While We’re Waiting…All Browns Edition!
November 8, 2010Clevelanders Duel Over Official “Response” to LeBron James
November 8, 2010Take all the joy you had yesterday after the Browns game, subtract all of the surprise and you have what it feels like to be a fan of a good football team in the NFL. Â If the Browns keep up this level of effort throughout the rest of the season and play with this much confidence, soon enough it will no longer be so surprising. Â Your Cleveland Browns defeated the mighty New England Patriots yesterday and in such amazing fashion that absolutely nobody was calling it a fluke. Â Boston Sportsguy was even blown away by it on Twitter.
“Tom Brady is getting BADLY outplayed by Colt McCoy. I feel like my whole life has been a lie.”
Speaking of Colt McCoy, I just don’t know what to say any more. Â I keep trotting out what I think to be the truth regarding the quarterback situation. Â I keep proclaiming that once all three QBs are healthy that there could be some honest debate about who will start. Â I keep saying that I am not so sure we haven’t seen the last of Jake Delhomme this season. Â As the weeks keep going, I feel better and better about the fact that there is no controversy. Â I created that mantra because when quarterback play is bad, it is simply too easy to create controversy out of nothing. Â Now, the Browns are getting competency out of the position and it is even easier to avoid controversy.
The bottom line is that it gets harder and harder to find a reason why Colt McCoy shouldn’t just keep getting the nod. Â McCoy didn’t make mistakes. Â He extended plays with his feet. He scored a broken play scrambling touchdown with the help of some great blocking.
The little things were big this week. The Browns really jumped all over the Pats due to special teams taking the ball away on the kickoff. Â Josh Cribbs blocked his head off, and showed a veteran-like awareness to plays breaking down as he put himself in a good position to help his scrambling quarterback. Â Robiskie was quiet, but he continues to show that awareness if nothing else. Â Massaquoi also struck early, which helped set up the rest of the day running the ball.
On the final play that mattered, where Browns MVP Peyton Hillis rumbled 35 yards for the score, I am not sure what my favorite part was. Â Was it Hillis showing speed getting around the edge? Â Was it Hillis stiff-arming the last defender on his way into the end zone? Â Nope. Â It was watching Lawrence Vickers throw his hands up in victory after sealing the edge completely and springing his oversized halfback into the open field.
That’s how I know our surprise will continue to dissipate in these Browns. Â They expect to win. Â They know they can do it. Â Vickers wasn’t concerned about jinxes or history or anything else. Â These Browns were in the moment, concentrating and outplaying the team that came into the week atop ESPN’s power rankings.
24 Comments
I am a mere 21 years old. I have been a diehard Browns fan my whole life. I have never been happier while watching a football game. Here’s to having that feeling more and more as the season goes on!
Changing my tune like an i-Pod. Play McCoy all year long. He gives us the best chance to win. He’s the starter.
Mmmm. Tasty crow. Hope to be eating it through Thanksgiving and past Christmas into mid/late January.
I really must hand it to Jake Delhomme. He seems to be handling the early success of McCoy really well. Every time they cut to him standing next to Colt, he’s showing McCoy something on the photos of the previous drive, or he’s giving him some kind of advice. Perhaps they can give him an assistant job after the season is over if Jake hangs it up.
As a side note, I agree with Craig…watching Vickers celebrate that touchdown 30-yards away from the end zone was pure jubilation for me. You could just see it in the Pats defense on that play. They had been beaten into submission.
No mas…
As a side, side note…
@ Garry…If that’s you in that picture by the Humvee, thank you for your service. Don’t forget people…Veterans’ Day is this Thursday!
I swear I’m not playing negative Nancy here but for the love of all things holy Cleveland Browns please do not let 2011 become a repeat of 2008 after showing so much life this year.
It feels so good right now to be watching this team perform at a high level. I just don’t want to get built up so high that the fall is as fatal as it was in ’08. In H&H I trust, keep it up Browns!
I too have flip-flopped on McCoy. Start him. Its hard to make the argument he shouldn’t start. I’ll bet even Frowns has to agree to McCoy starting.
I just can’t wait til Sunday. Bring on the Jets. Braylon will be in for a world of hell.
@ Stin4u…I can totally understand what you’re saying, and that’s why I’m excited about this team.
The 2007 team beat up on inferior competition. This team is playing well against the best in the league.
Keep it up Browns!
@stin4u – I think the real difference is how, and I hate this phrase, “fundamentaly sound” we are. If you run the ball and stop the run good things happen. We are doing that. We are playing smart, exciting, tough football. That style will keep you in every game.
My 3 fav things:
1) Daboll handling Colt perfectly, letting him play fake and complete easy passes on first downs early in the game. The kid’s confidence mushrooming as we watch.
2) Colt’s completion just before the TD scramble: feeling the rush from the blindside, threading it at the right moment on the dead sprint to Cribbs for the first down. When did the “light go on” for him? The “game slow down” for him? This kid may make other team’s GMs go to their own scouts and ask: what did we miss in our evaluation, and why did we miss it. Like Gary Danielson recently said, even a qb’s own team has trouble figuring out what they have until he plays in real games.
3) 6:37 left in the game. Patriots score and opt to kick deep, get the ball back and give Brady two drives to work some magic. Pats know Browns will run and use clock, Browns know they know, now it’s all about imposing will. Here come six Hillis handoffs: -5, +15, +2, +9, +4, +35/TD. A smash mouth Hillis sammich, can be especially tasty in the future cold weather games that mean something. Imagine next year, with Hardesty and his low to the ground moves back there with Hillis.
Me like it. A lot.
You’ve seen the last of Delhomme.
They already wanted to go with McCoy the rest of the way and he has gotten it done. Holmgren doesn’t want Delhomme to see the field again because he doesn’t want the league, media, and fan base to see that he made such a terrible mistake bringing him here in the first place. That’s what I was told.
This scenario makes that work out perfectly. And of course Wallace is a back-up. He wasn’t brought here or paid to start. The Browns have finally seen something really work out. Whether it was by design or not.
@ Kevin / Mark – Both good points.
My biggest concern right now is that this team may be a Peyton Hillis injury (knock on wood he stays healthy) away from being mediocre. Mike Bell has looked absolutely abysmal (he may be wearing lead shoes, I’m not sure). I sure hope they can keep this up, and I agree with those leaning towards starting McCoy. I’m not sure how much downside it represents at this point.
I’ve been beating the drum to let the veteran QBs start again since McCoy was starting. I am definitely changing my tune. Thinking about it, my biggest worry that he had only been asked not to lose a game thus far. Well, today he went out and won a game quite convincingly.
Thanks C-Bus Kevin, but it was absolutely my pleasure. [And yes, that’s me – at least the younger, fitter, manlier version of me from ’04. Hung up the helmet, rifle, pistol and spurs (not in photo) last year.]
Since we are on this side, side note – everybody please find and say “thank you” to a WWII or Korea vet while you can. We don’t have many left.
Meanwhile – GO BROWNS!
Thanks Craig, great article!
IMO, this was absolutely the best overall game the Browns have played since 1999. The O-line was outstanding! Vickers and Hillis were outstanding! Together they remind me of Riggins and “the Hogs” from the Redskins glory days.
Defense and special teams were outstanding! QB play was outstanding! Receiving was outstanding!
That, my friends, is how football is supposed to be played!! The Browns excelled/dominated in every aspect of the game. I can’t remember enjoying an NFL game more. That was fun to watch!!
Congratulations to all in the Browns organization, from Holmgren and Heckert to Mangini, Daboll and every player on the team!!
That was as close to a perfectly played football game as I’ve ever seen at the NFL level.
It was so nice to be able to see the Browns just put an absolute beat down on a good team, instead of the ones receiving the beat down, Here we go Brownies here we go! Things are turning around!
This team is making it hard for me to hate Mangini and McCoy.. Stupid, stupid Browns. Playing hard and winning games.
/Don’t worry, Daboll will always have a special place in my heart.
MattyFos: I was beginning to think yesterday that maybe we have all misunderstood Daboll – that maybe we’ve had this burgeoning genius on our hands all this time and just didn’t know it. Geniuses are always misunderstood, after all. Maybe all he needed was a litte Hillis and McCoy (more likely, Holmgren) in his life?
I still want to hate him, but yesterday made it really hard for me. I mean, that trick play in the red zone yesterday was a thing of pure, unadulterated beauty.
I wonder if Holmgren took Daboll to the side earlier this year and said, “Brian, watch film of the Seahawks the year we went to the Super Bowl. We rode the back of Shaun Alexander the entire season, we can ride on Peyton’s back too.”
There is no reason to change QBs. McCoy is just as mobile as Wallace and he appears to have spent the bye week forming a cohesion with the WRs. I don’t know if I’ve seen a better example of this then the pass to Cribbs. The thing people were dismissing about McCoy coming out of college is turning out to be true, the kid is a winner. I don’t know what it is, but he WINS.
Seeing the creativity from Daboll this year has really made me stop and think about how limited they must have felt with Quinn and Anderson at the helm.
I don’t want to crown him as a genius just yet, but there have been some very promising moments thus far this season.
Sure, the trick play to Stuckey was great, but I think i was more impressed with the 4th and 1 call earlier in the game. He knows he’s up against a 3-4 defense, so he starts in a tight formation, then spreads it out to move the linebackers away from the line of scrimmage. The result? 5 o-linemen against 3 down d-linemen. QB sneak…first down…brilliant.
It’s not a matter of re-inventing the wheel (although the trick plays have been fun to watch). It’s more a matter of playing to the strengths of your players, keeping the defense off-balance, and playing the game as the agressor by making defense guess what you will do next.
Also, having better players helps.
Agree. The genius comment was definitely tongue-in-cheek (but the thought did briefly cross my mind yesterday – right up until he tried to chest bump Joe Thomas). The trick plays are fun, but it’s hard to Boise State your way to a winning record (unless, of course, you’re Boise State). It’s not a way to build a long-term offense. [The 4th and 1 was great.]
In 4 weeks Colt McCoy has gone from:
“He’s going to get MURDERED” to
“He looked OK, exceeded my expectations” to
“Hey he didn’t HURT us, he looked pretty calm in there” to
“HOLY COW THIS GUY LOOKS AWESOME.”
My one concern about this team is that they are riding Hillis too hard. Running backs have a short shelf-life.
The offensive play-calling has been phenomenal. Helps when you have a good O-line and a good running game. Finally the Browns are building a foundation!
@11 Stin4u
I think that is a tremendous understatement. We are a Peyton Hillis injury from being below mediocre. I appreciate the fact that McCoy is making smart decisions, but I can’t imagine this team winning many games without Hillis. I’m thrilled with the progress and the smart football (this is all on Mangini – and I will admit that he was dramatically surprised me), but I think our reliance on Hillis demonstrates just how far we still need to go on the offensive side of the ball.
@ # 5
There’s no way 2011 will turn out like 2008. The browns have played the toughest schedule in the NFL based on their opponent’s current W/L record. Exhibit A:
Tampa 5-3
Kansas City 5-3
Baltimore 6-2
Cincy 2-5
Atlanta 6-2
Pittsburgh 5-2
New Orleans 6-3
New England 6-2
Insane. DA looked good in 07 because the schedule was incredibly easy. In 2011, the AFC North plays the poopy NFC West and they should win at least 3 out of the 4 there.
1. If Hillis is healthy, then will it matter who the QB is?
2. If Colt continues improving at his current rate, then will it matter who the RB is?
3. I thought Daboll was the unimaginative OC who couldn’t call plays?
4. I thought Rob Ryan was the DC who called the big blitz at exactly the wrong time to give up a big play?
5. At least Seely has been consistent 🙂