Rants from the Dawg Pound: Browns-Vikings edition

by Brownsrant on Sep 18, 2009 2:26 AM EDT

*In the "Best Damn Browns Preview" and in Report: Browns RB "really sucks" Max Rage and I have gone to great lengths to prove to the jury that Jamal Lewis was worse at running the football than Steve Young was at giving color commentary. Wow were we wrong.

First, Lewis ran like it was 2007, being decisive and showing a nice strong burst while finishing the day with eleven carries for fifty seven yards. Then Steve Young goes out and delivers a mute button breaking performance and a previously impossible I-can't-believe-I'm-saying-this-but-I-wish-Tony-Kornheiser-was-here moment.

On a scale from believable (Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian) to unbelievable (Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian) here's how I rank this weeks events:

Kameron Wimbley's one sack, three quarterback hits, and three tackle day (which, if your keeping score, is another guy I threw under the bus. My bad, Kamerion. Much love.); Drew Brees torching the Lions for six touchdowns (apparently their "mentors" didn't do a good enough job); Kanye West berating Taylor Swift, thereby making a fool of himself; Jamal Lewis's solid day; Kanye West on Jay Leno making a even bigger fool of himself (does he have a CD coming out?); the end of the Bengals-Broncos game(talk about hard knocks); the Pats comeback over the Bills, Dick Jauron's face watching the Pats comeback over the Bills and Steve Young nails-scratching-against-a-chalkboard performance.

Seriously, it was that unbelievably bad. But I digress. The bottom line is Jamal Lewis didn't look half bad and James Davis either looked like a guy who just got concussed in a car accident or like a guy who faced NFL starters for the first time.

*After the game on Sunday was mercifully over I was gripped with a wave of depression as I made my way back to my car. "Why was I so depressed", I kept on asking myself. It's not like this was unexpected, right? Heck, we were even winning at halftime. So what was my problem?

On the way home it hit me. I wasn't bothered that special teams and penalties basically cost us the game after Mangini promised change and discipline. Change takes time, especially after you just spent the last four years playing pick up football with Romeo. Brady Quinn looked shaky at best but that wasn't gnawing at me either.

What really made my blood boil was the offensive coordinator and head coach playing not to lose. Nothing makes me lose my head more than that. You see, once you play not to lose the game is essentially over; you cannot win. Losing is inevitable; the only question is what the catalyst will be.

Take the first drive, after Brad Childress decides to give the Browns a gift at the 50 yard line and the Browns have been moving the ball on the ground and through the air. With momentum at their back on 3rd-and-9 from the 21 yard line, they decide the best move is to basically run it and take the three points.

Seriously that's what they did; that little shuffle pass gets you nine yards once every twenty times.

The first drive of the season and they are already playing not to lose.I don't care how inexperienced your QB is; if you can't trust your quarterback in that situation than he should not be your in there. Consider this; Quinn did not throw a pass on third down until the fourth quarter.

Another thing that bothered me (which Mangini has subsequently apologized for) was the two straight runs out of the wildcat at the goal line. The first one was understandable; the second one unforgivable. No surprise, no wildcat. It's that simple.

I also felt there was a little lack of imagination offensively. Where were the screen passes? Why not try to get the ball to Cribbs in space, like the Vikings kept on doing with Harvin? "The Canadien Bull" has a lot of work to do.

*As for Brady Quinn, apparently he's a work in progress, which is expected at this point of his career. Still, the dinking and dunking is really starting to grate on my nerves. From what I saw he definitely left some plays on the field and looked afraid to take a shot, which is a terrible trait for a quarterback to have.

In the huddle he looked like a guy who tells his dying wife that everything is going to be okay but she's knows that he's lying. His timing on his slants where way off and that "miscommunication" with Braylon is on him, not to mention his Garo Yepremian-esque fumble.

What's that you say? I shouldn't pass judgement after one game? I'm not, I just simply want to point out what we should be watching for in the next couple of weeks. By the way Eric, it might help if you show a little confidence in the kid and actually let him throw a pass on third down.

*Now the good news. My eyes popped out of my head when I saw the defense play. They played with fire and intensity. Rob Ryan called a great game, showing them a lot of different looks and blitzing plenty. Actual blitzing!

I felt as proud of them as a father who's kid becomes a doctor; could you imagine my Browns, after all these years of me asking, pleading, cajoling, screaming and even begging for a aggressive defense, finally they are making me proud and listening to me. It was surreal.

Didn't you love the extensive use of the "46" defense? The corners played well considering they weren't tested much. Kamerion Wimbley and Abe Elam had outstanding performances, especially in the first half. Even Brodney Pool, who has been comatose since his pick against the Giants last season added a sack and seemed to be around the ball.

Besides for Adrian Peterson's 64-yard scamper (like a bad song you accidentally hear on the radio, I can't get Chris Berman's, "and there goes Peterson, Whoop! Whoop!" out of my head) the Browns defense mostly was victimized by shoddy special teams.

(I was speaking to Max Rage and he made a very good point. The person who could be single-handedly the most responsible for the Browns losing on Sunday? Dave Zastudil. Think about it. Zastudil's terrible line drive punts were the main reason the the Vikings were able to get such big returns. Did I mention Max hates Zastudil?) They also suffered from being on the field for too long more than any thing else.

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There are two things in this that really resonate with my own thoughts:

First, I really think you are right about Mangini and Daboll seeming to manage the game “not to lose”. Particularly the lack of trust in the Quinn that was exhibited in the play calling. I haven’t done any firm analysis on this but my feeling was that throughout the game they were consciously calling plays to take the weight off of Quinns shoulders—understandable with a rookie but not so much with someone who has been with the organization this long and is THE guy. I do not however, excuse Quinn’s poor performance in light of all the excellent rookie QB play we’ve seen in the past few years. He has to show us something and it has to be soon.
A point about the 3rd downs… One thing I noticed about the Browns this past Sunday is that they seemed to have decent gains on 1st and 2nd downs, giving them more 3rd and short situations that allow for running plays—this might somewhat explain the lack of passing on 3rd downs until the 4th quarter.

Second, minus a few really bad downs, the defense played a good game. Could we be seeing better utilization of players who have seemed to be busts like Wimbley? And right now, Coach Mangini seems like a genius in picking up Elam. I think Browns fans greatly appreciate good, aggressive defense even more than spectacular, high-scoring offense—I’ll take both, thank you!

Brownsyup

by Brownsyup on Sep 18, 2009 11:08 AM EDT reply actions

That guy pitched a great guy except for those 2 innings. That guy played a great round of golf except for that hole where he took an 8. That basketball team played a great game except for that third quarter where they lost 24-8. That CB did a great job of covering the other team’s star receiver, giving up just 2 receptions all day. Unfortunately, those 2 playes netted 140 yds. That boxer fought a great fight until the 8th round when he was KO’d.

by elsandito on Sep 18, 2009 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions

Let’s discuss the nature of coaches and players who rely on an element of surprise.
The success rate is highest in the beginning. The more game tape that opposing OC’s have to study, the more likely that tendencies will be discovered. The element of surprise becomes a bit tempered.
It won’t make sense to draw conclusions about Ryan’s effectiveness, given Browns’ personnel, until we see whether his schemes work well into the season.

by elsandito on Sep 18, 2009 11:23 AM EDT reply actions

@Brownsyup, I checked it out and although there were times were running was the better option, the majority of the time a “regular” quarterback would’ve been allowed to take a shot at a first down through the air.

@elsandito, our point about the defense simply was that they showed very encouraging signs, Their poor play in the third quarter does not take away from that.

by Brownsrant on Sep 18, 2009 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions

It won’t make sense to draw conclusions about Ryan’s effectiveness, given Browns’ personnel, until we see whether his schemes work well into the season.

Disagree. The schemes work. This is what a good defense should do schematically. Whether the defensive players can continue to do their jobs once the element of surprise is done is up for debate—and ultimately, that will determine the effectiveness of the defense as a whole, I agree.

However, the scheme and plays themselves are good. Ryan is effective.

by rufio on Sep 18, 2009 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions

I cannot disagree with you on this. If the defense fails using these schemes, it isn’t necessarily the coach’s fault. The man can only attack with the players he’s given.
Ultimately, we don’t really care whose fault it is, we just want the defense to succeed. My observation is that the overall effectiveness of this year’s defense will be determined after x number of games, not just one game. We don’t know how much of what we saw was due to opposing teams needing more tape on us or if we can expect this improvement to hold.

by elsandito on Sep 18, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions

obviously

I reserve the right to complain about Gimenez at 1B and Carroll in the OF, no matter the facts. - FredOx

by DontCallMeJoey on Sep 18, 2009 4:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Totally agree. I doubt Ryan would be able to install 100% of the things he knows in one training camp even if he had the smartest defensive players on earth, though. I think we’ll see some new things from week to week.

At least now we (hopefully) get to play well or poorly based on the talent of our players. I am more confident we will be in position to succeed, which I personally vastly prefer to not even having a chance due to coaching. Even if we need to get new defensive players because all of ours suck and we have to watch another bad defense, I’d still prefer this way.

by rufio on Sep 18, 2009 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions

I disagree with Quinn’s display of intangibles. He used a hard count and checked/audibled more than any Browns QB I’ve seen since 99. I don’t know where you draw the conclusions about his supposedly poor huddle presence, since its darn near impossible to draw any conclusions about it when you aren’t in the huddle.

There was one slant check to Braylon that was not thrown anywhere close to where it should have been. He can’t put the ball up for grabs, especially when Braylon doesn’t know it is up. That fumble was flat out embarrassing. But I disagree on the intangibles; he at least showed confidence at the line. His “chemistry” with his WRs isn’t there yet, but I don’t think we have to worry about his confidence or command in the huddle.

by rufio on Sep 18, 2009 2:10 PM EDT reply actions

that “miscommunication” with Braylon is on him

But: immediately after the game, Edwards conceded that he had run the wrong route. How can you blame the QB for failing to anticipate that the receiver was going to go in the wrong direction? Maybe it was a poorly thrown ball anyway, but I don’t see how you can lay the blame on Quinn for that one. The fumble, now, is a different thing.

by drjeo on Sep 18, 2009 3:31 PM EDT reply actions

The person who could be single-handedly the most responsible for the Browns losing on Sunday? Dave Zastudil.

this is not remotely true.

I reserve the right to complain about Gimenez at 1B and Carroll in the OF, no matter the facts. - FredOx

by DontCallMeJoey on Sep 18, 2009 4:23 PM EDT reply actions

@drjeo I heard and read that they both admitted to being wrong, which would lead me to believe they both thought they were right and it was a question of how to read a certain defense. but there is a possibility that it wasn’t Quinns fault and Braylon made the wrong read.

@Dontcallmejoey Well, if the bad punts caused the coverage units to have a tougher time making plays which caused Minnesota to start two drives in our territory, so yeah it did make a difference. He was just making a point.

by Brownsrant on Sep 18, 2009 4:59 PM EDT reply actions

Zastudil is way, way, way down the list of players to blame or areas we need to improve. To claim he was singlehandedly the most responsible for our loss is flat out crazy. NotJoey didn’t say punting and ST don’t matter, he was simply pointing out the ridiculousness of the hyperbole above.

Mangini will coach his players to take the blame for miscommunications. That is a winning attitude: if I am on the passing end of the incompletion, I needed to throw it better (even if I hit him in the hands). If I am on the receiving end of an incompletion, I need to give more effort in catching the ball (even if it was wildly out of my reach). Etc., etc.

It could have been a poor read by either of them or even both of them, and the truth is no one outside of the Browns’ offense will know exactly what should have happened there. The ball was in the air before Braylon made a move toward the middle of the field. Braylon should know that ball is in the air and he should fight for it. Brady shouldn’t throw a fade unless Braylon knows its going up to him. So yes, it is on Quinn, but its on Edwards too.

by rufio on Sep 18, 2009 11:34 PM EDT up reply actions

I was fairly happy to hear Braylon and BQ both accept blame for that misfire. Granted it’s early in the year and hopes are still high, but like rufio I think that’s a good way to behave at least in public. Whatever other conversation happens behind closed doors should stay there.

by RelapsingDawgCatcher on Sep 19, 2009 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions