Scott Raab on the Browns loss, fan shaming over attendance and beat reporting – WFNY Podcast – 2013-09-09
September 9, 2013Buckeye band fires back at Michigan counterparts
September 9, 2013Another year began for the Cleveland Browns as so many years have begun for the Cleveland Browns. It wasn’t a miserable nightmare game. It wasn’t a gut-punch that will last in any sort of misery memory bank. That bank is rich with much bigger and grandiose currency than what transpired yesterday in Cleveland against the Dolphins. Still, it’s not a great look for the latest ownership, front office and coaching staff that is looking to make their own new mark on the franchise.
The team did a wonderful job gold-plating the Cleveland Browns game-day experience. The staff was friendlier than I’ve ever seen them in my life. The Browns had plenty of personnel out in the streets to try and help head off any issues with the new small bag policy they are left to enforce. The music, replays, drum line and the surprise halftime show by The Presidents of the United States of America (POTUSA) were all really great. I’m not being even the slightest bit sarcastic. With apologies to Dustin Fox, I don’t think the Halloween theme being played on third down worked, but these things are fluid. As I’ve said all along, the in-game stuff should be the easy part. And if they didn’t know already, this new Browns organization just learned how difficult it is to build the team on the field.
It’s not all bad, of course. Desmond Bryant looks like a beast along with the rest of the defensive front. The safeties played well in their first game, I thought. We also must put Oneil Cousins in perspective here. He was the third man up. Maybe the fourth man. It’s not like anyone in the Browns organization aimed to have Oneil Cousins as the starter this season on the right side of the offensive line. On top of that, it isn’t like Cameron Wake and the Dolphins front isn’t good. They are. The problem I have is where the Browns skimped or thought they were good enough.
I don’t want to pick on Buster Skrine.1 I thought Buster probably played a little bit better than some of us thought on the first watch of the game. I re-watched this morning and while the Dolphins were picking on Skrine, there were a couple other things happening.
First of all the defense was designed to get pressure on the QB and force him to make mistakes. That left Skrine out there to play soft and keep the game in front of him. Yes, he got double-moved by Hartline on one long TD pass, but I think some of his exposure was at the hands of the blitzing nature of Ray Horton’s defense. Combine that with really nice timing play execution by Tannehill and Hartline, and they really made Skrine and Owens look bad at times.
The real problem I have here is with the Browns going through camp and pre-season with all of us assuming that Buster Skrine was clearly a solid option for nickel corner, and then seeing him named winner of the position battle at CB2 opposite Joe Haden. Those weren’t the best plans and even understanding it’s just one game, it’s hard to believe this won’t be a continual problem all year without some personnel adjustment.
All you Browns fans that harped on Sheldon Brown, should be up in arms today. Sheldon Brown and Dimitri Patterson aren’t the be-all end-all at cornerback, but this is a team with tons of cap space that knowingly went into the season with Joe Haden, Leon McFadden, Buster Skrine and Chris Owens as their corners. All of this is prefaced with the “it’s just one game and things could get better” garbage, but you can’t tell me that everyone who paid any kind of attention to the Browns this pre-season wasn’t worried about corner.2 To have it present itself so plainly in the first game of the season as a clear roster gap is discouraging.
Finally, on Brandon Weeden, I talked about it with Scott Raab this morning, and I almost don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t hate Brandon Weeden. He seems like a good guy who wants to do really well, but he just doesn’t look like a guy that has the level of football instinct needed to win in the NFL. He’ll have better games than he had yesterday against the Dolphins and their pressure on him was pretty impressive. Beyond that, it’s tough to say the potential ceiling on Weeden is worth the time. He’s not going to be the next Kurt Warner. He’s just not. So, I guess I can say that’s something that Michael Lombardi got right?
It’s not the end of the season, but man is it frustrating. Not that the Browns lost, per se. That’s always frustrating. It’s that the Browns lost in the face of some really obvious glaring needs and never looked like they exposed any glaring needs on the opposite side of the field. I was certainly hoping that despite some inadequacies that couldn’t all be fixed in a single year that the Browns were good enough to pick apart another team’s weak points.
Certainly I hoped they could do it at home to start off a brand new season with brand new front office and coaching staff. This was the culmination of all that work that went into the off-season and for one very important week – a week where the Browns wanted to make a really great first impression – I’m left with my only fond feelings being a surprise performance of “Peaches” by POTUSA at halftime.
71 Comments
My comments after the preseason loss in which I was blasted for…
Reasons to remember why this team is going 5-11 again this year:
1. Weeden is still uncomfortable under duress
2. Weeden is still staring down his intended receiver from the time they break the huddle to the moment he releases the ball
3. Weeden is hanging his receivers out to dry on unnecessary gains which will most likely lead to injury
4. Our CB’s are vertically challenged
5. Trent is ready to go but will not play all 16 games leaving us very thin at RB.
Negative reaction to a preseason loss? No.
Just a clear reminder on who this team really is.
Now with all of these things coming to fruition I’m definitley with Kanicki in the next 3 guys to blame… Haslam, Banner and Lombardi.
Holes on team, money on the table, and punted the draft whether it was by design or incompetency it’s a big problem.
They played the Lumineers “Ho Hey” and put the lyrics up on the scoreboard to encourage the fans to sing along. Whoever is responsible for this should be fired immediately.
Also, what if they’re tanking for a franchise QB in the draft? Doesn’t it look like that’s what they’re doing? I don’t know how upset I am if it is.
I like having an aggressive defense. It is often effective and always fun. That said, it clearly opens you up to what we saw. We have to have a reliable CB2 to play this way. We don’t.
Also, Weeden threw something like 53 times? TRich ran 13 times? What is that about? I watched the game, we weren’t getting blown out. We went into the half with the lead. Why throw 53 passes ever, especially without Gordon out there? We have bum WRs (we just do), and a stud RB. Anemic, bizarre offensive strategy.
Also, Travis Benjamin should consider a second career as a setter in volleyball.
So if we go with the tanking theory, you’re ok with Lombardi engineering it and picking the next “franchise QB”? When an organization has a 14 year history of incompetence, the surest bet of what results from losing is more losing.
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
If they’re tanking for a QB, that’s something I would have to think about. If they truly believed in Brandon Weeden, that’s another thing I’ll have to think about. None of it makes me warm and fuzzy.
You’re right that The Lumineers thing was a clear miss on the gameday front. Overall, I liked a lot of the new stuff though. They’re not going to hit 100% on those things.
Believe me, I’d rather have just about anyone as GM but Lombardi, but he’s who we’ve got. If Teddy Bridgewater is the clear cut best QB in the draft that he looks like, it seems like something he could get right. The Colts and Saints were losing franchises on par with these Browns until they got a franchise QB.
The article was suitably critical but the title was a little to charitable. The essential point is that the Browns continue to suck and the utter failure of the front office to address weaknesses that my dead grandmother could have addressed better does not bode well for the future.
And sure, there were some strengths. But there always have been, except in Mangini’s first year(s). Last year, we had a solid front office that had made steady progress on both offense and defense. This year, we have what appears to be a rock-solid front seven, and good coordinators. But as long as we suck so thoroughly and insist on taking two steps back for every one forward, it’s just deck chairs on the Titanic.
Bridgewater, Boyd, Hundley. I’m good with any of them.
Mariota has got to be coming out.. don’t know why he doesn’t get more pub. He’s 1 or 1A next to Bridgewater and I think I like him better.
Feel like I need to point out a positive, any positive on Dreary Monday: even when the plays came in a little late guys were running up to the line, clearly drilled in this, and Weeden always got the play off. Internal clocks have been set and are functioning. I guess I’ll be happy if one day Weeden looks over the defense and then calls time because he recognizes a prob he can’t fix, as opposed to lack of time. Don’t think we’ve ever seen that happen.
Whether they wanted O’Neill Cousins to be the starter or not, they are the ones who chose to have him on the roster, they are the ones who chose to eschew draft picks this year, they are the ones who chose not to bolster the offensive line in free agency. No one will be able to convince me that somewhere out there there isn’t someone who could have done better than O’Neill Cousins yesterday.
They’re putting lipstick on a pig in an effort to distract us from the fact that they basically gave up on this season before it started. I hope it gets us a good QB.
I’ll try to watch him more this season. Honestly, I had a tough time figuring him out last year. He doesn’t make the “NFL” throws that the other guys do because Oregon doesn’t have them (now, granted, what a NFL throw is may be changing).
I will give him a chance though once Oregon starts playing real teams and I watch them (haven’t watched the Bucks yet either — no reason to).
Lombardi is a eunuch. He has no authority. He is a glorified scout for Banner, who is the man in charge (not that that makes things any less frightening)
Can we lead a grassroots campaign to make it so Lombardi is never referred to as the GM? Maybe we can indirectly make it apparent to them that we aren’t going to swallow ALL of their BS like tripe?
Also, I agree with you- anymore it’s ALL about the QB. The Colts and Saints are perfect examples.
I still maintain Lombardi isn’t calling the shots.
He’s looked good so far.
They can’t be tanking after one game but what they could be doing is going with the guy who was here and letting him prove why he’s not the guy. You know to shut people up like me who wanted a QB to be given a chance as opposed to another new starter.
At some point though, you expect experts to be experts and not need much more than old game tape and some practices to know what a guy can and can’t be. Maybe that’s the unreal expectation, but it’s one that I have. I feel like my experiences with quarterbacks in Cleveland give me a sense of a lot of things. Brandon Weeden has that arm that goads coaches in, but lacks enough instinct and athletic ability to make up for the lack of instinct, that I think his path is already written. Sorry to say…
Or in the Colts case, TWO franchise QBs in back to back eras… sigh.
To echo Craig I thought a big positive was the rush put on by the front 7. 2 of Weeden’s picks were tipped balls so his numbers weren’t truly atrocious. Limiting Miami to 20 yards rushing on 20 plus rushes was encouraging from last year. Cameron seems to be stepping up as a go to receiver. I really thought that the Browns should have resigned Watson but Cameron’s play at least in game 1 made me rethink that.
Going to the negatives I don’t understand why the Browns wouldn’t bring in a veteran CB until one of the draft picks stepped up to be that second CB. Dropped passes still haunt this team. Cousins makes me wish for the days of Porkchop and Turnstile St. Claire. I just hope Pinkston and Lavauo come back soon or we will be seeing Campbell under center.
i dont trust my eyes anyone concerning these college QBs and their passing. i seriously, truly, scoffed at the bills and the EJ Manuel pick because Manuel never looked that good to me at FSU. but he looked damn good for the Bills yesterday.
Now starting at right guard . . . Lawrence Vickers!
Drafting Oregon QB’s is just as bad as drafting a Big12 QB….it just doesn’t work. I’d cross him off my list along with Aaron Murray…..if you think Christian Ponder is bad just wait till someone makes the mistake of drafting Murray. It should be Bridgewater or bust if this team doesn’t start winning.
Talk about sick going from Manning to Luck…Meanwhile in Cleveland…
If Pinkston and Lauvao were healthy and McFadden was contributing, would we be accusing the FO of doing nothing? Eight weeks ago it was pretty easy to look at guard (Greco, Pinkston, Lauvao) and CB2 (McFadden) and think we would be serviceable at worst in those areas.
Speaking of McFadden, does anyone know what the deal is with him? Injuries or is he just not good?
Go back to draft night when Weeden was chosen and you’ll see how I felt. Weeden was/is Derek Anderson 2.0 I said it then and I’ll say it now. My hope was that with Norv Turner around that maybe, somehow, Turner could teach Weeden how to actually play the position. Now to be fair there was much more wrong then just Weeden. We all saw just how bad the WRs are without Josh Gordon. The OL was outplayed as well. Trent Richardson was sidelined by his own coaches. Weeden was thrown to the wolves and did a great Tim Couch impersonation.
i’m all for tanking for a shot at a franchise qb.
honestly, how much difference is there between 11 or 12 losses this year and the 14 or so that we’ll need to pick at the top of the draft?
picking 6ish hasn’t been good enough and i’m willing to watch (or not watch) a few games this year for the CHANCE to get a franchise qb who can give us a decade of exciting football.
Timeout, the WRs weren’t all that great with Gordon last year and experience +1 does not mean you have gotten better, especially when you replace the offensive system you learned last year and the entire coaching staff.
Was it Bernie Kosar who once said, “Scheme can’t make up for a lack of talent”?
Let me try my best to spin in favor of the FO in the most charitable way:
GUARD: There’s only so much depth you can have at G. They have guys on the line who haven’t missed a snap, including Greco/Lavauo since they’ve been starters, in three years. Pinkston only missed from his freak injury. So they came into the season with all three of those, and lost two. That’s beyond their control. That said, it’s difficult to understand how the G they traded for didn’t pass a physical here, but did the next day elsewhere; how they didn’t make an in-game change to Gilkey, or have used Gilkey more at the position during preseason and tried starting him, when Cousins clearly doesn’t have it; and why they weren’t having more help by the second half on that side of the line, especially with Wake demolishing Schwartz.
TACKLE: I don’t think the FO can be faulted for thinking Schwartz would be solid there. The issue was the coaching staff not assigning more help or not yelling at the guys who failed to help when assigned.
CB/DEFENSE: They focused on the front seven, and they were great. The S situation wasn’t horrible, though wasn’t great, either. McFadden was supposed to be the second corner, and Skrine IS a solid CB against slot WRs. He was actually doing OK in the first half, too. But what’s hard to defend is not getting a better 2nd CB, especially when you knew McFadden was hurt and wasn’t going to be ready. Yes, you don’t like signing stop-gaps – but your CB isn’t ready (assuming he is that good)! So sign Grimes or whomever to a one-year deal, let McFadden learn for the year and be available in a pinch, and keep Skrine in the slot. Don’t sign another slot corner in Owens who needs safety help in the middle, leaving Skrine 1-on-1 on the outside which is where he’s weakest.
QB/WR: Weeden really isn’t that bad, and wasn’t that bad. He is a great fit in this O and all that, he had one year in a horrible O plan with a horrible coach and still wasn’t that horrible after Week 1, and there was nobody available in the draft who’s better and he’s more than serviceable for this year. You thought you had a good enough line to protect him until the injuries, and Gordon’s suspension sucks. Bess is a good 3rd WR you signed. Little’s hands have been getting better. Even the INTs weren’t all that bad – the first was on 3rd and 8 from no-man’s land (45 of the Dolphins), and resulted in a perfect punt; the other two went off people’s hands. He stood in there under pressure, getting demolished all second half… Actually, I can buy most of this. Sigh. The hardest one is Benjamin, who clearly is not an NFL WR even if he’s a great PR/KR.
RB: You can’t control for both of your RBs going down to season-ending injuries, that’s fine. And you can’t make Trent stop hopping, and the loss of your guards hurts your run blocking, fine. But it’s hard to justify keeping Jackson once you knew they weren’t good enough for the team (as demonstrated by his release when there are no other RBs on the club), rather than getting a sub in here earlier. It’s also hard to justify 53/13 on the pass/run split. And it’s hard to justify a KR who brings the ball out of the back of the endzone three times, never making it to the 20.
Finally, it’s understandable to focus on the defense rather than offense because all the key starters there were rookies last year. But if you want to see them develop, you need to have key subs in there for situations like what happened, or you’re screwing all of them. Overpay for solid veterans (not Cousins) for a year or two so the loss of 2 guys doesn’t derail everyone’s progress. Ugh.
That’s all being charitable. Ouch.
I agree the timeout just killed my breakaway layup on my own basket so thank you very much!
#RickyDavis4life!
On the bright side Arsenioooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Hall is back tonight with “The Aresnio Hall” show. We may not have sports but between Arsenio and Drew Carey at least we got jokes!
I completely agree with #3. McCoy had the exact same problem. He had one nice pump fake I saw.
I also don’t think he gives a rat’s ass. Somehow he’s just one of those people you can smell complacency on.
If you think about it, they got Elway too (he just wouldn’t play for them). .
(meanwhile in Cleveland)…Pat Shurmur had to win that pivotal 5th game in 2011 so we missed out on not one, but two franchise QB’s (not counting Wilson because NObody saw that coming)
Agreed. He’s like that guy in the chess scene of “History of the World Part 1″…”Oh, piss boy!”
certainly couldn’t have been much worse
Shurmur did it out of spite he figured since he didn’t have a real grownup boy QB that the next guy wouldn’t either! I actually liked Russell Wilson out of Wisconsin but I never dreamt he’d do what he did as a rookie. Of course he had a coach who is unconventional.
You don’t need to do that. Also, when all your injuries happen pre-season there is still plenty of time to do something about it.
Not trying to start anything, but historically are Louisville or Clemson QBs any better?
Ditto. Thought the same thing about Russell Wilson when he was at NC State… never expected him to make in the NFL.
and, RGIII is not from the BigXII apparently.
if we go with history, then we should wait 25yrs from Luck’s draft and take whoever the QB is at Stanford at the time. gotta play this one safe.
and what about that Pryor kid.
I think you mean the pivotal 4th win. Specifically the one against the Colts. We loose that game and we’d be picking 2nd and have a very different team today. Too bad the Colts were holding a clinic on how to tank that year.
On your #2: Weeden has been (and still is) bad at this. Although, he did, actually, show improvement (in that he didn’t do it every single time) in this game.
It was hilarious to hear the commentators constantly talking about how Tannehill went through his progressions (and show replays of Tannehill’s head rotating around) and never talk about the same aspect of Weeden’s game.
If my aunt had wheels, she’d be my uncle. No, wait, I think that’s not how it goes.
The front office is responsible to make things happen, not to make them could have happened. If they had a history of sustained success, or if they’d been remotely explicable in addressing known weaknesses; or even if the Browns’ previous regimes had done better excuses might be in order for one poor offseason. But they’re batting zero right now, they’ve avoided doing anything about obvious problems while allowing strengths to become weaknesses, and we’ve had five regimes strike out on three pitches without even a foul ball. The one regime that was apparently making progress was summarily replaced and their progress undone. So it’s unreasonable to point to the things that could have gone right.
Im in
I was thinking the same thing. Are we missing something? He isn’t really even mentioned anymore
its not the X’s and O’s, it’s the Jimmies and Joes