I feel like Mike Holmgren needs to offer Eric Mangini an ultimatum: deal with a new offensive coordinator next season, or get out. Against a Buffalo Bills team that was the worst team in the league at defending the run, Brian Daboll's offensive gameplan made it look like he was completely unprepared. On the first drive, the Browns had some nice bursts from Peyton Hillis but failed to punch the ball in for a touchdown. Hillis' fumble on the next drive was certainly costly and momentum-shifting, but the offensive gameplan after that was baffling.
Jake Delhomme did not have a good day by any stretch of the imagination, but there were a lot of times you could tell he was frustrated with the play calls he had to work with. First of all, Daboll did us the same favor Miami did last week on 3rd-and-4, it was always a pass play. Not only was it a pass play, the design or execution of the routes were terrible. Two receivers would be right next to each other short on the sideline. Hillis would be standing right next to an offensive tackle. One receiver would streak up the sideline, but it was such a delay that by then pressure would be at Delhomme already.
Now we see why Colt McCoy scrambled so often -- he was given the same poor play calls, but he has the advantage over Delhomme to use his mobility to move the chains.
The Bills kept it simple with their offense. They ran the ball right at the Browns, and when Ryan Fitzpatrick needed to, he made a few completions beyond the first down marker with his arm, or used his mobility to get first downs.
There's just no excuse for every passing play involving one-yard routes. Our only successful passing plays of the game came on a long pass to Mohamed Massaquoi and a deep comeback route to Brian Robiskie. Do you think we could have seen some of those routes again? Was Ben Watson targeted more than once today? Did it make sense to use the Cyclone formation once only to never bring it out the rest of the way?
Nothing made sense, and I blame Daboll for that. It didn't help that Cleveland does not seem to thrive in terms of execution when it is raining, but more of the problem still falls back on Daboll for me.