That Sure Was Fun, Wasn’t It?
October 15, 2012Neck injury could threaten Scott Fujita’s career
October 15, 2012
Through the wind and the rain and all the tumultuous headlines and sound bytes that could burden a franchise in dire need of a win, rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden led his previously winless team to a 27-10 victory in front of a packed house on a chilly and rainy October afternoon, answering the season-long, progress-based question: If the 2012 Cleveland Browns played the 2011 Cleveland Browns, which team would come out on top?
Though opposing quarterback Colt McCoy and bruising defensive lineman Phil Taylor did as much as they could in attempt to give their team a chance to pull out a win, it was Weeden, flanked by rookie teammates Trent Richardson and wide receiver Josh Gordon who proved to be all too much for their otherwise up-and-down opponents.
“It feels good,” said Weeden following his first win as a professional quarterback. “We’ve been so close so many times and to actually get over the hump and close a game out, play the way we did in the second half, it feels good. If feels really good.”
Weeden, despite starting out by completing one of his first five pass attempts, finished the afternoon by throwing for 297 yards (18-for-29 passing) with two touchdown passes and a quarterback rating of 119.4. Leading the league in interceptions coming into the contest, the red-headed rookie managed to keep the damage to a minimum, settling for multiple passes which should have been picked off but fell to the ground thanks to mental mistakes by the opposition. Gordon, the supplemental second-round draft pick out of Baylor, continued to provide a spark in his debut season, hauling in four passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. The arial attack was undoubtedly balanced by Richardson who carried the ball 18 times for 102 yards, finding the end zone once. He added 26 more yards through the air with four receptions.
The key play came on a third-and-one play following a touchdown by McCoy, connecting with tight end Evan Moore on a five-yard pass to the back corner of the end zone — a drive puzzled together by several short passes and fortuitous penalties on the defense — which closed their lead to 10-7. With momentum potentially shifting, Weeden administered a text book fake handoff to Richardson before rolling to his right to find Gordon two steps ahead of free safety Mike Adams. Gordon hauled in the deep ball, netting his team 66 yards and six points. From this point on, Weeden and his team would methodically pull away while the Billy Winn and John Hughes-led defense would hold McCoy and his band of misfits — would-be leaders in running back Peyton Hillis and tight end Ben Watson were both inactive due to injury — to three additional points thanks to a Phil Dawson 56-yard field goal.
“You have to give these guys credit,” McCoy said of the opposing defense. “The secondary played well, forcing me to check down to my third or fourth options and handing us a lot of unfortunate third-and-longs. Our injuries may have hurt us, but we can’t make excuses — we gave it our all, but those guys played a hell of a game.”
For the victors, rookie lineman Billy Winn recorded four tackles and had a key stop in the backfield which resulted in a second-half fumble. Defensive lineman Frostee Rucker recorded one sack and had two passes deflected at the line of scrimmage, one resulting in an interception by rookie linebacker Craig Robertson. Though Weeden had his hands full with defensive tackle Phil Taylor (four tackles, one sack) and veteran linebacker Chris Gocong (seven tackles, one sack), it would end up being the solid blocking of rookie offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz — nullifying the impact of defensive end Jabaal Sheard — and the rest of the offensive line that would give their quarterback enough time in the pocket to get his play-makers involved.
“We knew going into this game that we were going to finish and we were going to play the full sixty minutes,” said Winn of his team’s first victory. “Give it everything we got and leave it on the field. I think we were able to get that done.”
Weeden’s unit, to this point, has been in the spotlight due to their winless record and impending sale with highway rest stop mogul Jimmy Haslam III offering $1 billion to purchase the franchise. Meanwhile, McCoy’s team continues to deal with injuries and public relation nightmares due to off-field player issues as well as Randy Lerner, the team’s owner, being largely unavailable in these times of struggle. With his team’s defense and special teams keeping him in most games, McCoy has regressed mightily from his rookie campaign, providing an offense which has sputtered at best, one which continues to be in dire need of play-makers at each and every skill position.
Weeden was the last rookie quarterback to notch a win after having started all six of his team’s contests. Turning 29 years of age on this very day, the 6-foot-3-inch QB continues to mature with each passing week. Certainly, its a lot more enjoyable to mature in victory than it is with defeat.
“It’s a lot more fun coming out of that locker room with everybody excited,” said Weeden. “Going to work tomorrow is going to be a lot more fun than it has been in the last five weeks and that’s why we play the game. We want to have fun, win games and we finally got that notch on our belt.”
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Editor’s note: If anyone can actually simulate the 2011 Browns taking on the 2012 version — Madden 13? — I’d love to know the actual result. Clarity-based update added to lede at 6:00pm.
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(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
90 Comments
Did I miss something here?
I feel pretty stupid, I have no idea what this article is about.
?
I’m with ya
What did I just read?
Sounds like a Madden simulation game
Is this some kind of Freudian slip?
Maybe the word “McCoy” is being used like the Smurfs use the word “Smurf?”
Is this, like, a game of Madden or something? So confused…
Too early in the week for satire, gents?
The best satire usually makes you say “what the hell are you talking about” immediately after you’re done reading it. Oh? It doesn’t? Well nevermind then.
Read the Editor’s Note at the end, guys. It will all become clear.
What If Sports has 2012 winning 17-13 on a blocked punt return: http://www.whatifsports.com/NFL/boxscore.asp?GameID=7767016&teamfee=-1&theme=-1
It’s a comparison between 2011 Browns v 2012 Browns, with a focus on week 6. This makes sense, cause comparing the Browns to the rest of the NFL is not nearly as appropriate or fair as comparing v.2012 and v.2011.
Well done scott, I would hate to be a Bizzaro Browns fan right now
War of the Worlds comes to mind I guess you can call it War of the Browns
“Their head coach, gotta respect the job he’s done,” said Pat Shurmur after the game. “Obviously he has a bright future in this league.”
Stop making our heads hurt with your witt and parody. We’re trying to revel in victory and ignore problems, over here.
I get it, its weeden on one team and mccoy and injured players on another. Weedens team beat the team full of injured players. Probably the worst article ive ever had the displeasure of reading. Really dont understand the point
But phil taylor and ben watson are on the team now….so why are they on the 2011 team?
It’s not real until Marecic drops a pass for both teams.
And I hope the 2012 Browns channel the 2011 Browns this week in Indy.
I’ll admit, I didn’t get it until the Evan Moore + Mike Adams paragraph, but found it rather enjoyable once I “figured it out” from there.
Something doesn’t add up on this…’12 Browns had 56 passing yards to ’11 Browns having 272? Not to mention the QB passing yards are different than the team’s.
Plus, look at the leading tacklers for ’12…..Andrew Sweat? He retired or something, right?
I’d have to think a Madden simulation with updated rosters would be a little better.
We love you, Scott, but there’s an old adage that goes something like this: If a small number of students does poorly on a test, there’s probably something wrong with those students. If nearly all of the students do poorly on the test, there’s probably something wrong with the test.
It’s never too early for well-written satire!
What exactly is being satirized?
The 1997 Browns demand a steel cage match against either Shurmur-led Browns team.
Does that adage encompass free education?
Do you even know how to write an article? This is absolutely terrible.
Well, I first heard it in public school, so . . .
This is kind of like public school. You’ve got the honor students (mgbode, etc.), the class clowns (me, porkchopexpress, etc.), those esoteric types that effortless span both of these cliques (Mr. C, Harv21, etc.), the jocks (jimkanicki, etc.), the bullies (I had some names in here, but took them out. I don’t want to be one of them anymore, or beat up by them.), the nerds (many of the aforementioned), the hot chicks (I hope!), and, of course, the absolutely hopeless dunderheads and holdbacks. (I won’t name names. We know who they are.)
Now, we just need to get you into a union so that you can go on strike and teach us a real lesson!
I think you do not know what that word means.
So someone thinks that the 2012 team could beat the 2011 team? Sounds almost useful.
I think that this defense (ranked 31st at 426 yards allowed per game) would allow even the 2011 Browns offense to march up and down the field. Their only hope would be that the 2011 Browns kept coughing the ball up. Except the 2011 team held on to the ball better than all but 3 teams. Instead it would be the 2012 team (ranked 25th in yards per game, with the 5th most turnovers in the league) that would have trouble putting points on the board.
You couldn’t just keep that to yourself?
I would rather just forget about the 2011 McCoy led Browns altogether.
This blog sucks
This is awesome. Is it just me, or do I sense that the author kind of likes McCoy more than Weeden?
I really like what I see from Weeden – but there’s just no way Colt McCoy had a chance to do anything right last year. The O-line was completely in shambles, there was no running game, and there were no downfield threats. Weeden’s been getting decent pass protection, he has 2 healthy running backs, and a downfield threat in Josh Gordon that they haven’t had in 5 years. I’m not saying colt McCoy is better than Weeden or even a starting-caliber quarterback – I’m saying he never really had a chance to prove one way or the other that he could be successful. And the more >10 yard passes Weeden throws, the louder the dissent for McCoy – don’t think that’s fair.
maybe you should have put a disclaimer at the top… this made no sense for most of it
the free cheese is spoiled … feh!
Also have the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, d-heads — they all adore Scott. They think he’s a righteous dude.
You brown-nose.
I’m the Eddie Haskell of WFNY.
I think it’s fair. I usually hate guys that are like “just watch them and you’ll see the difference”, but I’m not sure what else to say. The first thing I noticed from Weeden this year was the difference in arm strength. Even early on when he wasn’t connecting on the deep throws, Weeden was actually overthrowing receivers and you knew he was going to eventually get that timing right. It became pretty obvious to me right away that McCoy really doesn’t have the arm to make all of the throws an NFL quarterback has to make. I’m happy to have Colt as a backup because I think he can manage the game and sneak some wins if necessary, but I just can’t see his skill set doing anything spectacular.
Save Scott!
I’ll take “Things that are False” for $1000, Alex.
Sucks that you have to read it, huh? And then comment on it. If only you could “navigate” to another “web page” . . . but no.
I’m actually really enjoying the negative reactions to this article. It just kind of shows you how much more apt people are to comment negatively. Scott, you should take this as a positive… you wrote one article that confused a lot of people and they all came out of the woodwork to let you know how terrible you and WFNY are. It took hundreds of articles that people seem to have liked/understood before we could hear from these valued readers.
I love how upset people are getting about this article
THIS IS THE INTERNET… NO FUN ALLOWED, ONLY FACTZ
It must be a Cleveland thing, so much pent up anger that even when we win, people still have to be pissed off.
Put me on that list G_O, or I’ll punch you in the neck.
Hot chick? Okay, of you say so.
(What? Am I the only one that got treated this way by girls in school?)
I am enjoying the article more since seeing all of the negative reactions escalate. Scott, you did the community a service. It is a Monday in October. The day traditionally reserved for griping about the Browns. But, we cannot gripe about what we saw yesterday. We need to gripe! It has to happen! What to gripe about?
Way to take one for the team and pull the community together.