Why The Defense Is Ahead Of The Offense

i know the clemson love … but doesn’t he stink so far in buff?

I’m happy with Haden.

GM for about half of the 2009 season I believe.

Kokinis, we hardly knew ye…

I wonder if he is still in football. That’s one thing that shows how sad our front office/personnel has been this last decade – how many of our former F.O. guys and players went on to make meaningful contributions to a team after leaving the Browns? Not many. Christ, opie savage chose the illustrious color commentator position for ’Bama radio after leaving us…lol

He was a Mangini pick

pretty sure it was HenryDawg in a back and forth w/ me in the game recap for this week. will see if i can find it.

Lauvao was also Heckert.

Every single pick Heckert has made from the 4th round down in the last two years, with the exception of Jordan Cameron, started last week (and all this year, except for Hardesty).

My bad, will fix tonight.

This is what I get for writing this while watching Maury.

As much as it would be nice to have someone with a rocket arm, I remember when Baltimore was “upgrading” from Dilfer to Elvis Grbac – doesn’t always work out so well.

Ponder and Dalton were my two top QBs from last year’s draft, but they were taken WAY too early for the Browns to have justified picking them. While they’re looking good, I am pleased with the choices we made.

heckert (who is bald … stayed away from fat in honor of bernie’s request) had a history of nailing defense, specifically defensive backfield, in philly, with andy reid getting more of the credit for offensive stuff. while holmgren, obviously, has a history of killing it on the offensive side of the ball. putting it down on paper makes it sound like they knew what they were doing in building this FO … pretty good complementary pieces.

The one thing about that argument is this: this is still the NFL.

No matter how bad an offense is, players can still make plays. We held down the Dolphins that went up and down the field against the Patriots on Monday night the first week, and there are some other examples.

Kudos to our defense for doing what they should do. Hammer down on “poor” offenses and not letting them score. How many times in the past 15 years have we watched “poor” offenses come into Cleveland and light it up?

Maybe that is pie in the sky thinking, but I’m excited.

I thought that was interesting too. Also, I think it would be interesting to compare the relative ages of the defense in the AFC north. I suspect that the Browns and the Bengals trend young, while the Ravens and Steelers trend old. I think we could see a real power struggle in the AFC North over the next 3 to 5 years.

I said the same thing in my Sunday Five yesterday, but the Browns were 7th at the time. Amazing to see the entire division 1-4 in the rankings, assuming Baltimore doesn’t implode today.

Seeing that list makes me cry.

You and I have very different ideas of “offensive talent”.

I’m also worried about Shurmur. I spent some time yesterday on last years SB Nation Rams blog and many of the same criticisms were made about Shurmur’s offense, especially play calling. And that with completely different talent. He seems a bit overwhelmed to me right now when viewed on the sidelines.

I’m more confident in our rise than the Bengals one for pretty much these reasons.

-We are 3-3. We beat bad teams but are 3-3

this is all but irrelevant. i’m not sure why our .500 record against terrible — not just bad — teams is relevant to why we should be optimistic. that’s what lead to the entire city going on suicide watch in 2008.

-Colt hasn’t been good but has shown some promise

i really think you’re reaching here. i don’t know what promise he’s shown as qb of the browns.

aside from that, i’m willing to agree that we have reasons to be optimistic about the future of this organization. cautious optimism, but optimism nonetheless.

He wanted to pass it to someone but since it was ironically a screen so nobody was looking and he had to run for it.

What does MJD have, like 5 fumbles?

Beats Colt McCoy’s single game record for ‘shittiest pass to self’ performance

Rec and Rec.

4th and 43. I don’t think we’ve ever been that bad.

I hate the Ravens more than the Yankees.

FLAG

I’ve had the misfortune of living in both cities and their fans are equals.

are we at that point legitimate playoff contenders?

absolutely not.

How will they do against a good team?

I’m not saying it will be a blood bath, but it might be a good idea for them to make nice with the local medical professionals on their way to the stadium.

I agree. This is really a no-lose situation for the front office as pertains to McCoy. If he isn’t the guy… heck you only used a 3rd rounder on him. If he is the guy… what a bargain! I don’t think it was a pick or choice to assure a playoff spot. More a calculated risk.

when i quickly scrolled this thread i caught your username and thought … “golan?”

the football outsiders DVOA stat has our defense ranked 16th … 23 against the pass, 13 against the run. that’s not the be-all, end-all stat, but it does try to account for competition, situation, etc.

as i’ve said, i’m really pleasantly surprised by the defense overall, but i think we are giving them too much credit around here.

I was just going to write the same thing about Pluto. This is a very good analysis of the current situation done by B19K. Great job.
You think about grand strategy of building a team that has basically dozens of holes and you have to build through the draft. You must hit on at least 3 starters per year and maybe 1 or 2 more via free agency or a lucky late rounder (Rubin for example). You may have heard the phrase, “you need to get worse to get better”. Often said in the NBA, this refers to the idea that you need to have a bad year to get a high pick. So if you build first on one side of the ball (and defense makes the most sense) it will make you better but maybe not enough better to get out of the higher picks. I’m not saying that it is purposeful to lose but it may be purposeful to not win—to the extent of barely missing the playoffs year after year like Washington or Phlly as they try to build through free-agency without a core.
I’m really glad this article appeared on DBN as it really put things in perspective for me and helped me remember a few things.

Maybe he got referred by MKC.

Except Baltimore is not coming off a bye. Just saying.

I believe the technical term is “any random sunday”

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