Browns trade Terrance West to Titans, claim OL Austin Pasztor
September 6, 2015Weekend Recap: Indians still lurking beneath surface
September 7, 2015
It’s a holiday Monday and Scott decided he didn’t want to come home to do his weekly post. Can you believe he’d choose extra vacation over a WFNY post? I know! The nerve. So you get some more of me this week.
After a weekend of college football we’re still waiting for the game…
I hope the wait is worth it for Buckeyes fans and followers. It was torturous to watch a whole weekend of college football knowing that I had to wait until Monday night for the Buckeyes to finally get their season underway on Monday night. Another day of waiting to find out that J.T. Barrett (probably) will be the starter. Another day of listening to all those other teams talk about their team and what they looked like. Just waiting and anticipating and hoping that the game goes exactly how we want it to go with a Buckeyes victory wire to wire.
It’s especially scary because the Buckeyes are the number one team and they’ve got a target on their back. They also have one on their front and bottom and top and any other direction you can think of. That’s the difficult thing about being the favorite. It’s the thing that accentuates the journey that the team is about to embark on, and that’s the same feeling I had after the Cavaliers finished the season. What? You mean we have to go through this all over again?
The journey is fun and it’s worthwhile whether you win it all like the Buckeyes or just fall short like the Cavaliers, but it’s kind of exhausting just the same. The Buckeyes will hopefully keep the scares to an absolute minimum. That’s probably too much to ask. This is football and it’s just not an easy thing to win every game and do so convincingly every single time.
Welcome back college football. Welcome back sports anxiety.
Terrance West must be kind of a difficult or immature guy…
If you just look at the production and potential, there’s no way you should ever read Terrance West’s name in trade rumors first, and ultimately traded to the Titans. But that’s exactly where the Browns’ second-year running back finds himself right now. It makes you wonder what the Browns are thinking.
Obviously, they must like Isaiah Crowell and Duke Johnson, but those factors alone don’t eliminate the need for a young guy with some potential. That’s where you have to wonder if there’s something else going on. West shows potential, so you wouldn’t think he’s a guy who is out of shape. The Browns did struggle with him in terms of getting him on the practice field and off of the exercise bike. There are also plenty of rumblings that indicate he lacks maturity. Short of the Browns being on “Hard Knocks” there’s no telling what the running backs room is like.
So all you can do is look at the resulting chatter and deduce a conclusion. Terrance West must be conducting himself in some kind of way that makes him undesirable for the Browns to continue to work with. Regardless, a week before the Browns head into their first real action of the year, it’s less than ideal to have an extra piece of the team so up in the air. If they had trouble with Terrance West to the point they considered trading him, imagine what it will be like to work with him after they fail to get a deal done.
The most embarrassing song to ever randomly come into your head…
I’m putting myself out there this holiday Monday morning. I had a song pop into my head yesterday randomly at the grocery store, and it didn’t even come over the speakers in the store. Some other song that I didn’t know gave me flashbacks to this one, and I had a strangely fond memory of it to the point that I had to hear it. I don’t like this song – at least I don’t think I do – but I just had to hear it anyway. I told my wife about it because it was so embarrassing to me, and now I’m telling you too, because, why not?
So now you have to share too. What’s the worst, most embarrassing song that ever popped into your head and then you just had to hear it?
The Wonder Years and the emo revival…
I don’t know what bands this new crop grew up listening to, but hard indie rock and / or emo is in some kind of revival and for this 36-year-old it’s bringing me back to the best music of the early 2000’s. I don’t know if Andrew already posted this or not, and frankly, I don’t care because even if he did I’m posting it too. I have to talk about these kinds of bands because they do the exact things I love most in music. They sing at the top of their ranges, they like loud-soft-loud dynamics, and they play with the kind of dedication and emotion that gives music the sense of urgency I love. I can’t wait to see this band play live.
18 Comments
“Kind of” difficult or immature? Craig, after watching both first rounders implode because of immaturity and after taking deserved flak for getting himself suspended, Farmer had every reason to put up with almost anything from West, given the position and time of year. Because sputtering “but … but … Bitonio!” is not going to save a GM who had his choice of 4 of the nation’s top 94 players and 3 have contributed absolutely nothing – zilch – but headaches.
West must be a cancer and Berea must have been a rookie Animal House last year. Bitonio is the outlier, a choice that now appears more likely a lucky pick than skill given how the rest of the draft went. The best you can say about Farmer is that last year he wasn’t close to ready when he got this job, and maybe he’s learned a little. Competent GMs don’t completely blow most of their top picks. Finding street FAs is fine, but a team cannot be competitive without competent drafting in the higher rounds. After this fiasco Farmer doesn’t deserve anyone’s benefit of the doubt. Sputter “Bitonio” and I’ll scream “Joe Thomas! Re-hire Phil Savage!”
Even a week before the opener there’s no kool-aid in sight. My only warm fuzzy is that Pettine, like Alex Mack, has surely gotten enough attention to give himself a career in a better place. Best case is that Haslam sees Pettine as the lone competent, and Pettine uses that leverage to force the hiring of a GM with GM skills.
Okay, Ray, if there’s still any doubt, CHARACTER COUNTS.
I guess I was being “kind of” kind to Terrance West because I don’t have sources that have given me direct examples. There’s that Deadspin story about T West’s “thirst” but that doesn’t necessarily prove anything. In the face of direct examples, this was as far as I was willing to go on it.
You’re right about Farmer though. Nobody expects miracles to be performed over night, but we definitely expect better than consistent nightmare scenarios with regard to draft picks. When the Browns finally do select a receiver and he flops as spectacularly as Mayle flopped, it’s a concern in the face of the other well-worn examples.
Combine all this with the fact that Farmer’s idea of a plan was to start a bottom five QB in the NFL and hope for the best, and it’s easy to say that Ray Farmer has the hottest of hot seats.
yeah, I just think the circumstances create the strongest possible inference. The only other conceivable option is that West hit on Haslam’s wife. And it’s too depressing to even go into the wide receiver thing. That’s a super slo-mo car wreck extending over 2 seasons. Eschewing receivers in receiver-rich drafts in a passing era when you have no receiving threats might one day become the modern example of ultimate GM incompetence, now that many fans are too young to remember Mike Junkin.
State University of Ohio – 77
Virginia Tech – 0
VT crowd rushes the field in anger, but Elliot still runs 99 yards through 10,000 students to score on the last play of the game.
Farmer is counting on Crowell to cover over for West, and Ifo to make up for Gilbert.
It might work now, but counting on UFAs and 7th rounders to pick up the slack for high picks is not a recipe for sustained success.
Mad dog in a meat market! SMH…
Last week when I knocked Farmer, quite a few guys rose to his defense, citing his acumen in obtaining Bitonio and some lesser guys who made the team. Perhaps the trade of West means that the sale on Kool-Aid at the Farmer’s market is over.
it’s really hard for fans – including myself – to accept that the Browns have their seventh straight less-than-competent GM since ’99. It’s overwhelming.
Yeah, I’m not 100% ready on closing the door on Farmer (I’m exactly 64% in the latest negative poll). We will have to see how this full year of GM and scouting/full reigns/no excuses of Jimmy pushing for JFF/you’ve got your coach already and don’t have those distractions–draft pans out.
I will say though timing-wise, it was pretty funny (if we can laugh) that Farmer unloaded West and promptly went out on a 4 week leave. It’s the child equivalent of dropping a D report card and then heading over to your friend’s house to play for a month. Farmer won’t have to get as much media heat by week 5 presumably. Or at least over West and his first draft.
and he’s counting on Erving to cover up the inevitable Mack departure. That one isn’t his fault but it’s hard to improve when you’re just plugging leaks.
I’m probably 76%. It’s not just the poor first year methodology for me. I don’t trivialize the texting thing because it illustrates either a lack of knowledge or a level of hubris no rookie GM can justify. And I don’t get why they wait until just days before the opener to dump West, long after decent backs have signed elsewhere. Almost like Farmer couldn’t have handled the backlash if he had traded West last winter after fans heard about Gilbert’s problems.
My hope is this year’s draft will prove truly productive, not just mediocre. And that maybe Jimmy caused some of these decisions. And that Ray has proceeded along his learning curve and that’s better than hiring another green guy because no experienced competent GM would want to sign on here after Haslam’s third shake of the etch-o-sketch in four years. And that this is the last regurgitation of last year’s mistakes. But that’s just hope. These are ominous developments.
Like I said last week the only Cleveland team who drafts worse then the Indians is the Browns!
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Man, you guys are harsh. My idea of a good draft is 1 legit probowl guy and 2 other legit starters (not weak links). So far, from 2014, Farmer has Bitonio, Kirksey, and Crowell (w/ others still needing to prove more).
It all matters how it translates on the field and West is certainly a bad stain (remember how the coaches were all wearing Towson shirts on draft day?).
Farmer had a blind spot in ’14 for talented players who might not work hard enough the rest of the week. We’ll see if that blind spot has been fixed in the ’15 draft over time.
mg, your benchmark might be okay for an average GM in a normal draft, but Farmer has had two first-round picks in two straight drafts. Hitting on those and a few other higher picks could have helped transform the team. But here we sit, picked for last place again. Like Harv said earlier, Farmer hitting on Bitonio now seems more like blind-squirrel luck than savvy talent appraisal.
We’ll see. I believe people can adapt and adjust. The players he picked were widely believed to have incredible talent. He might not have done enough research on their practice habits or he had it and discounted that factor.
With Shelton, Erving, Orchard — let’s just say that ALL scouting reports on them indicate that he took those early lessons to heart. Let’s hope that the pendulum didn’t swing too far the other way (obviously).
Basically, I’m not going to hang someone for their first offense. Especially, when tasked with rebuilding this particular team and one of those picks being “outed” as straight from the owner (or at the very least the “going up to get him” portion).