May 18, 2013

While We’re Waiting… Braxton Needs a Mentor, Kyrie Earning Praise and Hall of Fame Ballots

January 4, 2012 by 31 Comments

While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.

“Though he still had a decent game, it didn’t look like Braxton matured much more than any of his teammates during bowl practices. His final statline read 18/23 through the air for 162 yards and a pair of touchdowns but he was 12/17 with just 80 yards until a last gasp drive against Florida’s prevent defense saw him pad his numbers with 6/6 for 82 yards. Passing accuracy really wasn’t the issue today though he did overthrow a wide open Posey for a sure 23 yard touchdown that would’ve tied the game at 14 late in the 1st half. Windy or not, the throw needed to be a touch pass as there wasn’t a Gator defender within 10 yards of DeVier but Miller threw a laser high and outside.

The biggest area of opportunity from this game, as it has been with many others, was a lack of pocket awareness. Yes, the pass pro was shaky at times but Braxton often had plenty of time to throw, either to a receiver or simply to get rid of it, but instead took a sack.” [Lauderback/Eleven Warriors]

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Trying to predict the Hall of Fame balloting- “2. Strength of ballot. This is the single most important guideline. When the ballot’s overall strength goes up, the members of the backlog have their vote totals go down. If a ballot gets weaker, the backlog’s support gets stronger. Two things change the strength of a ballot: guys arriving on it, and those departing from it. For example, in 1999 Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Robin Yount, Carlton Fisk, and Dale Murphy arrived on the ballot and the holdovers suffered considerably.

Alternately, 2008’s ballot’s newbies received almost no support, with only Tim Raines getting more than two votes among the newbies (not two percent; two votes). 13 of the 14 backloggers on the ballot had their vote totals increase. (The exception was Harold Baines, who fell from 5.3 percent to 5.2 percent of the vote. Big deal). A typical crop of first-year players receives gains around 1.6 votes per BBWAA ballot. This year Bernie Williams is the only guy with a chance to top five percent. Aside from him, the best new contenders are Brad Radke, Tim Salmon, Brian Jordan, and Javy Lopez. This should be a historically low vote total to new candidates.” [Jaffe/Hardball Times]

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Can you spot the error in this sad excuse of a piece on Phil Dawson? [Shutdown Corner]

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“As the starting point guard, Irving has run the offense confidently and effectively. He has become perhaps the team’s biggest weapon at just 19 years of age, and after only 11 college games at Duke. Irving is averaging 13 points and occasionally is mentioned in the same sentence as Chris Paul by Cavaliers coach Byron Scott.” [Amico/FSO]

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Finally, love this picture of Omar. Who is that sitting next to him? Do you know? [WFNY Tumblr]

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  • Chris

    Man, that headline had me wondering what was wrong with pro basketball for a moment… May I suggest “Hall of fame votes, and Kyrie earning praise”?

  • oribiasi

    Does anyone here think that Braxton’s problems are coaching/play calling or is it just ability/mechanics? I say just way too lightly.

    I’d love to see what he can do under Meyer’s regime, however. He is obviously a gifted athlete, but I worry that he just can’t throw the ball properly or under pressure, which as a running quarterback he is oft to be.

  • Harv 21

    is that Tim Laker with Omar?

  • WooMike

    That’s not Dawson in the picture on the piece about Dawson… Dave Zastudil maybe?

  • oribiasi

    @ WooMike: It is Zastudil. Who is punting again in the NFL.

    Funny quote from one of the article’s comments: “If Dawson leaves Cleveland, the Browns could go scoreless next year.”

    Yikes, that’s pretty true. I don’t have the time now, but what percentage of our total year’s point came from Dawson’s foot, I wonder? A guess: 45%.

  • http://twitter.com/CTownPride CTownPride

    @Harv I thought that was Laker as well at first glance.

  • Lyon

    leave it to Yahoo to totally screw something up.

  • Max

    is that a roasted chicken in a noose above Omar’s head? And Harv, I think you are correct with the Tim Laker call. Nicely done

  • oribiasi

    Ok, I found time to do the statistics for scoring. Cleveland scored 218 points over 16 games. Or, a little over 13.5 points per game. (yikes…thank God we put in that WCO).

    Of those points, 92 of them came from Phil Dawson. Or, 5.8 points per game from Dawson alone.

    Or, 42%. Wow was I close.

  • Shamrock

    ^^^Scary stuff I’d be interested to compare last years offensive numbers to this past one. It takes time to learn a system granted but not an entire season. Heck the defense went from a 3-4 to a 4-3 but I guess that’s where talent helps.

  • jimkanicki

    @9/ori — i was curious about our TD:FG ratio too. i expected it to be historically bad. it was 24:21 or 1.14 this year. im horrified to report that this is only the 3rd worst season since 1999.

    here’s a spreadsheet if you’re curious.

  • Tron

    Last season the team averaged 16.9 points per game, with Phil accounting for 6.1 points per game, or 36% of our total scoring.

    Hard to believe we averaged more points under the run heavy ball control offense of mangini, than the supposedly spectacular ball movement of the WCO.

  • oribiasi

    @ Shamrock: It is really scary stuff. Sobering statistics about the effectiveness of this new system.

    To contrast with a good team, look at the Green Bay Packers. They scored 560 points over 18 games, or 31 points per game. Crosby, their kicker, helped by all those extra points mind you, scored 140 of those points, or exactly 25% of their total scoring.

    Really good teams’ kickers aren’t the primary scorer.

  • jimkanicki

    (excuse me, correction –> i meant FG:TD ratio. in other words we kicked more TDs than we scored TDs. i got it backwards up above.)

  • Max

    The Browns offense scored fewer touchdowns this year than LeSean McCoy

    yet, I have heard nothing from the PD slappies about how this “caveman” offense is to blame for all the world’s evils, as we did last year, time and again.

  • oribiasi

    @ jimkanicki: That spreadsheet is yeoman’s work and well done, good sir. Interesting stuff. And yeah, OMG, the horror, the horror, at that was only the 3rd worst season total. “Offensive minded” coach of the year, for sure. lol

    @ Tron: To be clear, you mean 2010 season when you say last year, right? And, as I’m sure you do, wow is right, it is hard to believe that under the Peyton Hillis Coast offense we scored more. As dumb as Mangini was at times, even he knew that the offense ran through Hillis, pun intended.

  • jimkanicki

    (DANG. one more thing plus a request for an ‘edit’ facility on the posting interface.)
    the telling stat from the research was the browns’ TD ranking.

    this is out of 32 teams:
    29th 2011
    29th
    29th
    30th
    9th 2007
    30th
    32nd
    28th
    29th
    17th
    23rd
    31st
    27th 1999

    that there is some breath-taking bad offense. it’s really no wonder browns fans are grouchy.

  • oribiasi

    @ Max: TRUTH. That’s a lot of truth right there. It’s like some of the frequent flyers on this site are closet PD writers too concerned about their press banquet’s with Holmgren to really tell it like it is.

  • oribiasi

    @ jimkanicki: Ruh-roh, you’re starting to repeat yourself ad naseum here, which, while everything you’re saying is 100% accurate, is a big no-no (a la Shurmur’s press conference). Better not keep it up!

    Quick question: Who were the 8 teams better than us in total offense in 2007?

  • Max

    @ Ori – I think all the PD writers are trying to keep their connections intact so they are able to call Holmgren for extra playoff tickets when the time comes. Since they all have press passes anyway, they plan to sell said playoff tickets on Stub Hub and use the proceeds to buy extra PD subscriptions in a last ditch effort to keep their jobs and retain relevancy

  • mgbode

    Important distinction to note how the TDs were scored.

    Passing TDs
    2011 16
    2010 13 (including 1 by MoMass)

    Rushing TDs
    2011 4
    2010 13

    Returning TDs
    2011 1
    2010 0

    Defensive TDs
    2011 0
    2010 3

    FGs
    2011 24/29
    2010 23/28

    ————————-

    So, we scored 1 more FG with 1 more attempt. But, we scored 6 less offensive TDs largely from the fact that we had no running game (which may have had something to do with the fact that we were without our top3 RBs for most of the year Hillis/Hardesty/B-Jax. or that we also lost Steinbach and Yates retired in the preseason and were forced to go with Lauvao and the ever-improving Pinkston at OG).

    Now, we stunk both years on offense. I am not saying we did not. We certainly did. But, we lost 2.6pts/game from the offensive TDs we did not score from 2010. And without our best weapon for most of the year (Hillis).

  • oribiasi

    @ Max: You know what…that just might be true. Especially the playoff tickets part. How they’re not able to see that we are light years away from playoffs is beyond me.

  • oribiasi

    @ mgbode: Some of what you wrote is true. Attributing the lack of offensive touchdowns, however, is far too tricky and complicated to just explain with a lack of running backs.

    For example, you must factor in Hillis not being run when healthy. i.e., the Cincinnati game. That’s one example that can be placed on Shurmur’s shoulders.

    Second, garbage time production does not equal legitimate statistics. I counted 4-5 TDs from this season by McCoy which were garbage TDs. As such, his real production is more like 12 “legit” TDs. I know you despise the idea that some of the TDs he scored were worthless/meaningless, but that doesn’t make it less true.

    Therefore, we lost more than 2.6 points per game on offense. I’d venture to say we lost more like 4-5 points per game. Disclaimer: I’m too busy to do the math right now, this is just a guess. I was close on 45% for Dawson earlier, I may be close now, too.

    And, let’s not forget, most of the players we had at our skill positions (I’m looking at you, QB/WRs) are the SAME as last year, so you would think they would improve, given their experience. Especially with an offensive-minded coach!

  • jimkanicki

    bode, imo absence of a run game is the norm. 2010 was the anomaly.

    * hillis has been injured more than he’s been healthy going back to college. he has the calcium in his thigh and it doesnt go away. you cant count on him.
    * hardesty had two knee issues in college and of course one here. his durability cannot be counted on.
    * we weren’t ‘forced’ to start pinkston/lauvao (3 nfl starts between them). heckert CHOSE to do this.

    you look at these events and say the browns were victimized by unhappy coincidence. i look at the same events and i see poor personnel decisions (going to camp with two and only two injury prone RBs) and deliberate non-competitiveness (opting to start a 5th round rookie rather than sign a FA).

    to each their own i guess, eh?

  • mgbode

    @jimkanicki – I was comparing 2010 to 2011 to put in addition to your good chart. I agree that 2010 was more of an anomaly with the run game (though we have had good spurts with Suggs, Rueben, Jamal, and Harrison).

    Don’t discount B-Jax. He is a good 3rd down RB and a spot-starter to have (we went to camp with him). Hillis has had injury concerns, but was a FB in college and initially in Denver. He had 1 injury in Denver(his quad of course) and then last year the rib injury was the main one that slowed him down. His style obviously puts him at risk. I agree completely on Hardesty and have since we drafted him.

    I disagree at OG. We went into the year with Steinbach, Lauvao, Yates, and Pinkston as our OGs (in that order initially). We lost 2 of them in the preseason. Other than possibly re-signing Womack, not sure what more we should have done there for what we expected to have for the year. And, I do like what I have seen from Pinkston. In fact, I would mark that as a possibly great personnel decision as we may have found a 5th round rookie who will be a starter for us (please do not move him to RT though).

    Now, if you want to talk about going into the year with Pashos at RT, then I would agree with you on a bad personnel decision.

  • mgbode

    @Oribiasi – you act like we didn’t have any garbage time TDs last season.

    let’s just agree that our offense stinks and figure out the best way to fix it.

  • oribiasi

    @ mgbode: Deal! Fire Shurmur. Cut Colt. Hire a coach who can form complete thoughts. Sell the farm for Luck or make some other smart, intelligent drafting decision in the QB position and we’d be well on our way.

  • mgbode

    @oribiasi – you don’t think Colt would be a good backup? i think he’d at least get a 4th-6th rounder in a trade (hey, look what we got for Quinn). i also love Luck but don’t think the Colts would give him up without a Rickey Williams deal but 3x bigger (and I would refuse to do that)

    my ‘best’ plan of action to fix the offense would be:

    1. Hire Clements (GB-QB coach) as OC w/ playcalling duties
    2. Sign UFA Flynn to 5yr contract worth up to $50mil in incentives but with a virtual team-opt-out after 2 seasons (I think this is what will be needed to sign him and is along the lines of the Kolb/Schaub/Cassel deals).
    3. Draft Blackmon/Lamar Miller/Z.Sanders or Adcock with our first 3 picks.
    4. Draft Broyles in the 4th to be our slot WR.
    5. Resign Hillis or pursue Michael Bush or go after another RB in FA. Also go after Marcel Reece for FB (depending on what the Raiders do with him)

    Even if we strike-out in FA, it would give us a depth chart of:

    QB: Flynn / Colt
    RB: Lamar Miller / Hardesty / B-Jax
    WR1: Little / MoMass
    WR2: Blackmon / Cribbs
    Slot WR: Norwood / Broyles (coming off injury)
    TE: Watson / Moore / Cameron

    LT: Thomas
    LG: Steiny (if he can be healthy – if not, want to find one)
    OC: Mack
    RG: Pinkston (would like to put him here as he’s not a pulling OG and that’s what our LG should be doing in the WCO)
    RT: Z.Sanders or Adcock

    ——————-

    that should be a significantly better offense in 2012.

  • oribiasi

    @ mgbode: I like where you’re going here for most of the way. Quick points:

    1. Flynn has how many NFL starts so far? 1? 2? That worries me a lot.
    2. Is Lamar Miller even entering the draft?
    3. Why not Norwood as a slot receiver?
    4. I don’t see a single, new RT in your scenario.

    Let me know.

  • jimkanicki

    bode, looks good to me. could quibble here (you like broyles, i like jordan white, tomaytoe, tomahtoe.) and there, but it’s a plan.

    ori, sanders/adcock are your RTs. bode’s got us covered. and yes, miller is coming out. see: http://walterfootball.com/draft2012underclassmen.php

  • mgbode

    thanks jimkanicki. answered 2 &4 for me already.

    1. I agree that Flynn’s lack of starts is a worry and the fact that he’s in GB’s offense with their weapons is also a cause for pause. I would not trade Colt in this scenario and, as mentioned, have an opt-out clause after 2 years for Flynn. Also, I would hire Clements first (he should know if Flynn is fools gold or not)

    3. I do have Norwood as the starting slot WR, but we always need depth at WR and I think Broyles is being unfairly devalued right now by draftniks and will be a steal in the 4th round. Look at Landry Jones before and after the Broyles injury.