Jamarco Jones officially named Ohio State’s starting left tackle
April 22, 2016Watch LeBron James take a shot to the neck from Andre Drummond
April 22, 2016I don’t think any Cleveland Browns fans I know have given up on the most recent draft class, despite a few ups and a few more downs in their rookie years. Danny Shelton showed a little bit, but ultimately didn’t have an overall good rookie season on a defense that drastically underperformed as a unit. It underperformed so badly along with the rest of the team that it saw supposed defensive guru head coach Mike Pettine fired. Likewise, Cameron Erving had a mostly down season marked with embarrassing GIFs and Vines of him getting steamrolled playing guard. Even as that is pretty undeniable and undeniably bad, both youngsters have shown an ability to roll with the punches, a willingness to accept responsibility for their play, and outwardly make a pledge to get better. That also seems to be recognized in Pro Football Focus’ re-grade of the NFL draft.
Up first was Danny Shelton who received a C+ grade from PFF.
While we were happy with the Shelton fit in Cleveland during the draft, using him as a pure nose tackle is not the best use of his skill set and he had his struggles early on. He finished strong as the year progressed, grading well against the run but only providing eight pressures on 235 rushes. We still like his prospects going forward, but moving him around the defensive line may help his pass rush production going forward.
Cameron Erving was given a D-, but, again, they seem to recognize the instability that contributes to a failed transition such as being forced to learn all five offensive line positions rather than focusing on the entire season.
Erving looked like a good center prospect after a position switch in 2014, but his transition to guard as a rookie was ugly. His -28.7 overall grade on 420 snap was as bad as it got in the NFL last year. With Alex Mack moving on, Erving will start at center this year where the results should be better, but there are still a lot of question marks given his movement along the line the last two years.
As we’ve discussed in recent days with the Browns’ trade of the number two overall pick, and even the idea that the Browns almost drafted Ben Roethlisberger, these picks aren’t defined assets when they’re drafted. After they’re drafted they are human beings who are responsible for a certain percentage of their future. They are also cogs in a wheel of a system, in this case a Cleveland Browns system that was so broken that it saw the head coach and general managers get fired once again.
And, as I said in the open, Cam Erving and Danny Shelton seem like good character guys who don’t shy away from accountability. Assuming you can believe what’s coming out of their faces is true, it stands to reason that a healthy portion of the issue with guys who weren’t out of place in the slots they were drafted according to various experts, was the dysfunctional team that tried to prepare them to compete at a vastly different level of football that earned them their draft grades in the first place. That’s a long-winded way of saying that the C+ and D- are grades shared with the Cleveland Browns and considering the team’s draft history, maybe even weighted more than 50-percent in terms of whose responsibility it is that they were so low.
So, I have some hope, presuming the new coaching staff and organization is less fueled by chaos than the last. Your move Hue Jackson, Sashi Brown, Paul DePodesta and Dee Haslam.
22 Comments
Never has the idea of addition by subtraction been truer than with our current situation. It is assumed we have holes all over this roster and a dearth of talent roster wide; I’m very eager to see if that perception remains after this next season concludes with many of the same players being guided by a competent staff.
I just don’t know how much stock I can put in to the way PFF grades offensive linemen. For them to insinuate certain players were even a tick above “abomination” status means there is some funny-numbering going on over there.
Shelton is a technique-less bull-rusher with no strength. He better have munched a bunch of PED’s this offseason if he wants to stay in the league. He gets a D from me. He only deserves a C+ if the plus means he’s extra crappy.
Erving is as complete a package of garbage as you can find in pro sports. He’s soft, he’s a wimp, and he has no clue what he’s doing. If there were a grade lower than F, he would certainly qualify. His last name starts with “E” so I’ll give him an “E.” That’s worse than an F.
don’t pull any punches there Saggy.
Line them up against each other all during training camp. The loser gets cut…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmRAiUPdRjk
Yeesh….that’s a battle that Dana White can’t even talk up.
http://media.tumblr.com/c178aff4ce616442baa1cd9261385abe/tumblr_inline_mi3msriMk31rpvx4q.gif
i really don’t know where all that came from – except I never liked Shelton from the beginning, and I thought the Erving pick was stupid, too. Then, the two of them go out and play worse than Mike Junkin.
Not sure how blaming Pettine and O’Neill for everything became conventional wisdom. Pettine was successful before arriving in Cleveland, overachieved in year one and came off well in every aspect except wins. A hundred coaches, fifteen or so of whom were undoubtedly qualified, failed before him. Why are people so quick to assume Hue Jackson is the first competent coach Cleveland has ever had?
With respect to Manziel and Gilbert, we all agree it was the players. So why give Erving and Shelton a free pass and assume they are better than they played? Erving was drafted as a backup center with a first round pick. That’s bad use of a pick on a bad player; not a first rounder with lots of potential. Shelton may have been poorly coached and Erving may have been onfused by multiple positions… But he may not have been, and even if he was, that is evidence he is not a great player. Who is supposed to teach a nose tackle to occupy blockers? I don’t think that’s pettine’s job and not a single fan has the slightest idea whether the guy who did it was any good.
Haslam still owns the Browns. The Browns have still done nothing other than assume they are the smartest people in the room, as is their habit. (Although I will grant that Harvard is a bit of a twist.). I will believe Erving and Shelton have potential when I see them do something.
On the bright side eagles pick gets better with Washington signing Norman?
To answer your first question, the Browns coaches have been undoubtedly crap. As well as Pettine came off early he is not a head coach again. None of the Brown coaches except Romeo have ever led a team again
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i mean you can only go by what you see, no?
wrt to erving — how hard is it to know your blocking assignment? that’s job one and it’s not exactly splitting an atom. when he was in position he seems ineffective too.
on shelton, i remember a lot of ‘high motor’ talk.. “he’s plays all the downs through the 4th quarter.” but it turns out he’s pretty much just an obese guy subject to the laws of conditioning like any other human.
if we look at shelton, erving, manziel, gilbert, mingo (and richardson, weeden, taylor as long as we’re here)… my money is on gilbert to turn into an nfl contributor now that he’s got that bar set good and low. but not a lot of money.
I’ll just say that I’ve never seen an OL get pancaked. Unheard of, even at the college level.
And Shelton is a 1-trick pony whose trick doesn’t work against stronger players – which is pretty much everyone who is an OL in the NFL.
I have the slightest idea (very slight) if Shelton was good at occupying blockers as the nose tackle.
My idea is that he wasn’t good.
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I have totally given up on the most recent draft class. And ever draft class since 1999. They’re all awful.
This reminds me of that Ricky Gervais commercial for Verizon. The whole “not as rubbish as we used to be” thing could apply to Cam or Shelton.
I guess maybe I’ve just become a full on pessimist (pragmatist?) with this team, but I just don’t make the jump from what I read about those players to “there’s hope” for them.
PREACH. This is the Kool-Aid I’m drinking too. Where you at, Sham?
I’m on board with Shelton. Saggy is 100% correct in evaluating him as a bull-rusher without the power. All of his weight was in his lower body and belly and his top half was lacking. I’ve seen recent video of him that has me excited… he’s been building muscle mass in his upper body and looks like a more well-rounded individual now (pun intended). We’ll see what happens, but I am more optimistic about Shelton who has the drive to succeed versus Gilbert who only has the body.
Good point. And Romeo certainly seemed to prove that his first stint as a head coach was no different than his second.
I don’t blame Mike Pettine for the failure of the Browns’ defense last year except from the perspective that he should have had the sense to step in and take control when his good friend Jim O’Neil was running the unit into the ground. I blame Jim O’Neil for the failure in 2015 (who was unbelievably hired to perform the same job for the 49ers). Before the 2015 season, Mike Pettine made a conscious and stated effort to become more involved with the offense http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2015/10/why_mike_pettine_should_consid.html I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this is the time the defense really started to falter while playing directly under Jim O’Neil. In that instance, there were barely any changes to the contributing players from one season to the next, but the defense was significantly worse in 2015 than it was in 2014… it’s hard to take a stance that the players on the Browns defense just weren’t talented enough when they were at least moderately talented the previous season.