Things the Browns Have Gotten Wrong

It’s unfortunate that Robiskie hasn’t looked better so far this year. And I know it’s not his fault the way the ball squirted out of the pile, but it doesn’t help that he dives right past the Chanci Stuckey fumble during the most crucial moment of the Jets game.

However, the bigger mystery to me is Jerome Harrison. I just don’t understand how they couldn’t have made it work with him for at least a year. The Browns don’t have many dependable wide receivers, but they have less running backs. It didn’t make sense to send the only guy on the roster that gives you depth out the door.

First off, I don’t “blame” Holmgren-Heckert for not addressing the WR this past off-season.

Mangini had drafted Massaquoi and Robiskie with 2 high draft choices. He’d gotten Moore on waivers and he was productive, although he was more of a slot receiver then TE. He’d gotten Stuckey in the Edwards trade. And he was committed to making Cribbs a WR.

So Mangini had 5 young WR’s on a rebuilding team he was committed to giving playing time to in order to find out who would excel. H&H did go out and get Ben Watson to start at TE and take some of the receiving pressure off the young players, and they drafted Mitchell as a project.

So what do we have?

Sunday the #1 receiver – Massaquoi – caught his first ball with 40 seconds remaining in the game. Robiskie did not have a catch Sunday, and after starting 9 games as a WR – has 9 catches all year. Moore – a guy with hands like Hillis, cannot even average 2 catches a game….he has 11 catches in 9 games. Stuckey is the best of the lot and catches some dink-and-dunk passes. Cribbs belongs in the backfield.

Holmgren said at his first press conference – he actually chuckled – that you couldn’t win consistently in the NFL with the sort of passing the Browns were doing. He gave Mangini and the coaching staff what they wanted, he had Gil Haskell (his OC in Seattle) work with Daboll constantly from day one.

Two weeks ago Holmgren gave his mid-year assessment, and in response to a question said the WR’s hadn’t been used enough.

I believe the Browns season peaked Sunday – and they still lost. “Everyone” is so sure that everything is so wonderful. In the stock market this is the point that you sell at.

Under Mangini (and Romeo before him) the Browns take a few risks on scripted plays to get a lead. If they slowly lose it (usually) then they lose the game. They are incapable of making an in-game offensive adjustment, and getting the momentum back when the other team has taken it. This has been going on with the Brown for 3-4 years now. (When is the last time the Browns came from behind in a game?)

Last night you saw Heckert’s old Eagle team – coached by Holmgren’s old assistant and running his West Coast Offense – obliterate what is actually a very good Redskin defense. Andy Reid doesn’t play not to lose, he plays to win – and not starting in OT with 1:35 remaining and the ball on your own 3 yard line.

Holmgren is not going to allow a team to lose twice as many games as it wins while “the process” is ongoing. Sunday was yet another game the Brown were in that they could have, and should have, won. But they cannot come back in games. (They went ahead of the Saints and Pats 10-0, and were able to sit on the lead.) And a big reason the Browns cannot come back or gain momentum is because of the WR situation, and the way those players are being used.

The front office could only do so much in one year, and they did a bang up job. As for the future, keep in mind what Holmgren told Tom Withers when he asked why Homgren drafted Colt McCoy…..

“he can flourish in my offense.”

@ Matt Tag…I agree with you, but the Hardesty injury happened well before the Harrison trade. Once Hardesty went down, it should have been clear that they needed to keep Harrison for the season.

As a side note, and this is with 20/20 hindsight, it didn’t make sense to take Hardesty any higher than a 6th or 7th round pick because of his past injuries. I know it’s harsh, but there’s too much money on the line to draft RB’s that have bad knees before they even arive at camp. Other injuries might not be as much of a concern (broken arm, broken fingers, etc.), but a few injuries should be huge red flags…ligament tears, muscle tears, and concussions.

It’s a harsh reality, but some people are born with bad parts that break down more easily, and with draft picks and millions on the line, it’s bad business to take that risk. This also explains why “low mileage” players like Antonio Gates and #7 in Pittsburgh can end up being such a great value. They haven’t played enough to be broken.

so one of this front office’s faults is having a wide receiver that was drafted before they got here? i’m not sure that counts as a homgren blunder. The defense was the biggest hole before the draft and you cant draft for every position on the field at once. What it comes down to is the browns had as good a draft as you could hope for and were decent in their offseason moves. you cant expect to make a huge jump in talent in one year. Incremental, solid improvement will make this team a perennial contender, not quick patches. Also, i think Hardesty hurt their depth to a great extent, although i agree that the Harrison trade seemed strange.
i would say that our current issues aren’t because we got it wrong as much as the cupboard was bare going into the past offseason.

@4 — The Browns didn’t “sit” on 10 point leads against the Saints, and they DID come back against one of the best defenses in the league this past Sunday, with a guy who was supposed to be red-shirted this year leading them.

The team has weaknesses and holes that I’m more confident than I have been since 1999 that the people in charge of it all can get it right. That’s why I’m optimistic after Sunday’s loss.

@Carl:

It would seem to me that the reason the wide receivers aren’t being featured is because they aren’t very good. The browns are out there calling passing plays, and we have some smart QBs. It stands to reason that if our WRs were getting any sort of seperation, they would get the ball fed to them.

So far the only time I see the ball regularly going to a wideout is when the play breaks down, gets extended, and cribbs pulls a nice move.

I guess you could say the right plays aren’t being called, but isn’t it just as likely the rwcievers aren’t getting open on their routes?

They can’t come back in games… except the time where they were behind by a TD with 2+ minutes to go and forced overtime.

Carl, I guess I don’t quite get your point. I want to understand your overall point, which reads like: “the Browns have peaked. They’re going to suck the rest of the way.”

I don’t quite get why you feel that way. What have you seen–against three of the best teams in the league–that tells you the Browns will go in the tank the rest of the season?
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DP,

The Browns play not to lose, they don’t play to win.

It’s nice that they opened it up with less then 3 minutes to go in regulation when they were behind a TD. How come they didn’t do that before then?

Did they come back and win? No, they came back and tied.

I’m not trying to be a wise-guy here — look back and see how many times a Mangini or Romeo team came back playing aggressive on offense when they’re down in a game. They don’t. They’re afraid to because they feel that if they should have some sort of turnover by taking a risk, then the game would be totally unwinable. So they try to stay close and hope for a miracle.

if you watch the West Coast offense that Holmgren has run his entire NFL life, they do not think like that. THE WCO considers risks and seeks to minimize them, buit it does take some.

The point DP is that with the rule changes in the NFL that so favor passing, a team that cannot come back from 14-17 points down in the 4th quarter is simply not going to succeed in a playoff run.

As far as the Browns “tanking” the rest of the season, I did not say that. I said they PEAKED. They will win some games. They will not win the next 5 as many think or 4 of the next 5 as many more do.

I wrote what I’ve seen to believe this.

Your #1 WR catches his first pass with 40 seconds remaining. Your #2 WR has no catches after playing 5 quarters in a game – and has 9 catches in 9 games.

Do you really thunk a team wins like this in the present day NFL? Show me one that even remotely has such an unbalanced offensive attack. And better yet, run those stats by fans in Seattle and Green Bay that saw Holmgren take teams to the Super Bowl, and ask them how long they think he’ll put up with that.

t would seem to me that the reason the wide receivers aren’t being featured is because they aren’t very good. The browns are out there calling passing plays, and we have some smart QBs. It stands to reason that if our WRs were getting any sort of seperation, they would get the ball fed to them.
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Chris,

1. When has Mangini continue to play a guy that he thinks is not very good?

2. Do you know that Holmgren-Heckert have cut every other Mangini draft pick other then Mack, Massaquoi and Robiske. If they think those guys can’t play, do you think they sit on them instead of trading or releasing them and getting some other players in here?

Please keep in mind that the Browns are not trying to win the Super Bowl this year, they’re keeping young guys for the future that they think can play. But Holmgren did make it clear 2 weeks go that while it was nice that the Browns were in all games, he thought the Browns should have won more of them. Sunday was yet another example.

I think the point is, you lose a game because you gave it your best shot and came up short – that’s understandable. But to play 3 years and a cloud of dust along with dink-and-dunk passes when you’re behind at halftime is not conducive to winning in the NFL.

Thank you for your time gentlemen.

I’m trying to being up some point that are not twisting the issue, but are blatant.

Like all pro sports, teams can do things with young players that can temporarily throw opponents off. But at some point the opposition makes adjustments. Case in point….

Going into halftime, Phil Simms said that both defense needed to contain the QB’s in the pocket. The Jets were able to do that and McCoy suffered some as he loves to scramble out and throw on the run. Sanchez was able to constantly break containment and made a number of big plays.

I think that going forward you’ll see teams realize that to beat the Browns you have to make adjustments for 3 players – Hillis, McCoy and Watson. The coaches don’t use any others very much.

I’m still not all that broken up about the Harrison trade. He had no consistency to his game. He looked good last night, so in one game he gained 109 yards; he has 97 total yards in the rest of the season so far.

Last year, he put up those 561 yards in the final three games; the rest of the season he only gained 301 yards.

If the Browns could only get the big-game Harrison, rather than the inconsistent Harrison, I’d be more upset.

As for the receivers, oh boy. But there really weren’t any viable options in the off season to improve the position, unfortunately. Who were the Browns going to sign that was going to fit in with the team and also be a more than one season addition?

You know this raises another good point: Holmgren has talked about a west coast style offense. I have to wonder how well that will work come 30 degree weather with the snow flying. We need more of a pass attack than we have, but NCO is not the answer for Cleveland.

Don’t forget that the Browns kicked an onside kick after leading off the game with a scoring drive. If that’s not aggressively playing to win a game, I don’t know what is.

Also, the fact that shortly after that the team lost a starting CB (Brown), the leader of the defense (Fujita) and arguably their most dangerous offensive weapon (Cribbs)… I find it hard to blame the Browns coaching staff for maybe pulling back on the reins a little bit.

Regardless of ALL of that, they still took a Super Bowl contending team within 16 seconds of a tie.

Yeah, I’m still feeling optimistic about the Browns future.

I think the Browns are the 2nd most improved team from last year to this year (give the Bucs credit, they get that honor since they beat us and have a better record).

If we somehow have another magical offseason like we did last season (even including our misses), then we will be a true contender. The problem is even the best FO’s rarely have back-to-back offseasons that end up working out so well. We can hope though.

I actually had a view very similiar to Karl’s going into this season – Mangini loves to run a ball control offense and seems more concerned about losing only by one score rather than trying to win. He’d rather take three yards on 3-and-7 and then punt instead of risking a possible interception.

My opinion has changed over the last few months. Not only has Mangini and Daboll regularly opened up the play book, but (thanks to Hillis) the ball control offense, the ground and pound, has proven itself to be our best way to win games.

I’ve also come to accept that Mass and Robiskie are just lacking as WRs. There were plenty of deep routes run last Sunday, but McCoy usually had to check down to Stuckey because nobody was getting open. Mass might be an okay #2/#3 receiver. Robiskie is the invisible man. What’s the point of keeping him on the roster at this point?

Anyway my point is – go Browns!

@Chris – um, Holmgren ran the WCO in Green Bay. How would that be any different than in Cleveland?

@ #24) Can the Mike Holmgren West Coast Offense work when the snow is flying and it’s 30 degrees? Seems to me it worked pretty good in those conditions in Lambeau Field

Carl, your points are so largely off base that I will not give them the respect of actually going into how off-base they are. Just go watch the Lakers and drink your Metamucil vodka screwdrivers and quit bashing a good team and their good coach for a tough loss

Also @ Believelander…You are correct sir.

Carl should save his “rant-based” analysis for the mouth-breathing angry every-man morons on SOME sports talk radio who’s whole shtick is to say, “Wow! What was he thinking?!?!?!” after every loss.

@42

Geathers is hardly “in the Dolphins rotation.” He made one appearance on 10/24, recorded no tackles, and has been inactive for the past three games. That being said, I agree that the Browns should have more patience with a player on whom the spent a draft pick.

As you guys will learn, Mr. Carl (recently shown the figurative door at clevelandfrowns.com with his Mangini-hunting) does not actually seem to assemble the facts in order before smashing on Clevelanders and Cleveland sports teams or players. I liked him better when he was gushingly supporting the Browns after they beat New Orleans and New England.