The Scores Don’t Count (part II)…
September 25, 2008To Pitch, Or Not To Pitch
September 25, 2008
Are we really only entering into Week 4 of the NFL season? How is that even possible? With all that the Cleveland Browns have been through this season, it feels like we’re entering into Week 24. Injuries are one thing, and the Browns certainly have had more than their fair share this season, but the NFL is no place for excuses. Injuries aside, the coaching has been abysmal, the offensive line (the strength of the team last year) has struggled both in blocking and discipline, Derek Anderson looks like the guy who couldn’t beat out Chuck Frye in training camp last year, Braylon Edwards can’t catch a ball cleanly no matter how much (too much?) he tries, and the Browns have decided to ignore the running game this year (a decision aided by the fact that they have done nothing but play catchup in every game this season).
It would certainly be easy to throw this season away after only 3 games. However, the NFL won’t allow teams to just not show up, so the Browns have 13 games left on their schedule to try to salvage something from the most disappointing season since 1996 (that’s not a typo….look up what happened that year to the Browns). We mentioned this in the podcast last night, but what are we, as Browns fans, supposed to be getting out of the rest of this season? The season isn’t yet completely lost. Sure, the playoffs are nothing more than a provocative pipedream at this point, but there is still plenty to be done with the last 13 games. Basically, this thing is going to play out one of three ways:
1. The Browns right the ship, get healthy, find stability, and play good, competitve football the rest of the way
For all the things wrong with the offense, the defense has actually played ok. Not good by a longshot, but not near as bad as some of us feared they might. They currently rank 23rd in the NFL in defense, up from 30th last season. I would contend, though, that the defense is even better than that ranking. The offense is ranked dead last, 32nd, in the entire NFL. That makes for a TON of 3-and-outs and turnovers leading to short fields. The Browns are 31st in Time of Possession per Game, and that’s not because they have a quick strike offense. Rather, they have a quick punt offense, and it’s killing the defense. Now, granted, part of the Time of Possession issue is the defense’s fault as well, as they have struggled to stop teams from running at will on them in the 4th quarter, but usually at that point, the defense is so tired from being on the field all game that they have little left in the tank.
The point is, though, that the Browns might not be as bad as they seem right now. Joe Jurevicius could return after Week 6 if he is healthy. Donte Stallworth will be back. Getting Ryan Tucker and Eric Steinbach back healthy at some point will be huge. If the Browns can pick a QB and stick with him, and if said QB can play consistent football, and if Braylon Edwards finds his Pro Bowl form again, and the offense can give Jamal Lewis more than 20 carries in a game, this offense has a chance to right itself yet. Sure, maybe the offense was never really as good as they looked last year, but does anyone really think that they are as bad as they have looked this year? A rejuvenated and somewhat healthy offense will go a long way to masking some of the defensive woes. It’s a lot of “if’s”, but IF some of these things can happen, the Browns might yet be able to find good in this season.
Under this scenario, the Browns could still win 8 or 9 games this year, and have a lot of positive thoughts to build on going in to next year.
2. The Browns wallow in mediocrity for the rest of the season
This is the worst case scenario, in my opinion. If only half of the previously mentioned “if’s” come true, the Browns will limp through the rest of the schedule, possibly winning a few games here or there that they probably shouldn’t. They will win 6 to 8 games and have a middle of the road draft pick. They will still have no identity and will be stuck in perpetual rebuilding and reloading at multiple positions. It will be unclear in some cases which guys are capable of holding their own at their respective positions and which guys need to be replaced. This scenario could potentially set the Browns back YEARS in terms of being able to rebuild.
3. The Browns continue to look like one of the 3 worst teams in the NFL, and they finish the year accordingly
This is the status quo scenario. Injuries continue to pile up, Romeo continues to just stand on the sidelines idly watching this team self destruct and fall apart, Derek Anderson keeps playing like the worst QB in the NFL, and the team continues to lose week after week after week. Perhaps, though, this could be called the Tim Duncan Scenario. The Browns, a very talented team, has too many injuries and self inflicted gun shot wounds to the feet to win, and thus get a high draft pick. In the offseason, those hurt and struggling players get healthy and return to form and the Browns are an all around better team for it.
Rooting for this scenario is what we call “fan-tanking”….where the fans actually root for the team to lose in order to achieve a higher hope for the future of the franchise. As much as I can see the merits of this scenario, I am fundamentally incapable of rooting for the Browns to lose. It is just not in my DNA. Rather, I am rooting for Scenario #1. I prefer building through progression rather than building through regression. But how I feel about it won’t have any impact on which scenario comes true. That much falls on the players’ and coaches’ shoulders.
This team needs to find its purpose. This team needs to find its identity. This team needs to figure out what has gone wrong so far, beyond the injuries. They are going into one of the few obviously winable games left on their schedule as they head into Cincinnati this Sunday, and this team needs a win in the worst way. Not for us fans, but for themselves. For this franchise. The Cleveland Browns have been a joke for so long that the joke is now wearing thin. These players are not THIS bad. If the coaches can’t do it, the players themselves need to band together and find it inside themselves to all do their small part in making this team better. If the Browns lose this Sunday, it will pretty much make Scenario #1 a lost cause, and it will make Scenario #2 a dangerous possibility. The only way to get to Scenario #1 and to thus salvage a little something out of this train wreck is to take a small step forward this week and winning this game. We’ll have a much better idea which path this team has chosen to take after the game Sunday.
19 Comments
If they can manage to pull out a win this weekend and then get a little bit healthier during the bye week, scenario 1 is totally attainable, although against this schedule it’s going to be tough. I, too, can’t ever bring myself to actually root AGAINST the Browns (I was able to support the Cavs’ tank to get LeBron, though, but they weren’t expected to be any good at all that year anyway!) even when their winning hurts their draft position.
Rock. With all due respect, #1 is ludicrous – 8 to 9 wins? Have you even looked at the schedule? Giants, Indi, Philli, and Pit are all elite teams, while Jacks and Tenn are playoff teams playing great ball now. Meanwhile, premused softer teams at the beginning of the season like Buf, Denv, and Wash, are all greatly improved and playing with some fire. Only winnable games that I see are Houst, Cinci X2, and the Ratbirds again. 5 or 6 wins seems more logical, looking at a top ten draft pick.
I agree with Anon. If this team turns out to be “mediocre” that’s going to mean a 6 win season… if they’re lucky. This schedule is ridiculously hard. Even if the Browns win a few games they aren’t supposed to, that probably only leads to a 5-6 win season. After all, besides Cincy at home, what other game could the Browns possibly be favored in?
The lack of offense has been the biggest problem for this team hands down. The team was constructed this year to have a juggernaut offense that would compensate for its “bend but don’t break defense.” This defensive philosophy, which we’ve had ever since Crennel has been coach, is a recipe for failure. As a defensive unit, you’re basically conceding that you’re going to give up plays, but hoping you can keep teams out of the endzone (maybe the reason RAC is so obsessed with field goals, is that his defense is only supposed to be giving up field goals). Unlike the elite defenses, or even good defenses in the NFL, the Browns defense completely lacks playmakers. Sean Jones has that potential, but is hurt, and Wimbley, the other main candidate, has complete dissapeared and is dangerously bordering on being deemed a bust at this point. The rest of the defense is either old, too inexperienced, or not talented enough.
Contrast this philosophy with that of say, the Ravens, who, while getting older, go onto the field trying to make plays. Sometimes that backfires and they get burned bad, but as we know, this philosophy has the ability to turn the game around in an instant. When the Browns defense is on the field, do you have any other thought besides, “I hope we can somehow get the other offense off the field?”
So when you couple this defensive attitude and lack of playmakers with an underachieving offense riddled with injuries, it’s not really a surprise that the Browns are 0-3.
I think the Browns finish the season at 4-12, maybe even 3-13. I think it will end up potentially being a Tim Duncan type situation IF the organization can set the stage this season for success but settling the QB situation going into next season and signing some impact players on defense.
The Raiders beat the Browns last year…
Any chance someone is going to write an article looking at what happened in 1996, for those of us who are too lazy to look it up ourselves?
I was only 12 at the time, so if I could get a pass for not fully remembering, that would be kind
Being 12 years old is no excuse!!!! That is the year the Browns moved from Cleveland to Baltimore.
@Anon: You’re assuming the Browns keep playing this way. If the Browns recover and play the way we all thought they were capable of coming in to this year, there’s no reason they can’t beat Denver, Washington, Buffalo, Indy, Houston, Cincy twice, Baltimore…..that’s 8 wins right there.
I think you missed my whole point. I KNOW the Browns can’t beat those teams RIGHT NOW. I want the Browns to become the team they were supposed to be, though. That’s all.
I suggest that the Browns suspend their season in light of the current economic crisis, and call on the rest of the league to do the same.
Hey, if they do it right, they can still get half of the country to think it’s not a ridiculous idea.
Off the subject, in the poll in the left sidebar…I’d like to vote for Ted Ginn Sr.
@ Rick – as bad as “Coach” is, Craig T got mine.
Scenario #1 is not my favorite, because it will probably lead to the off-season delusion that everything here is okey-dokey when it is not. The coach will remain and still be incapable of having the team ready to play hard from the get go or being able to make in-game adjustments and decisions. Really don’t think that at his age, after 3 decades in the league and 4 years as a head coach, these skills will suddenly develop. It ain’t the injuries, folks. It’s the lack of impact players and a below average coach. I want a good team, not a mediocre one that will get the last playoff spot next year because of an easier schedule.
BTW, which Braylon will appear next year? “Peacock” Braylon of rookie year and this year? Or “Humbled, Shuttin’ My Mouth” Braylon of last year?” I’m guessing “humbled” Braylon as he goes for the new contract. (You know the quote that’s coming in training camp ’09: “I won’t take anything for granted anymore. I appreciate football so much”). The guy has great physical talent, but I still wish they would have taken an impact defensive player with a mean streak in the draft that year.
@ Rock – no reason they can’t beat Denver? Indy? Buffalo? Have you seen those teams? Denver is an offensive juggernaut, Buffalo looks like it will win the AFC east with it’s solid play on both sides of the ball, and Indy still has Peyton Manning, Joseph Addai and Reggie Wayne. How are we going to stop them?
I’m scared that we might not win a game all year.
@AMC: Ugh, sigh…..seriously, did you even read what I wrote??? “I KNOW the Browns can’t beat those teams RIGHT NOW.”
Reading comprehension. Wow.
@ Rock – Of course I read it – besides reading comp was my best subject on the LSAT. 🙂
Your article makes the point that the defense isn’t playing all that bad. From the sound of your article, the improvement on this team will come from the offense (a point with which I agree, by the way). So even if the offense improves dramatically, I still think we lose to Denver, Indy and Buffalo – their offenses are too good for us to keep pace.
The best part about a good offense is that it keeps a mediocre defense off the field. The best way to stop a team like Indy is to not let them have the ball. I think Denver, Indy, and Buffalo are entirely beatable if the Browns were playing at the level most of us thought they were capable of. I don’t think any of us had those games marked as automatic losses coming into this season.
By the way, my apologies for the Reading Comprehension part. I was out of line. Just one of those days, and lately it seems like a lot of comments are made around here (not by you) without having actually read the articles or comments they are replying to.
Rock, I am great at reading comprehension, but I see no way your 1st scenario comes to pass. I just don’t think is there is any chance the offense plays the way we all had hoped it would play. Even if it did, we couldn’t beat Denver, their offense is crazy good and would slaughter our D. I could make a case for Indy, unless Peyton stops looking and playing like he is still hurt, and who knows how good Buffalo actually is after barely holding off the Radiers?
But the bottom line here is, the Browns are just a bad team. I can’t root against them either, and I won’t. But I will also concede that Scenario 3 has to happen. We cannot salvage something and have it not lead to the firing of RAC and maybe even Savage for his misses on personnel, especially lately on the defensive picks and the trading off our all meaningful picks in the last draft. So while I won’t root for them to lose, I have resigned myself to it being the best possible scenario.
My guess is we would be lucky to go 4-12 this year and have a top five draft pick. We try and get the best defensive player on the board, no matter the position. Braylon will play better next year, in his contract year like everyone does in any sport, (but I wouldn’t resign him to big money), and maybe he hire a new trainer.
That is an underrated part of this story. The first guy fired should be the trainer. Why are people always getting hurt? Perhaps we could get the guy who is the trainer for the Suns NBA team. Shaq was hurt and barely playing for the Heat, comes to the Suns, and is healthy a week later. That was a pretty amazing feat.
Rock I also read the article, believe it or not! I was just saying that even with an improved offense and mid-tier defense, it will be extremely difficult to reach the 8 or 9 level given the toughness of or schedule. Even with our powerful everything went right offense last year, we were miserable against winning teams. Consensus was that we needed to be 2-2 after four games for a chance of 8-8 and a possible division crown amid a “weak” AFC North, with the key game being th home against Pit. Well, we all know how that s playing out… umm not so good. And that was with the assumption that Den, Buf, and Wash were also rans, which so far is proving not to be the case. I stand by 5 wins even with an improved offense (scenario #1). Love your reads, keep up the good work, and stay away from the over bet on Brown wins in Vegas — (I know they started the season at 8 I wonder if its dropeed to 6 now?)
i love the discussions of firing savage (sarcasm)…please continue…hey, here’s an idea, let’s just fire the entire coaching staff, front office, and sell the team. y not start from complete scratch AGAIN…ridiculous..
rock, i enjoyed the article, and agree with you. i think more like 7-8 wins. i just feel like we will lose one of those games we “should” win.
and, i think regardless of victories at the end of the season (barring a super bowl victory), romeo is done here. and savage will be the one to fire him and find a new coach. and that’s when all of the typical fair-weather fans will be cheering for savage again…