Greg Little's Drops Pile Up Against Cincinnati

I would love an OT on this honestly (partly because we talk about this in my masscommunications class too)

Sorry, I thought that was out there. Desean Jackson flipped the ball to the DC on a Sunday night game. He did get flagged for it and caught some heat from everybody about it. I was trying to throw some sarcasm in my previous comment. it failed

Come one, you can’t think we’re that stupid.

1. Please give actual number of games.
2. See #1.
3. Mangini was a more disciplined coach, and penalty yardage showed this, as did special teams play. The rest of your assertion is hyperbole and opinion, however.
4. Granted, yes. However, the Browns lost several games against beatable opponents. As exciting as it was to beat NO and NE and almost beat NYJ, the drop off in performance against supposedly beatable teams was the true measuring stick of success over 2 years. A team that consistently plays at the standard of its opponent is generally not a good team. A high quality team plays at its own standard regardless of opponent. While we have not seen enough of Shurmur’s performance in this regard, I think it’s safe to say Mangini’s regime did not beat the middle-of-the-road teams consistently over 2 years to warrant further consideration.
5. Please be specific.

number 3 is totally irrelevant to measuring how good overall this team is, outside of the actual results they have caused.

The Browns last year were one of the oldest teams in the league. Unless the coach was flat out awful, you should be able to have less stupid screw-ups than one of the youngest teams in the league (which the Browns are now). Its more of a measure of the experience of the team which is a factor in how good they are overall, but not a measure of how good a team is.

Also, re: Football Outsiders rankings, I believe after the Jets game they had the Browns as high as 15 or so. Let’s see where they finish this season.

And at our highest point, the 2011 Browns were ~23rd. So similar change. It will be important to see however what they do for the rest of the season.

hich all seem much more important to me than PPG/YPG. By these measures

you talk about PPG/YPG multiple times, but Football Outsiders doesn’t rely on that. They rely a lot on measuring plays and valuing players/teams on a per-play basis and then adjusting to SoS. The fact that it uses SoS supports part of your argument about the Browns facing easier teams, which is why they are ranked a bit lower.

I pointed this out elsewhere, but I really think you need to compare this year with Mangini’s first.

Yes, we probably have better players. But they are better, younger players. While Mangini wanted to acquire and play less-talented veteran players who “wouldn’t lose” games for us to begin his reign, Shurmur and H&H seem to have the opposite franchise-building strategy. We will be talented and get better as our players grow under HSH, we would have lost/won a lot of close, ugly games and gotten better as younger more talented picks earned their starting spots or emerged from UDFA under Mangini. Mangini’s early roster was vulnerable to solid opposing talent but not trick plays, quick snaps, etc. Shurmur’s group is young and vulnerable to those things, but has more talent and is able to be better, only inconsistently.

Also like I said elsewhere, in year I of Mangini, we SUUUUUCCCKKKED to begin the year. We were 1-11. And that 1 we won was the wind bowl against the Bills. We looked completely awful.

Yes, Mangini had an incredible streak to end that year, and that victory over the steelers was great. But for most of the year, we were as unwatchable as, say, f*&ing up FG snaps, or allowing punt return TDs.

This Browns team is just now learning to compete. It has looked as bad as any other year I of a rebuild, and it will grow. How much and how quickly remains to be seen, and will ultimately be how we should judge HSH.

SOMEBODY STOP THIS GUY.

That there are correlations doesn’t mean Colt will become great all of a sudden.

i see pretty much zero similarities, though my memory of brees in his second year is spotty at best.

I don’t remember much of Brees back then, but I could certainly imagine, given the stats etc. that Colt could / probably is performing similarly to what Brees was doing back then (although I also don’t recall the supporting cast Brees had so can’t comment on that).

I do think McCoy has some of the same “intangibles” (take that to mean what you want), is a natural at throwing the ball with good fundamental mechanics and quick release, has excellent mobility, and a very, very good head on his shoulders. Impossible to have any idea at this point if McCoy could ever “be another Drew Brees”, but I have to admit that the Drew Brees analogy, as simplistic as it may be, is a valid reason to have some optimism for Colt.

More specifically, the most common and consistent basis for doubts on McCoy are based on the simple fact of his height. The fact remains that Brees is 6’0", is a super bowl caliber QB, and is one of the top 3 or 4 QBs in the NFL two years running. (I should probably also point out that Aaron Rodgers is 6’2"…).

So I do think that the fact that a guy who is about an inch – inch and a half shorter than Colt can do what Brees is doing can also, justifiably, be the basis for some hope that Colt could potentially become an elite QB eventually, contrary to those who say his height will be something that constitutes and absolute limitation of him ever being one.

TDSH’s comment above is a perfect satire.

Deleting posts from a blogger of images that clearly dispute the ones he posted? That’s just plain censorship of other people’s views and what I’d call the very definition of revisionist history. Unacceptable and inexcusable.

Seriously, Green is going to be a nightmare. Let’s hope it is a “Chad Johnson on a horrible team, put forth by a horrible franchise that keeps drafting players that will get arrested/suspended” nightmare.

when rubin hit dalton as he was throwing i immediately thought, “pick it!”

not so much.

Honestly, he’s only got to pass efficiently enough to win. The passing stats bar is lower for him than for Brady or Manning or Brees.

Now, the staying healthy after getting hit by NFL players for a whole season while running like that, that’s another story.

Christians aren’t infallible. So Colt lied; let’s crucify him. Saint Tebow has his sins as well, I’m sure.

I like Tebow a lot. He strikes me as infinitely more genuine in his faith than Colt is.

Why? Because he proclaims it 24/7?

What’s the big hypocrisy? That they wrote the book for money and not to stop the speaking engagements? First of all, that is only in a tiny section while the rest takes slight jabs at Colt (ergo, it wasn’t outlined all that clearly). Second, I don’t consider it a huge hypocrisy.

Frowns, I agree that he was lying about trying to throw it out of bounds but is that really something to get that worked up about? Religious hypocrisy is not something I care about. All people are hypocrites, religious or otherwise. I love animals but eat and wear meat. I’m not going to hang the kid for saying he was trying to throw it out of bounds when he was really just trying to make a play and threw it 10 yards short. Also if Tony Pashos doesn’t shove the D End into Colt’s midsection, maybe he makes the throw. If you watch the film I could make the argument Colt’s trying to protect Pashos’ stupid move.

criticism=/=personal attacks.

Wow, you really are a baby. You put yourself out there and censor criticism. What a joke.

I am in this boat right now. The potential is there, but not the progress that would lead you to believe in the guy. He’s made some good plays, he’s made a handful of great plays, but I want to see him take steps forward instead of forward then backward then forward again.

I admire his toughness, I just don’t know that he is “the guy.” And if you don’t know you have “the guy” you have to get “the guy.”

I think the announcers nailed it in their speculation that they had probably warned him not to do it and then he did it so they had to call it.

interestingly, the run blocking is ranked 22 this year and was 17 last year. pass blocking is ranked 15 this year and was 23 last year. seems like pashos + lauvao + pinkston have picked up the pass pro, while st. clair (vomit) + steiny + pork chop were superior run blockers.

You didn’t know that; it was discussed here at length. Here’s a link. And the highlights:

And while we don’t and probably won’t ever know why he got into the accident, if we’re talking at all about increased risk taking as a result of depression, even if at the smallest margins, who could possibly blame Benard for being depressed?

Of course, decent and right-thinking Browns fans are all depressed enough about the roughshod that the Holmgren fiefdom has run over principles of honesty, integrity, accountability, and the one that a decent man who’s making obvious progress at an historically difficult job gets to keep that job. But for us fans this is all just a diversion. Imagine what it must be like for someone like Benard whose livelihood depends on it. To go undrafted out of Jackson State to the best story in Browns training camp just one year later, to become the team’s best pass rusher and lead its injury-crippled defensive unit in sacks the next season, and for a boss who supported you every step of the way through the harrowing ordeal of the premature birth of your son, a boss who made you the man you were, a better man. To go through all that only to see that boss summarily dismissed — against all notions of honesty, integrity, accountability and the one that a decent man who’s making obvious progress at an historically difficult job gets to keep that job — and to become a forgotten man in the regressive low-ceiling schemes* of that boss’s successor despite having made every effort to fit in. And all of that before ever having a chance to sign a contract for much more than the league minimum, which, had basic principles of honesty, integrity, accountability and the one that a decent man who’s making obvious progress at an historically difficult job gets to keep that job been honored, would have been something you’d have certainly had every chance to have done. Now, who knows?

. . .

Here’s wishing Benard a speedy recovery, and that an organization with more respect for basic principles of honesty, integrity, accountability, etc., gives him a chance to get back on track.