, he was right. Â (yay.)
- Anybody notice Jason Wright’s WHIFF on a Mitchell blitz that ended one of the drives? Â Yet picking up blitzes was the excuse given to not playing Jerome Harrison. Â So much for that excuse, I guess. Â Jerome Freaking Harrison.
- Phil Dawson. Â I won’t say anything else. Â I don’t need to waste the keystrokes. Â If you don’t know, then I won’t bother trying to tell you.
Well, that is all I am going to write for now. Â I am sure there is a whole lot more to talk about from this game. Â I will let you all accomplish that in the comments. Â One final note, though. Â Huge love to all the WFNY people who made Rock work way too hard approving comments last night in the chat during the game. Â Sometimes watching away games can feel really lonely. Â Last night the only person who felt lonely was my wife because my head was buried in my laptop as I was watching the game with all of you guys, cracking jokes, dying with every missed tackle, NKing with every TK, laughing at Romeo’s sour puss faces, making obscure movie and TV references (It is THERAPIST Mr. Connery) and basically enjoying what would have been an awful game to watch in solitude.
That, my friends might be the longest sentence I have ever written.  Thanks to DP for the input and thanks in advance to Rick for flaming us in the comments about clock management.  🙂
Oh yeah, and if you would like to give us the proverbial business in person, some WFNY staffers (Rick, Craig, and possibly Scott) will be making an appearance at the Quaker Steak and Lube in Independence Ohio tonight starting at about 7:00 PM. Â And by “making an appearance” I mean ordering wings and other assorted food items and beverages while watching the Cavs and sheepishly wearing our nifty WFNY t-shirts in the hopes that some of you feel like showing up and saying hello to us. Â It will be pretty sad if it is just three guys sitting together with the same 4 letters emblazoned across their chests. Â Don’t make fools of us people. Â Please.
37 Comments
And there was much rejoicing…
“As someone pointed out in the live blog, if we hadn’t used our timeouts, the kick goes off with 3 seconds left or something.”
Ahem, that would be me. I’m with you guys on the clock management. Rick was trying to say that we were letting Denver advance a few yards. Well, here’s the thing….Denver wasn’t taking a knee where they were at. They were going to run a couple more plays anyway to try to advance the ball, and they would have used all the clock in doing so.
By calling the time out, you still maintained some sense of control in your own hands. No matter what happened on the FG, the Browns were going to get the ball back with a little time left to at least try to win the game instead of leaving it up to the fate of the other team’s kicker. I will ALWAYS prefer to have my teams control their own destiny rather than leave it up to the other team to screw up.
so…did romeo out-coach jauron?
No. Jauron got out-sucked by his team. Jauron’s QB threw 3 interceptions in the first quarter and they still had a field goal’s chance of winning the game.
And, in the broader scope of “clock management,” my agreement with the use of the TOs on that Buffalo drive does NOT bely my anger that we stopped the clock for the Bills with some questionable plays/throws on our own drive. If you’re comfortable kicking a 57 yard field goal, run it up the gut twice to make it a 53 yard field goal, make the Bills use their last timeout, and grind down a larger chunk of the remaining clock.
I was just saying that in the context of that drive, using the TOs was the right call.
RE: Scott. If he did, I feel really bad for Bills fans.
Add center to the list of positions to upgrade in the offseason. It seems as though most of the pressure last night was coming up the middle. From the replays I saw, it looked like Fraley was either picking up the wrong guy or was overwhelmed by the guy he was trying to block. Wright whiffing on that block didn’t help things. A lack of push up the middle probably explains why Lewis is averaging 3.5 YPC.
Nothing about Brady in the bullets? It wasn’t very pretty, but he got the job done. His arm strength looked good enough to me, though some of his deep balls weren’t too accurate.
Great fun last night. I too felt like this was a loss despite the final score. Edwards dropped 4 catchable balls by my count. 2 at least would have been 1st downs. Harrison and Cribbs continue to make plays, but get rewarded by watching most of the game from the bench. RAC is a nice guy, but sucks as a head coach. The defense, with just a few exceptions, should really be ashamed of themselves for the complete lack of desire they showed for the 3rd straight game. Pee Wee league tackling, and no fire. I wonder if they’re imitating their head coach?
Some say a win is win, and I wanted them to win. But, I fear anything that extends RAC’s tenure.
I loved on the Marshawn Lynch run in the fourth quarter that got him down to the 1-foot line where Eric Wright–instead of trying to freaking tackle him–was trying the Derrick Johnson ball-punch-out move from behind for six yards. While getting carried.
Another great coaching decision: Not having Shaun Rogers in the game right after we pinned the Bills on their 1-yard line in the first quarter. Edwards had just thrown all those picks. We had the lead and the momentum. Everyone knew the Bills were going to run to try and get off the goal line. So why on Earth do we take out our best lineman, the only one who can make a play while still being held by three linemen and simultaneously push them back a few yards??? A safety there or forcing a punt from the endzone in that series might’ve sealed the Bills’ fate before they stormed back in the second quarter. Ugh…did we really win that game…
I liked Marshawn Lynch talking trash to BQ. Probably unintelligible, but trash talk nonetheless.
NK.
Thanks Brad. That is one that I forgot. The Browns get a perfect punt down to the Bills 1 and Shaun Rogers sits it out. Amazing.
@Brad – good call on no Rogers on the goal line.
how do so many pro football players not know how to tackle?? and how did they all wind up on the same team?
Why in the world did Romeo not run the ball at the end of the game? drives me crazy! what an idiot. that’s why we have lewis.
And apparently NOT why we have Harrison, what with his 3 carries for 80 yards.
@IRB?: Ha! You could totally tell the look on Brady’s face was “what the hell did that guy just say??”
From KSK {very safe}
http://cdn.kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com-s1.simplecdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/lol-romeo.jpg
Eric Wright is the softest player to wear a Browns jersey that I can ever remember. He makes Deion Sanders look like the 2nd coming of Dick Butkus.
Eric, solid coverage skills, NFL worst-tackling and desire.
I agree completely with brad, as a matter of fact i was trying to scream it at romeo through the tv last night. About the clock management, i thought it was atrocious. When they got the ball to the 39, why couldnt we run it and take time off? at worst you think jamal gets 4 yards on two attempts, so it is a 52 yarder and buffalo’s TO is used along with about 45 seconds. at minimum. if he got stuffed the first 2 tries then pass, but i hated not trying to take time off the clock.
CRAIG:
Shouldn’t there be a bullet-point about the “Cleveland NKs!” theme song lyrics “contest”, and / or about the musical collaborating that will inevitably be involved?
🙂 🙂 🙂
Independence? I knew there was something I didn’t like about you guys…
how do so many pro football players not know how to tackle?? and how did they all wind up on the same team?
And why does that team always seem to be the Browns?
Sorry, i had to finish that line of thinking.
“We are learning that aside from Shawn Rogers, Eric Wright, Pool, Jones, and potentially D’Qwell Jackson the Browns are quite thin on defensive talent.”
Uhhhh…besides Shaun Rogers, D’Qwell Jackson is the best player on the Browns defense.
FYI, after last night, Jackson now leads the NFL in tackles.
@Jewpants
The league as a whole cannot tackle. Teams rarely have FULL CONTACT practices anymore. Especially these “player coach” led teams. In high school we would knock the snot out of each other and no one got hurt. I understand you don’t have your own guys choppin each other down at the knees but please, at least have a tackling session more than once a week for more than 30 minutes.
@Craig
I hope you don’t mind me stealing your “sentence” there and using it as a sig for my other blog, email, and website posts.
And count me as another Browns fan who was absolutely blown away with how bad our tackling was last night…off 11 days rest, no less. That has to fall at the feet of Romeo.
After Trent Edwards threw those 3 picks, he didn’t throw a pass deeper than 5 yards from the line of scrimmage the rest of the night. That didn’t stop him from completing several short passes to Marshawn Lynch 8 yards short of the first down, only to see Lynch slice through the defense and pick up first down after first down. Unreal.
I don’t mind at all JJ.
I am a big fan of D’Qwell, but I wouldn’t go around touting the tackles stat. It isn’t always the most meaningful stat in the world. See Davis, Andra 2005 for proof.
…Pee Wee league tackling, and no fire. I wonder if they’re imitating their head coach?…
My nine year old is in his 3rd year of tackle football. There are kids who love to hit and there are kids who are afraid to hit. The ones who are afraid to hit are easy to spot. They’re easy to run over/past too. The Browns defense is made up of guys who are afraid to hit. Their dads need to get them back into flag football until they’re ready to hit because they’re going to get hurt out there.
Good call on the ’05 Andre Davis reference Craig. D’Qwell is probably also leading the league in tackles seven yards downfield from the line of scrimmage. Andre must’ve taught him everything he knows.
And who put a treadmill underneath Jamal Lewis yesterday? I swear you could see his legs moving but the body just wasn’t going anywhere.
Jamal takes way too long to get to the line of scrimmage. I like his heart but growing very tired of him getting most of the workload.
Nobody has mentioned the play selection on the final drive that set up the monster Dawson field goal. When you are just five yards out of a semi-comfortable field goal range, with a rookie quarterback, why oh why do you throw on three straight downs? (Brady went 0-3) Isn’t this what we have Lewis for? Even if we had only run the ball for 2 of those plays it would have at least taken a minute more off the clock. Not to mention we would have moved at least a couple of yards closer. Buffalo wouldn’t have even had a chance at winning the game.
I think Dawson really bailed Chud out on that one.
Today is Tuesday….Does Quaker Steak still run their “all-u-can-eat Wings” special on Tuesday?
I’m out of town, but figured a shameless plug like that would help roll out the masses for QS&L. Gotta love all you can eat wings while the Cavs destroy Jay-Z’s team that is staying in the Garden State forever.
Man if you guys think the Browns tackling is bad, you shoudl watch the Lions sometime. OMG it’s laughable. Makes the Browns look like the 85 Bears.
Would someone out there please talk about the shameless tackling that is a constant of Crennel’s defense? Please, enough of this talk about the talent level-Savage and Crennel have had four years to give us what they are fielding. The issue is the lame arm waving and out of position fly-byes, it’s embarrassing. High school players are taught how to square up, wrap up, and put someone down-even if it’s ten yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
Enough with the talent thing-tackling is coaching, technique, and determination; plain and simple. Romeo/Tucker-are you listening???
I had a really tough coach as a kid, and no one liked him at practice, but we loved him at the end of the season…why?….because we won, a lot. I think the same could apply here. Fire Romeo.
Tough coaches –
Mike Singletary whaaaaaaa????????
Jamal is tentative running up the middle, does that little jitterbug at the line hoping for a hole to open up and by then the linebackers are all over him. Let’s see more of Mr. Jerome Freaking Harrison.
Too late to do anything this season, but I’d sure like to see Joshua Cribbs at safety. That man is good at anything he tries.
Does anyone really think it was Romeo calling those timeouts? He doesn’t look like he makes a single decision about anything during a game.
Greatest Browns Recap Ever.
Sorry I couldnt make it to Independance, and round out that foresome of WFNY shirts. Hope it was Fun.
Is there anyone on the defense that will man-up and actually make a hard tackle? Everyone in the back seven looked scared to hit anyone on the Bills offense.
About that Willie McGinest comment during the game. I could not believe my ears, Jaws is ridiculous sometimes. Of course he won’t be questioned by that, b/c nobody besides Cleveland realizes how terrible Willie is now. Everyone else in the country sees the old Willie and assumes we’re lucky to have him.
Craig, I too felt emotionally detached during the game. The only times I truly felt into it were watching BQ and Harrison play. Other than that, it’s hard to get into it like I normally do.
Please Lerner, don’t let Romeo kill off your fans