DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2019 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 19 Broncos 24 A Balanced Live Perspective of the Game from Denver

Yesterday I went to the game, was my first live one as a Browns fan. Overall I had an excellent time and enjoyed talking with Browns fans of all stripes, both converts like me that originally followed Baker from OU and die-hard Cleveland and midwest transplants into the Denver area. It was great talking and barking with everyone before and during the game. Everyone was nice and respectful. Not so much of the trashing your team, self-entitled types, that don’t accept new fans like populate this board. Sorry for generalization to posters not like this.


At any rate this is what I saw:

Denver Defense:
1. Denver's crowd was exceptionally loud, it was creating communication problems for the cleveland O all day. Kudos to their amazing 12th man effect.

2. Denver's run defense was suffocating!! They jammed Cleveland's oline into the backfield on practically every run play especially when it counted. Most of the time it was not an extra man in the box thing it was simply the oline getting manhandled by wolfe and the down lineman on run plays. The only way we ran for the few yards we got is through a bulldozer effort by Chubb. I did not expect this since that has been the strength of our oline to this point. And they tackled great, to my dismay.

3. In the pass game I thought Baker got maybe his best protection of the season. The oline managed their rush pretty good really. Receivers were covered well all day and were tackled usually quickly. OBJ had a safety over the top all day so long routes were not there. Smart call.

Cleveland Offense:

1. Baker: I thought there was much to like here. Baker played his best game this year in my opinion. Pass protection was not perfect but good enough and Baker clearly had a goal in mind to stay in the pocket and get the ball out quick. He also threw the ball away some times when appropriate, good decisions. Baker was razor accurate all day and throwing with velocity. Super clutch on the 20 yard run for a first down. One throw early was in danger due to him missing a LB, that was his worst read of the day.
Baker was decisive but at the same time you could tell he was nervous to go down field into danger areas. Maybe too so, but he is catching flack on so many sides due to interceptions, he looked determined not to do that. I feel bad for him in that respect as some picks were egregious pop-ups, some him playing hero ball in the face of hopeless protection and behind the chains in a no win situation. Baker in game 3 makes the OBJ throw at the end, but not nervous about a pick Baker.

2. Receivers: Overall pretty good. Some amazing catches by Landry and OBJ as the game moved forward. Callaway best game of the year. But, bad drops continued. OBJ had a 20 yard first down in the first half that killed a drive. Landry started very shaky, dropped an incredible slant that he might have still been running on and another pass. Red zone was bad see below.

3. Running game: It was non-existent, especially at the worst times. To Freddy’s credit he was willing to go to the run in critical situations and in the red zone, something he got killed for not doing early on, but Denver was not having it. Through no fault of him own, Chubb was contained, either by Denver or Freddy.

4. Red zone: We were killed by several things. (1) Run game was shut down in the red zone. (2)Denver blanketed receivers. Either the scheme or the routes are really bad in the red zone. I think the loss of Fells, Duke, Njoku, and the disappearance of Higgins is the problem. These are the red zone players not Landry and OBJ, they are not getting open. I would love to see callaway traded for an Edelman or kupp type player that can find holes. Can Hunt fill the Duke red zone role? That being said the tight end has to get his feet down on the throw to the back of the end zone, he acted completely lost.

5. Overall: I thought the offense played well enough to win. No turnovers, no penalties. Especially considering that Denver D, had a phenomenal game and the crowd was a big factor. Yes they struggled in the red zone, but 19 if not 22, or 25 (had they not needed a TD should have been enough against a terrible Offensive team), should have been enough to beat a terrible offense, going against what is supposed to be the strength of our team.

Cleveland Defense: So inconsistent. Totally disappointed we could not stop the run, and allowed the rookie to get away for yardage in critical moments. Total yardage was not bad, but most came in chunks, resulting in TDs. Out of position all day. Tackling that would make the sooners blush. Sooner style pass defense, letting receivers catch balls over their head. Easily their worst effort given the competition. They could not get a stop anytime a stop was needed. This game is on their heads in my opinion. This dline is over-hyped and Denver fans were shocked their crappy tackle was not beaten. They acted like they had no idea what a wildcat was on the last play.


The Freddy Kitchens Problem: On a season-wide level that is a much longer conversation. He has been a comedy of errors and most problems we have are due to him, however, I can reel off many areas he improved in yesterday.
1. Deferred to the second half
2. Tried Chubb in the red zone.
3. Stuck with the run, to create balance.
4. Clearly put an emphasis on no fumbles and Picks
5. Clearly put an emphasis on no penalties
6. Challenged a close critical call (I blame his people upstairs, if it should not have been).
7. Resisted the urge to go for more 4th downs.
It fair to ask why it took 8 weeks to get to these principles that the whole league goes by, but that’s progress.

Still Bad Freddy:

1. Cant get his team to focus all at once or for a whole game. Cue the D to mail in the effort yesterday
2. We get the ball back on our last drive with less than 8 minutes, playing a team on point for defense that we cant crack, and we go into what I can only describe as slow down mode. Milking the clock, ensuring it is our final possession. Why? I think we would be great in hurry up! So maddening.
3. Red zone play design is atrocious.
4. Chubb out for some critical short yardage plays
5. Not playing Higgins is killing us. I know Higgins may be number 4 in straight athleticism but he is the best at finding holes in the defense and connecting with Mayfield. This continues to be a terrible mistake by Freddy.
6. The team respects Kitchens as a brother not a coach or father.

Overall Game: the way it played out Cleveland O and Denver D had a battle that Denver D slightly won. Cleveland D was really bad against a crappy Denver O, and that turned the tide. I predict Denver O wont score 10 points next week, and Cleveland D, will see the missed opportunity.

I still believe we can have a decent season and I support the Browns as they are figuring stuff out. I believe both the D and O will be better next week. Our luck has to turn soon. Go Browns!!!

No offense, but there is so much of that I don't believe to be true. Receivers were open and Baker wasn't razor accurate. And Freddie did not commit to the run. At one point Baker had over 30 passes to something like 12 runs for Chubb.

Ok, he missed on 15 of 42 passes. That included several bad drops and throw aways, so I'm not seeing him missing a lot he aimed at. The screen to Chubb was a miss, I definitely remember that one. Moreover, when I say razor accurate he was hitting receivers in stride all day. They weren't reaching up or back. I don't agree with people thinking Baker should have throw a low percentage 20 yard fade at the end of the game when they needed 4 yards. If he had missed the chorus would be he is a gunslinger that needs to take whats there. The fact is Harris and Landry missed their rubs. Baker threaded it, and despite the call it hit landry in the hands, the whole stadium saw it on replay.

Chubb ran 20 times close to the league high.
Did you want 30 carries? When he was getting shut down at 3 yards per carry, and the short/intermediate passing game was working? He even ran Chubb in the final drive running the clock out for some reason. Chubb needed one yard on the play before last and lost 3 yards. I like Chubb but he got stuffed in tight situations repeatedly. Lets be honest.

His best game of the season was against Baltimore. A game where he had not only better stats and bigger moments, but we actually won.

If that was bakers best game of the season, according to you, then we need to tank and draft Tua ASAP.

Thankfully that isn’t the case.

No offense but I found his recap to be a very accurate assessment of the game. Baker was more accurate, perhaps not razor accurate. Chubb ran the ball 20 times. We moved the ball all game. The crap offensive play calling in the red zone and the awful defense on 3 plays cost us the game. Plain and simple.

I think the post-game breakdowns have proven that we had guys open, including when it counted. Our QB has been below-average to bad all season (nearly every tangible evaluation and stat proves this) ... and our coach is the worst in the NFL.

Couple that with a defense that is underperforming and it’s a recipe to lose to the Denvers, Miamis, and Cincinnatis of the NFL.

No coach is worse than Gase. I've been following the Jets because of the Baker Darnold angle. If it's believable, Gase and Darnold are way worse than Freddie and Baker by a pretty large margin.

If you look hard enough, you can see slight improvement in certain parts of Baker's game. He's all but killed the whole "run right" issue he started the year with. He didn't throw any picks (should've been picked twice, but whatever). To me, those are things that are worthy of including in the positive column, even if they don't outweigh the negative.

He was not accurate on Sunday. I counted 2 'good' throws. Receivers had to reach/dive/stop on just about everything else. Receivers were open, but I think those 'why didn't he throw it to THIS guy' videos should be taken with a grain of salt. No QB will make the right decision 100% of the time when bullets are flying. That said... his accuracy and decision making are things that need to be addressed with highest urgency when he has time (offseason).

Freddie hasn't improved his playcalling, specifically the run-pass decisions. Yes, once again Chubb got 20 carries, but it's when he's getting those carries. He's motioning out or off the field on plays where he's our best bet. If you're just looking at # of carries with no context whatsoever, then yes, Freddie is doing a great job.

Which is sad, because its just not good enough. Hes a 1st overall pick. This is Jr High. he needs to be better. He has completely STUNK this entire year. This game was not different.

Razor Accurate maybe a stretch there. He was high all day on throws, and got bailed out a few times by WR. His velocity, yeah that seems to be the only thing that hasn't regressed. Too bad that he keeps throwing 5 yard screens 100 mph with 0 touch.

That would be the worst read of the day, because hes not reading anything else! He missed WR over and over and over, all game long. AT least 2-3 TDs he missed.

I think Baker didn't play as poorly as it seemed while watching the game, but to describe his throws as 'razor accurate' and 'hitting WRs in stride all day' is totally false.

As you describe, he was consistently throwing high, and hitting pass-catchers in stride and on time was the exception.


I do feel that his pocket presence has significantly improved since the beginning of hte season. I don't see the happy feet anywhere near as much. I think him improving things like this during the season is very encouraging, even though it shouldn't have been an issue to start.

Appreciate the breakdown... This game was about our redzone inefficiency and our defense giving up chunk plays.

We had 8 more first downs than they did.
We had better 3rd down efficiency than they did (40% to 33%)
We had 50 more total yards than they did.
We were in redzone 5 times (and on the edge of it a couple other times) they were in the redzone exactly 0 times.
We had fewer penalties for fewer yards than they did.
We had more than 10 minutes + advantage in time of possession.
We had fewer turnovers than they did.

By any metric considered important, nobody would think we managed to lose this game.

... except the score.

Truth™

Literally just ONE more trip into the red zone converted to a TD instead of a FG and we would have won because we could have settled for a FG to win at the end.

Stop just one of their giant chunk plays and we likely win, too.

It was that close.

He has improved from THIS YEAR, but he is still lightyears away from what he was LAST YEAR. He is still negative and playing badly (just not as badly).

That's the hardest part to stomach.. we have literally been one or two plays away from winning about 3 or 4 of our games and we just can't make that play... but I kind of understand it against the Seahawks and the Patriots, but this game should NOT have hinged on one or two plays. We should have had a 3 score lead.

Growing pains; and plenty of them.

That could be it, or its coaching. Vary rarely do you blow teams out in the NFL. Ususally, its 1,2,3 plays that decide a game. For every team.

The well coached and disciplined teams usually come away with those plays.

Its not luck that teams fumble in key moments against Pitt all the time, or the punter holds the ball with the laces in, or a QB throws a 96 yard INT.

They are prepared for those moments and plays.

I might even be contradicting something I said earlier, but I don't really agree with this. I think that we are on the short end so frequently that there are a few plays at key times that we REMEMBER as having decided the game.

For example, remember the batted ball gift-interception that Myles Garrett dropped? Those plays happen throughout the game, dozens of them, and they can change the entire complexion of the game. Some we make, some we don't.. we just haven't made enough and we haven't capitalized on the ones we DO make enough... (as our horrible redzone efficiency would indicate)

So I would say it's not that the good teams make the 3 key plays that win games, they just make plays throughout the game that win games... that's why Belichick stresses "DO YOUR JOB".. it's every play, you never know which play might be the one that decides the game.

I'll add that the whole season turned around at the end of the first half of the Seattle game when Freddie decided to run a hurry up from first and goal at the 5 with 1:30 left. We know the results.

That was the season. Freddie and Baker lost the team with that stupidity. We haven't recovered since.

that's what I was trying to include with my last sentence. Just trying to highlight the few positives.

"For example, remember the batted ball gift-interception that Myles Garrett dropped"?

True, but in typical Browns fashion, we had a holding penalty on DEFENSE that would have negated anyway.
As bad as the offense has been, it's the defense that is even more disappointing.
Think about how we won the stats of the game and lost to a first time starting rookie.

As soon as Myles jumped to catch it without needing to I knew it was going to be a drop.

totally agree .. it was one of those that hung up too long, and when he jumped I was like ... UGH

He had to go get the ball, you can't wait for it to fall like a feather on a breeze-less day.

. didn't they fumble that same drive btw? And then we kicked a fg.

I understand why he thought he needed to, he had to feel folks closing in on him and I'm sure it felt like that ball was in the air for 10 minutes...

Even with that, Garrett is a heck of a basketball player, jumping to catch a ball isn't like it's outside of his skill set or beyond his athletic ability.

And I don't remember exactly how that drive ended, that's not really the point. Those types of plays happen all the time and you either make most of them or you don't.... and we don't.

Yup pulled the Braylon Edwards out!