the COVID excuses only go so far.

we looked like we didn't have physical practices at all. i was swapping to all the other games, and all the other teams looked way more physical than us, despite having the same off season as us, which is none.

Same story

Different year

i'm trying not to overreact but holy crap guys...again? we BARELY looked competitive in the first half.

Baker mayfield doesn't appear to be able to read the entire field. there were plenty of times where the camera angle showed a player open on one side of the field, but baker doesn't even look their way.

OBJ is also overrated, however i gotta wonder how much is that due to baker unable to read the field.

Tired of opening day with this team I think I will not watch anymore openers smh

also...our secondary is horrible.

who's #23? good god he's bad. and where was Ward? i dont remember him making any sort of impact this game.

That was not fun. It’s week one. We played a very good team and got bopped. On to next week.

Not going to over react. That was about as trash as I was expecting. Some things better some things worse. Baltimore are very good and a very complete team. Let's see how they look week 3 and 4.

It's wash, rinse and repeat from previous seasons. 4 Head coaches in Baker's young career, how many offenses. . . our defense is consistently out of position like last year (where did you go Greg Williams??)

We have no identity other than one that consistently underwhelms and disappoints.

Nothing new under the sun.

Stefanski didn't have physical practices because he wanted to keep everyone healthy.

In a weird twist of irony he lost everyone to injury in the first game because he refused to have physical practices.

Oh, and he got blown out.

Meanwhile Rivera beat Philly.

I've tried that before, it was a bring back Hue Jackson year.
It doesn't help, still know that they lost.

My only thought is why didn't they get Arians.

A Washington team with no name and a new head coach comes back to win after being down 17 points and scored 27 unanswered points. We had 4th and 41, an interception, missed extra point, missed field goal, dropped pass for a crucial first down, a fumble, 3 more injuries, defense giving up multiple long drives including a 99yd one and have not won an opening game in over a decade and a half.

Mibad. Can't read.

I told my wife a few weeks ago because of camp cupcake and no preseason that I had a weird feeling we would lose wills to a season ending injury week one. She told me I was crazy ridiculous and paranoid. When I found out wills left the game with a injury that prevented him from being able to walk I told my wife " what I tell ya?" She is not to happy with me right now lol

Arians, McCarthy, Rivera.

You have guys like Depo who are desperately trying to make a name for themselves, have the ear of an idiot owner, and do not want to be overshadowed by a name coach. It's better for them if the no name coach becomes successful.

Meanwhile, the Arians, McCarthys, and Riveras of the world go on and have success with other teams.

smh, look around the league, guys.

everybody seems to be far more competitive than us. even the texans played more physical than we did in their loss. we might be the only team that got the brakes beat off of us this week.

I will look on the bright side.
Perhaps the season will be cancelled in a week or two,saving all of us another embarrassing 16 weeks.

The bright side is 0-16 and Trevor Lawrence.

I think we were all expecting a loss. Though admittedly not this bad. New coaches historically lose most of their openers each season. Add to that the limited implementation time and playing a veteran team with a stable system who oh by the way is one of the best teams in football... of course we were going to lose.

Next up is Cincinnati. A bad team with a rookie Qb on a short week. Now if we lose that game, I just may give up on the season.

We may not have any players to field against Cincy.

We looked better in 99.

What happened to Baker and his rookie year throwing back shoulder passes, throwing to receivers whose defenders had their back towards them and just overall being decisive. He looks the same as last year, not making the correct reads, horrible footwork and inaccurate.

IT is what it is....and it was ugly.

I didn't have alot of expectations but hoped for better...the drive following the Ravens fumble in the red zone seemed to turn the tide...we got to their 30 and then it was, OMG, we need to get OBJ involved...how did that work out?

I remember the announcers dicsussing the Earl Thomas release and Harbaugh saying, "Sometime a player doesn't fit...it doesn't mean he is not a good player but it just isn't a fit"...kind of reminds me of OBJ...not sure what we could get for him at this point as he has hardly set the NFL on fire since "the trade".

Man, how bad is the Thursday night game going to be with BOTH teams feeling the muscle pain from the exertion and hitting that they didn't experience in the shortened camps?

I am tired of our perpetually pathetic secondary...I know, starters are hurt....but they just seem to be a bunch of woos boys.

Could be a very long year....can ONLY hope to see improvement...would be miraculous if these guys make a serious run for the playoffs.

It is beginning to look like we need to start thinking about a QB in 2021 draft...I have heard all the commentary about the number of caoches and schemes Baker has had to deal with but he just isn't showing any propensity to make something out of nothing...

I think Chubb and Hunt should be on the field at the same time...

My $0.02

Arians WANTED to be the head coach.

And Dorsey, who was in charge, didn’t even interview him.

The offense moved the ball for first downs

Wayy better than to only come away with 6 points.

OH!

How do you miss Every Kick on the day!

Db's are a laundry list of guys fighting to prove they don't belong in the NFL.


The Defensive Front 7 got noticeably worse than games in the past, in spite of if they gave up points

The Offense played way to well to only get 6 points. as far as moving the ball and keeping drives alive.

Yep really hoped they learn their lesson about first time coaches but no they always want to prove they are smarter than actual football people and it blows up. Not getting Arians and then this year McCarthy just set us back again. I think stefanski has a better chance to succeed than kitchens and I think the off-season hurt, but I don’t think he’ll be successful with a qb like mayfield

Hypothetial Browns Head Coach interview

:owner " Are you ok with losing?"

:candidate, " Sure for 300K per game paycheck, i'll do whatever"

:owner, "you're hired"

Is that a Statement or a Question?

Absolutely. Stupid as can be.

Our run defense was pretty good. We forced Lamar to beat us with his arm and he did. My hats off to him.

The turning point of the game to me was Odell dropping the 3rd and 2 pass. We were wobbled but seemed to be righting the ship when that happened. Next play we miss a field goal then allowed Lamar to drive it right down the field.

I have no idea what went wrong on offense after that. Mayfield needs to be better

Completely uninspired football. The intensity level was that of a 2-13 team just playing out the season.

- Baker throws an INT on the first drive setting the tone. It's a sinking feeling thinking he may not be the guy.

- Seibert blows. Bye.

- OBJ has done absolutely nothing. Dropped an easy 1st down before halftime which could have led to a TD and kept the game close.

- Poor time management by Stefanski before the half.

- Had a promising drive only to somehow end up in a 3rd and 41 position.

- Browns lose yet another opener.

- Someone let Ward, Garrett, Vernon, anyone...that they are allowed to make a play on D.

- Hopefully, Wills Jr. isn't out for an extended period of time. He needs all the reps he can get.

- Austin Hooper: 2 catches for 15 yards.

- I did not expect the Browns to win today, but a competitive good would give some sense of optimism. Getting drubbed 38-6 in a comedy of errors does not inspire hope.

- The Browns were outworked and outcoached in every facet of the game.

- Who is the leader on this team? Is there one?

One down, fifteen more to go.

A few things I’m tired of seeing:

- Drops in KEY spots. I mean, that OBJ drop basically was the play of the game (or at least sealed our fate)

- Missed XPs/FGs ... Seibert ain’t it

- Baker’s inability to read a defense or more than one quick read. He’s quickly proving he’s not it.

- Us giving up a score right before the half. It’s almost defying logic at this point.

- Us having more penalties than them.

- Me wondering “Is Garrett playing?” multiple times a game. He had like no impact today.

- Our secondary is VERY VERY bad ... we can’t cover a TE since 99. And Sendejo needs to be Sent-Bye-O

Burrow will put up 300yds 2 passing TDs and 1 rushing TD against us. Mark this post.

We got exactly what I expected from Woods 4/2 Defense .. Was sorely disappointed with the O's performance ..

Burrow just led them to a TD so

I'm surprised more people aren't calling this out.

This isn't a first time head coach mistake. It was ignorance and incompetence.

Same old Browns, there I said it.
The team didn't look enthusiastic from the get go. Beckam looked to be just going thru the motions. Baker was last years Baker, and I think that is who he is. Landry as usual was the player that seemed to care.

I had no problem with the game plan or the coaching in game, it was obvious it was a lack of performance from the players.

The off season hurt them, and it looked like the first pre season game. Baltimore, just might, be that good though.

Turnovers, penalties, dropped passes on third down and fumbles. Classic Browns football.

Is there a website where it tracks how many scores teams have given up before halftime? The Browns HAVE to be the top team by a wide margin.

Let the clock run then call the timeout if you convert.

I knew as soon as he called it the Ravens would score before the half.

Almost every game this week has been high scoring for both teams, we will be the only one not to score twice

No bark and no bite

I hate to bust your bubble,but you did ask.
The better teams in the NFL know they can beat the browns with only minimal effort.That's the scoring right before half.
The penalties are due to being undiscipled,which is a direct result of bad coaching.
The rest is due to lack of talent and that is caused by constant FO turnover.
The answer,maybe,would be to give these guys 5 years,come hell or high water.
It would be a different approach,but the SOP has been historicly bad.

It never fails, though. We always seem to make rookie QB's look like seasoned vets....

i thought running the ball North and south worked, running the ball East and West didn't.

Giving up on the run to soon in order to get OBJ involved, I understand having to get a high paid player involved.

Run the ball just run the ball. Makes me wonder if having OBJ on the team is a positive.

Baker looked like the Baker of last season, Batted down passes are going to be a concern. Accuracy wasn't there.

Freddie had soft practices and possibly this HC did also. It showed.

One game doesn't define a season, Right ? (sarcasm)

It's an old song and dance hearing " no excuses, we didn't play well " " We know what we have to do " Blah blah blah.

I listened to the game on the radio, Thought listening to Jim Donovan would make it at least bearable.

Don't have the passion, but always want the Browns to stop looking awful.

Hope your all well and safe. Have a blessed day.

Freddie didn't have soft practices.

He's laughing today.

Oh and another question:

To me, the offense honestly didn’t look all that dissimilar from last year. We went spread WAY more than I thought we would. Not much zone blocking/PA combos. I was kinda miffed that it looked differently than I hoped

I agree. A lot straight drop back play action and not stretch play action.

j/c...

Never a sense of urgency and always a ho hum attitude...

yeah, it was really strange ... at least compared to what I imagined

No I formation, no Hunt and Chubb in the backfield at the same time, no play action, no full back leading the way. We get this guy who's going to be FB and he's nowhere.

I've heard this now after nearly every single game...

Yeah, I thought we’d be more heavy/PA centric ... but seems like he wants to still placate to the playmakers

How many wake up calls does Baker think the team needs?

The one who really needed the wake up call is Stefanski. His job is to prepare the team to win.

I chuckled.

This game was basically exactly what I expected. I thought we’d put up a few more points but I was thinking something like 28-10 or 34-13.
It’s only up from here. I expect us to be pretty sloppy and lost for a bunch of early games this season and I’m not going to be thrown by actually seeing it front of my eyes. I’m not going to make lots of sweeping declarations. Yes, we’ve been in seemingly exactly the same spot after game 1 for all time but of all the years we need to practice the ol’ patience this is it. Chill. This season is about seeing who on this team is for real and what to build on. Lets see if there’s real improvement from the start of the end of the season.

I thought we had a 95% chance to lose.... but not lose LIKE THAT

They're on wake up call number 21. They keep hitting the snooze button.

I'd love to hear OBJ say "I've got to catch the ball when it hits me in both hands". He's had about twenty opportunities over the last year.

You know how to make this team better?

1. Bench Baker Mayfield
2. I-formation
3. Play action
4. Run 40 times a game
5. Trade OBJ immediately

You'd be 8-8 at least with this plan. Easy.

I think it's really hard to argue against this.

Yeah it’s almost criminal not to have plays with Chubb and hunt together in backfield

I feel like the coaches see the playmakers and get allured into letting them dictate the offense

Didn't read anyone else's posts yet.

My thoughts:

- #23 is horrible. Who was that DB last year who whiffed on some tackles and cost us a game? Think it was either DEN or SEA. Took some heat on social media and then flipped out and got released. #23 had that type of game. Got blown up on the fake punt, did not react to the fumble. Couldn't cover or tackle. The only person he hit the whole game was Denzel Ward.
- All the talk of Hooper and Bryant but Njoku was the only TE to impact the game in any way.
- Seems like we went away from Chubb early. Hunt was running well.
- At some point the excuses need to run out for Baker. He needs to play better.
- Lamar did not run all over us, that's something.
- My final thought ... 0-16

Meet the new coach, same as the old coach. Look on the bright side, We're still in the Trevor Lawrence sweepstakes.

* After the fake punt I texted a buddy "Is Freddie still coach?". Bad idea, worse execution.

* Did Myles Garrett play today? Olivier Vernon? Sheldon Richardson? Larry O had a nice play or two, but our D-line was supposed to be the strong part of our defense. WTF?

* I was expecting lots of play-action, moving pockets, and short, controlled rollouts, but if they happened I missed it.

* The running game looked good today, but for some reason we didn't commit to it when the game was still a contest.

* I'm pretty much over the whole Beckham thing. He can go and I wouldn't miss him. 10 targets, 3 catches, at least 2 drops - one of which would have been a key 1st down.

* I feel like I've been saying this for 20 years, so forgive me, but how is it that opposing receivers are open by 7-10 yards consistently, but our receivers rarely have an uncontested catch? Lamar Jackson was playing pitch-and-catch today. He had a virtually perfect QB Rating. I checked the defensive stats and the Browns had ZERO Passes Defensed. It doesn't make sense ...

I feel he isn't a good fit here, I think Hollywood Higgins produces more. If OBJ is gone, maybe the run game that produces yards would become the dominate that it is.

Any word on injuries? Njoku and Wills out for the season? Wouldn't surprise me.

I believe if we had Landry and Higgins and the RBs/TEs combo we’d be better off

I've been telling you guys this. Baker plays best with swagger and confidence. He gets his swagger and confidence from being the clear cut alpha. He can't be the clear cut alpha with OBJ.

I agree OBJ is a bad fit but it's Baker's problem, not OBJ's.

Nobody mentioned giving up a 99yd TD drive while we were still in the game.

The team played with no heart, same as under Freddie.

Epic failure on every level. We were outsmarted by the other coach, other players, mother nature, laws of physics and father time. QB can't throw, kicker can't kick, star WR can't catch, coach can't read a clock.

Good times!

I don't know how it can be Bakers problem when the play calls are pass and not run. I'm not a fan of Baker either Rishuz.

I'm a fan of Baker. I want him to be great.

I thought the mindset in the 2nd half today was to get Beckham involved and it ended up being detrimental to the whole offense. Why is everyone so concerned with making him happy? Get open man! Catch the ball! You want to be featured? Earn it.

I want him to be great also, not sure if he has it in him. Something is wrong. Is it the 4 coaches he's had in his young career ? But why the batted down passes and inaccuracy. Not impressed with the play calls. Seems they just ran plays with no aggression.

If Baker was a better QB I think OBJ would get involved organically.

Because Baker doesn't have it between the ears, he can't get the ball to OBJ organically within the offense so they have no choice but to force it to him.

Baker didn't even look at OBJ the first 25 minutes of the game. He also didn't recognize when Humphrey wasn't guarding him. This is a simple check at the line of scrimmage.

Baker is holding the team back.

Dave I seriously feel the money OBJ makes, that the HC feels entitled to get him involved to justify pay day.

Baker plays best with no expectations.

When the expectations increased, the competition increased and Baker couldn't meet it. Confidence and swagger and the David beating Goliath situation is now gone. Now doubt creeps in and you have to rely on skill and smarts, not guile.

Then you add the Swiss cheese that his brain has become from coach after coach, and all of the coaches being incompetent, well this is what you get.

I forgot one other thing to add to my earlier laundry list:

* Browns still haven't solved covering oppo Tight Ends. They freaking own us.

I think OBJ’s ego and attitude dictates players/coaches trying to appease him .. it also makes him our alpha ... and it’s hard to be successful when your alpha is a diva

j/c...

Not good...

DAMN. any other news on injuries?

j/c:

Does Siebert make it to Thursday?

Expanded practice squad rosters mean you could toggle between Seibert and Cody Parkey all year long. After today, I might go with Parkey vs Cinci. Missed EP's are momentum killers.

Watching the Bengals game....0-2 is not out of the realm of possibility...Burrows looking legit.

I said during the off-season that we have the fourth best QB in the division.

Heck 0-3 is a true possibility .. then 0-4, 0-5 and 0-6

Dave two thoughts. I do not think it absolves baker but your point about our receivers is right on. Lamar was throwing to wide open receivers all day. Many of bakers passes were to well covered receivers with a window about the size of a bandaid.

Second, I liked the fake punt call. We had two blockers in front of the hammer and together they could not block the one defender in the way. If they make that block he goes for 10 yds.

People overreact week one every year. We are not as bad as we played today. The Ravens are very good.

Risk vs reward at that spot on the field, down by 7, made it a bad idea, IMO.

I know Zane would!

It was about what I expected. Sadly.

I agree .... but the injury bug is killing us. 3 of the first 4 draft picks right? Better get busy picking up some replacements.

What really stinks is I'm not sure they'd be able to clear the COVID protocols and practice before Thursday's game if we do sign someone.

The Ravens will make lots of teams look bad. Unfortunately, a lot of the things today were us making ourselves look bad. Hopefully there's a lot of improvement between weeks 1 and 2. It's been known to happen, but the short week is not ideal.

That’s why there is an expanded practice squad.

Booted a 56 yarder today.

We pulled all our starters after the first series like every other preseason game, right?

Wow what a lame game. At least the loss was against what is likely going to be a solid playoff team. Had the beat down been to a bad team .... it would only be worse. Didn’t see anything special from the Browns today. Quite frankly I am not surprised at all and I felt no hope or excitement prior to the game. I guess that’s what a couple seasons of Hue Jackson and then Freddie Kitchens does. I don’t really have any thoughts on the new head coach. I’ll still be watching every week but this team will have to win games before I believe they have talent.

Didn't see the game because I'm not shelling out $300 for NFL Ticket under this Covid cloud. Sooo...I'm surprised to hear that play action, fullback, and TE activity was almost non-existent. Thought those would be staples in this offense.

Sunday ticket always free week one

I havent been on here much. . . .

My takes:

OBJ - looked disinterested in playing football. Seemed like he didnt want to be there.

Jarvis - Hes our number 1. I wish we would target him like we target OBJ.

Chubb - WTH? Seems like he got benched after the fumble. But come on man, hes our BEST player on this team, and BY FAR. He needs and should be getting 80% of the carries.

Hodge - why do now two coaching staffs seem to love this guy? He stinks. Higgins is by far better.

Hooper/Bryant - where were these dudes at?

Njoku - had a really nice game. did what he could to prove he should be the in the mix at TE on this team.

Defense - jesus, tony.

Siebert - he looks like something is in his head. Im thinking we will be having K tryouts for the Washington game ( i dont think they try to do so on a short week for the Ben-gals).

Stefanski - where was this great, two TE set offense? Where was the play action? Why are we again forcing the ball to one guy (OBJ)? His playcalling looked nothing like from Minn last year. Seems to me, maybe his success was more due to Kubiak then some may want to think. I didnt see much difference from last year on O. Bad play calling, bad designs (minus the goaline TD, that was a thing of beauty), bad decisions. I am pretty sure we threw just about every 2 and 5+). and the punt fake.......ughhhhhhh

Baker - Dude still looks lost. And dont give me the "oline" crap. They looked pretty good if you asked me, especially against this def line. He had ample time to throw. Was double clutching, looking down his receivers, and getting balls batted down left and right. High throws, behind throws, low throws. He looks exactly like the QB we saw last year. I fear he is ruined, and its time to tank for Lawrence if you ask me. Lets be honest, Baltimore and Pittsburgh are light years ahead of us, and JB might be the guy to take the Bengals past us. We have the worst QB in the division. Time to start thinking about scouting Lawrence from Clemson.

Baker definitely looks lost (and i agree the OL isn’t the issue) ... plus, he has no confidence, which was a huge reason for his success

Still too much to watch these sucks play football.

We missed JoeSho a lot today, IMO. Our LB and secondary were garbage. No effort, letting guys run freely, vacating their zones and assignments like they were afraid to catch covid. . . SMH.

I honestly don’t even know if we’ve had a worst LB corp than the one we’re fielding right now

Ingram only averaged 3.1 ypc. Dobbins 2.7. Lamar ran 7 times for 45 yards.

No pass rush and poor QB play did us in.

That and camp cupcake.

How many times did they throw to a guy wide open in the middle of the field? Watch the tape man, Taki Taki let guys right past him without even trying to knock them off their route. Name one play a LB made.

I would agree with you. I will also add our pass defense was terrible. Having Sendejo cover their top receiver was either a mistake or a colossal failure in scheme. I think it was the former. Also having Thomas in coverage was scary.

The LBs made plays. They were not the problem stopping Andrews (5 for 58 I. believe) since we had safeties covering him most of the game. Wide open WRs did the damage. Was it scheme (zone) or the fact we had bad corners playing man I’m not sure.

I wouldn’t mind if Sendejo was sent packing ... and that’s a really quick evaluation

I would ship out every guy with blond highlights.

Seriously.

Not really. here are some points made in the tweet posted above.

Watch linebacker B.J. Goodson closely. The Browns drop seven into coverage, but Goodson (93) doesn’t adjust the route of Andrews (89) at all. Instead of providing some resistance, or even nudging him, Goodson lets Andrews glide by him.

Since Andrews gets a free release, safety Karl Joseph can’t slide over in time to contest a super accurate Jackson pass.

Then on the following play, linebacker Malcolm Smith (56) appears frozen in space and corner Denzel Ward gains no depth before Brown sneaks behind them both.

On the below example, watch as Brown burns through linebacker Sione Takitaki’s inside shoulder, only to bend back outside and fry free safety Andrew Sendejo on a deep corner route.

Takitaki is either told not to bother Brown here or his eyes are stuck on the quarterback because he doesn’t even notice Brown crossing his face.

Getting open in the NFL should never be this easy.

________________

I would watch the videos the guy in the tweet posted with these excerpts. It really breaks down how bad the LBs were. Which was pretty bad.

I just watched Stefanski's presser.

A lot of I need to look at the tape responses.

OBJ started off with good effort, blocked hard down the field the first run play. Humphrey seemed to get in his head shortly after that, though. We might need to keep a therapist on the sideline for him. I wonder if that'd be legal?

I wouldn't mind hearing OBJ is on the trading block, but I don't think we'd get much for him at this point.

Hodge did seem pretty lackadaisical the plays I noticed him. Keep him for special teams if you want, but I'd rather see Higgins get WR snaps, too.

haha if you’re reading this Coach Stefanski, please come up with a new phrase for all of us

Yes! I can't blame one WR for a loss, but Hodge was definitely a big slice of the blame for today's loss. I dunno why every coach hates Higgins. Maybe because they're going by measurables, but Higgins plays faster on gameday than he looks, and just had a knack for clutch catches.

Omg what is the deal with the radio broadcast?

I was driving home from Tampa and wanted to stream the game on my car radio.

But all of the broadcasts were blocked because "contract obligations with the nfl." What does that mean? I spent 2 hours screwing with my phone, the radio, and the Browns app.

Stop interviewing Baker Mayfield. Taking time away from social media, crappy stupid commercials, and whatever else he can do to avoid playing well. Sit him and OBJ; they earned it.

We stunk it up badly. Find Higgins. Stop dropping MG int pass coverage.

Dumb game plan apparently. What did we achieve that we were trying to do? What do you build on? Why is our kicker still here? We looked absolutely clueless. However we prepped for this game should be avoided IMO.

Thursday is coming. Maybe we can care more by then.

You didn't miss anything ; well maybe a head ache !

Thursday will be interesting... Cincy looked pretty good... I'm hoping we have a more solid game but on a short week I'm not so sure.

I see everyone blaming Baker, now, I am not saying he is not guilty of screwin the pooch here, but, what about these candy A$@ receivers that refuse to catch the ball, or give up on the play? I think OBJ should be benched or sent home for a week and give someone that actually wants to play to have a chance.

j/c:

The more things change, the more remain the same. Very tired of the Browns and their consistent changes and constant losing.

When is the last time you saw a Browns Team that looked prepared coming out of the Gate ?

The Browns owners are worse than the Bengals. That is a tough task to achieve. The odds of a team doing this bad for this long are really unbelievable. Way to beat the odds, Browns.

I'm trying to answer that, but I seriously can't remember.

2004 against the Ravens.

Garcia at QB.

Of course, it didn't last long.

Not a good day for guys with blonde dye jobs. Sendejo, OBJ, and Seibert all looked pretty awful, and then Njoku got hurt. Njoku at least looked decent before that.

Everyone is slamming Baker and the O ( CAN'T BLAME THEM )but your not going to win many games with your " D " giving up 38 points.. The offensive game plan or play calling was a head scratch-er based on what we were lead to believe .. Thursday night is going to interesting ..

A couple of guys made some plays, but in reality, the entire team sucked. They were not prepared. The HC sucked. The coordinators sucked. The discipline sucked. The fight sucked. The players sucked.

And I'm a sucker for watching and actually thinking things will be different.

do you mean in week 1? Literally never

We all are.

Bills and Bucs are my adopted teams the rest of the way.

If i am not mistaken, the first 14 or so points was because the offense gave it to them with a short field.

Also, if you offense cant stay on the field, it makes the D job a lot harder. Not making excuses for the D, just stating facts.

I dont think anyone figured we would win this game, but the fact we have an "offensive mastermind" as our HC, and he looked lost, called bad plays, and our #1 overall pick looked like he did last year, is cause for concern.

I don't think Stefanski is known as an offensive genius, but he was supposed to bring organization, calm, and discipline.

We saw none of that.

This is the result of the softest camp I've ever seen. They knew Baker needed a ton of work and have not made him a better QB.

Either their coverage was really good (it was), or Baker holds the ball too freaking long (he did).

I’m really starting to worry about baker. He’s starting to remind me of a shorter version of - albeit more accurate passer - Brandon Wheeden. Deer-in-headlights thing going in.

Once again, I hate our kicker. He truly blows. God that ticks me off, missed EP, then a missed field goal.

The OBJ drop inside the Ravens 20 was so Browns. It’s not why we lost, but then Seibert misses the field goal, Baltimore scores a TD just before half, and that’s the ball game.

I never wanted Beckham, as good as he is. He’s upset the apple cart. I can’t stand whiny little wide receivers.

We were solid for the most part in stopping the running backs, but Lamar killed us with his arm. He had open looks all day. We better shore up the back end play on D.

Short week, beat Cinci and we’ll feel better.

Maybe this game, for us, was a stepping stone, considering the off-season circumstances; A wise old veteran rocker once said that one live gig is better than three weeks of rehearsal.

It's amazing at how much Lamar has progressed as a reader of coverages and a passer from his college days. Boggles my mind.

I realize they got behind but asking Baker to throw 40 times a game is rarely going to be the key to winning football games...its not who he is.... Chubb and Hunt are your best weapons of Offense they need to be fed early and often. Pull a page from the 2019 Ravens....3 TE's 2 RB's go heavy and pound the ball...use play action and roll outs to make Bakers reads simpler. But feed those two bell cows until their legs fall off.

I would trade OBJ asap...If I can get even a 5th for him..I would take it....its only a matter of time before he gets upset...and the Browns have to many weapons to try and force the ball to him. He might still be an elite WR...but not for Cleveland. Addition by subtraction.

HACK

Agreed. OBJ is a cancer, even if he’s not vocal .. his presence dominates and dictates the chemistry. We are not going to be successful with him IMO

For what its worth, yes the kicker had a bad game, but jesus, lets give the kid a break a bit (the more i think the more calm i am about him).

We ran Zane out of town and hes playing great. Lets lets the kid settle down and see if he can bounce back. His kicks didnt cost us the game. . .

His blonde highlights did.

Can't make kicks with those.

Zane was actually 1/3 on FGs today. Just saying.

It is a little soon to pull the plug. Don't know if the lack of fans played a factor or not, just the weirdness of it. Seemed to be quite a few missed kicks today.

I thought Gonzalez was terrible when he was here and that he was injured, meaning we had almost no choice but to bring in a new kicker. I'm not positive about this one, but didn't he miss 2 of 3 today?

j/c...

Austin Hooper was a big FA acquisition this past offseason. How was he only targeted twice?

Baker was 6/8 passing to TEs and 10/20 passing to WRs.

Chubb/Hunt combined for 23 carries for 132 yards.

Does this offense know who it wants to be yet?

Hey Milk, remember that quote by Van Pelt that had something to do w/not knowing their identity or who they were?

I was thinking about that today while watching the game and your post reminded me of it.

Yuk...

The Browns were terrible on defense.

Offensively they could not decide if they wanted to be a running team or a passing team.

That OBJ drop was a Corey Coleman moment. Talk about a game changer, that was a 14 point mistake.

Again, new staff, new coordinators, new systems, no off-season program, and limited training camp ...... and then going against one of the best teams in the NFL .......

I tried to warn you guys. It's going to be tough, especially early going.

I'm thinking Butch Davis was the head coach, it's been a whole new level of sucking since 2006.

And I really didn't like Butch Davis, but who knew we'd be looking back at the glory days of Butch Davis.

Speaking of since 1999 of course.

But, In Hue's 3rd year, when the Browns assembled a bunch of coaches to take Hue's place, they finaly had a fully filled cup of coaches, yet they didn't keep barely ANY of them just some weeks later.

“Dictates the chemistry”

Nice. I like that. And I also agree with it.

OBJ did not lose that game, but you guys won't let that get in the way of your agenda.

It was very a ugly browns effort BUT I'm not going to get upset. They went against a team that won 14 last year and the QB was the NFL MVP. I'm seriously wondering what y'all expected, especially those calling for people to be benched or traded.

I hoped we would look better, I hope we would click on all cylinders and wow... BUT I expected to lose and I expected ugly. Not this ugly, but I still expected it.

The week is too short to stroke out on this loss today, I am just going to refuse being emotionally involved in this season until or unless we start winning a lot of games. Next up, the Bengals, which I consider a must win for this team at this point simply because we should beat them. GO BROWNS!

.. " Chubb/Hunt combined for 23 carries for 132 yards."

That's the stat I wanted thanks .. Someone send the Browns a copy of Lindy Infante's playbook.

That may be true but Nobody on the Browns won that game today, I'm trying to think:
Who Won that game today, on the Browns
like, the O-line, or the D-line, or, Njoku maybe?

Who won their part of the game, it's a tough one.

Who can we really trust in the back 7 of the defense?

I already said that the entire team was responsible for the loss earlier in this thread. Trying to blame one player for the loss is stupid.

I dunno, he's a supposed superstar and I think a lot of guys take their cues from his bad body language. Not to place all the blame on him, but I do think he has a negative effect on the players around him at times. I don't think Baker feels comfortable calling him out. We don't really have an alpha on offense. Baker showed it more as a rookie when he didn't have a "superstar" to defer to.

OBJ is a talented player, but he really seems to have thrown off the team's "power dynamic" since he's arrived.

J/C

maybe its just me, but every other game I watch, every other team, just seems "faster". The players seem faster, they seem ready, they run better routes, have been gameplans, have better decision making, etc etc. We just always seem like we are playing at a level that of the CFL and not the NFL. JMO.

why does it feel like Baker regressed?

Poor, poor Baker.

Whatever, I can see talking about the game/team is over. Have fun.

Maybe because we hire first time head coaches that have no idea what they are doing.

In hindsight we should have hired Gregg Williams.

Okay, maybe we can back to football instead of the agenda BS.

I think you are right. We constantly fire FO people. We fire HCs. They bring in their own staffs. There is a constant upheaval of rosters. We make changes everywhere. We never establish anything. Constant upheaval puts us behind the pack. It's not hard to see and it sure as hell makes a lot more sense than putting all the blame on a WR.

I am not saying I am correct, but I would have hired Josh McDaniels.

No one is putting all of the blame on OBJ.

And no one thinks Baker played well.

I thought saying we didn't have an alpha on offense was a knock on Baker. I guess you didn't read it that way.

I'm trying to talk about/figure out why those two don't seem to work together.

The Poor, poor OBJ approach doesn't explain it any better.

I would not have minded McDaniels at all, but he didn't want Depo and Haslam meddling and that was a non starter for those two.

Putting themselves before the Browns.

The entire team played like garbage. There is not one single person for blaming. Everyone from Jimmy to the trainers deserve blame. Heck, the equipment managers deserve blame at this point. lol.

We couldnt throw
We couldnt play def
We couldnt establish the run
We couldnt call decent plays
We couldnt get open
We couldnt play with fire
We couldnt win

The only thing I saw that I was impressed with, was probably the oline. they played half decent considering their opponent and the amount of time they were asked to block because of clutching of the football.

He also wanted to tear it all down again. We’ll see if he was right.

I tbought he wanted to work with Baker?

Am I remembering that right?

That was a total team loss!! Stefanski went away from the thing he said he would do and that was to have Baker throwing 40 times a game. Where was the imagination to scheme or show different looks in the running game??

Also, if your gonna try to force feed OBJ, make sure he is open first!! Baker through into coverage trying to get the ball to OBJ when he was not even open!! Tell Baker to read the coverage first and foremost. If OBJ aint open, too bad.

Defense was a joke. Again, why is Garrett rushing PAST Jackson, giving him a running or throwing lane in the gap Garrett left?? Our Secondary was kinda depleted anyway but the pass rush did not help!!

If people have the stomach to look at that game again, you will see that the entire team got back into some bad habits.. and Stefanski should have been in their ears all game.

Because it's been a while since we've seen how bad previous Browns Qb's looked.

Good post. I also think Hunt played well. Njoku made some nice plays before he got hurt. The Rats didn't throw at Ward, so that probably means he did well. I agree w/you on the OL. Chubb was okay. I know he fumbled and that sucks, but I don't like using one play to trash or praise a player. Landry played pretty good.

Other than that, I think everyone else was bad and the coaching was really bad. Just my opinion.

I’m not sure about that. All I remember is they said he wanted a total rebuild. Haslams and Depo thought we have the pieces to win now. McDaniels could have wanted Baker and still tear down around him.

I'm not sure either. But, the words "total rebuild" don't resonate. I thought he wanted a total restructure of the FO? I thought it was more about the structure of the FO rather than the roster?

In other words, dead weight like Depo and company would be gone.

j
Baltimore is a very good team and anyone who expected a win is a homer. Browns did not stand a chance.

First the Browns have lacked a receiving threat for far to long,
OBJ has been nothing but overrated and Hodge is no threat to do anything.


The LB's are the worst in the league once again. This grtoup is horrible.

The DL is so overrated as is the secondary.

The Browns are a young team still trying to find there way, this is not a team that has the right pieces in place yet and needs an overhaul.

The two positions of a need of overhaul are LB and WR. The OL looked good and that was about the only solid part of this team on display.

Thoughts?

.

I think a ton of teams would love to have OBJ and Landry.

I doubt many teams would love to have Baker.

Those are my "thoughts."

With that said.............I am not blaming this loss on Baker. I think he stinks, but it was a total team loss.

How about our kicker? That Dude is a real work in progress. Our lbs dbs and safties stink.Obj sucks. When he dropped that pass on 3rd down we were still in the game.Baker is still trying to force the ball to OBJ and he actually not just him but all our receivers were not getting open. Balts receivers were open all over the field.
The coach went away from the running game to soon. I thought Chubb and Hunt were having good games early.
Any more games like this and we can start our mock drafts.

There are other tweets where they specifically say he didn’t want Depo.

Thats what I remember reading about. The rumor was Josh wanted to have control, and didnt want the data guys meddling with his decisions. From what I remember, they spent hours for him to just get up and leave.

More importantly he didn’t want Haslam meddling.

Just about every owner meddles, its part of being a billionaire owner of a franchise. I doubt thats who they were referring too in the reports.

For or against depo doesnt really matter at this point, it is what it is. But lets not try to say that Depo is not the reason McDaniels left. Every report hinted or implied that afterwards.

I'm about ready to throw in the towel.

Sign OBJ, he has great hands but he signs here and now he can't catch a fly.

Have a great RB in Chubb and Hunt but they can't find the goaline.

Baker is garbage, horrible pick.

I'm just about done with beliving we'll ever become a competent franchise. At this point it's tough to believe anything positive will ever happen for us. I'm just :-(

j/c

I listened to the first half of the game and turned it off at halftime. It sounded like the same old stuff and I had better things to do with my time (like take a nap)

I don't know what the deal with Baker is. I'm not buying the argument that its because he's had too many coaches or too many systems in such a short time for the simple fact that when he stepped in his rookie year with no 1st team reps... he killed it.

He was less prepared and had less time to sync with his players than he has had in the last 2 seasons. He clearly doesn't feel dangerous anymore which is probably the problem.

My hope going in to this game would have been a heavy dose of the run game to set up the play action and then take some well timed shots. It sounded like we'd start to get get the ground game rolling but then spread it it all out when it came time to pass.

OBJ dropping that first easy pass... that's a concentration issue. If he's not concentrating on catching the ball... what is he concentrating on? I think with him I'm moving toward the camp of seeing if there's a better fit for him somewhere else. I'm having a hard time seeing what real value he brings. Compared to Landry, OBJ is the better athlete, has more WR talent.

Yet, of the 2, who have we seen consistently and reliably be able to get open, is the most consistent and reliable pass catcher, has taken over a game or 2 in his time here, and who's play seems to inspire the other guys on the field?

Landry needs to be our #1 IMO.

The biggest mistake each of these coaching regimes (and QBs) has made is trying to force the ball to this WR or that WR. Hoyer was killin it until he felt the need to get the ball to Gordon so much. Baker his 1st year was spreading the ball everywhere.


Anyway, it is Week 1 so who knows what this team will look like Thursday night.

I think the biggest disappointment for me today was the Scottish Hammer's first fake punt getting blown up. I always pictured him taking it 80 yards down the pitch stiff arming everyone who came close and getting it in to the endzone before punting the ball into the upper decks.

Another rookie head coach who wants to call his own plays. Its ridiculous, we have seen this story before . So has Haslam, yet he alows it to continue.

J/C

I watched a handful of other games and one thing seemed to resonate: we are so, so soft, Physically and mentally we have no will or speed or strength. Our DL gets zero push, we make one mistake and it snowballs, terrible body language, etc.

I’d say we’re the biggest losers in the NFL, hence why we’re the biggest losers in the NFL

Pretty much a new everything.... no preseason.....against a team that was solid last year and apparently will be this year... pretty much went as I expected.
If this was game 3 or so I'd be worried.

It worked for Eli.

STORY OF THE GAME

The Stefanski offense uses the outside zone running scheme as a base to set up everything it does, and it simply looked out of sorts. A couple nice runs early on the outside zone from Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb gave hope, but the Ravens defense pretty much shut the run game down. Baker Mayfield didn't seem to trust anything happening around him. When he did trust his first reads, he threw into tight coverage. Baker was 2-of-10 for 25 yards and was sacked twice when pressured.

Even when Mayfield was kept clean, he went only 19-of-34 for 164 yards with one big time throw and two turnover-worthy plays. Odell Beckham Jr. gave the proverbial side eye every time Baker missed a pass in his direction. Beckham caught five balls on seven targets, including a wide-open drop. It’s hard to think of a worse Week 1 performance by an offense in recent years — the Browns stay winless in the PFF era in Week 1s.

On the other side of the field, Lamar Jackson had his way with the Browns defense. Whether he was pressured (9-of-11 for 114 yards), kept clean (12-of-15 for 168 yards), off play-action (7-of-7 for 110 yards) or just a straight dropback (14-of-19 for 172 yards), he continually made the right reads and threw the ball accurately. There was talk in the offseason that the world needed to see more of Lamar in close game situations to see what he is made of when defenses can key on the passing game. That didn’t happen, as the Ravens took a 10-0 lead and didn’t look back.

Mark Andrews was the quarterback’s top target with five catches on seven targets, with two contested catches and a nifty one-handed catch for the first touchdown of the season for the Ravens. Marquise Brown flashed on some downfield throws and finished with a whopping 4.50 yards per route run as the 2020 Ravens offense picked up right where it left off from last year’s regular season.

Without Hayden Hurst after an offseason trade to Atlanta, Baltimore played more from two-tight-end sets after leading the league in three-tight-end sets last season. They finished with the same number of snaps with two tight ends on the field as they did with three wide receivers.

ROOKIE WATCH

Ravens rookie J.K. Dobbins had two goal line touchdowns, but the rock was spread around between the Ravens rushers as he finished with only six carries. Dobbins forced one missed tackle on those six runs and finished with 3.8 yards per carry and 2.2 yards after contact. Rookie linebacker Patrick Queen forced a fumble and had six tackles — with three defensive stops — and also his first NFL sack. Unfortunately, he allowed both targets that came his way in coverage to be caught for 20 yards total.

Jedrick Wills was solid in his first game at tackle for the Browns. He was tasked with 40 pass-blocking snaps and allowed only a sack and two hurries. Defensive linemen Jordan Elliott played 26 snaps but didn’t make an impact in his NFL opener. Tight end Harrison Bryant played 17 receiving snaps and caught one ball on two targets.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2020-week-1-refocused-baltimore-ravens-38-cleveland-browns-6

The highly touted (and anticipated) ZBS/PA offense didn’t look like I thought it would ... I was expecting something much different.

jc -

This is a really good read on Mayfield's issues and also very sobering.

https://247sports.com/nfl/cleveland-brow...eld--151465806/

I don't think too many on here expected a win. I do think that most expected us to not look completely inept on offense, defense, and special teams. We put up 0 fight in this game. No other team looked as unprepared and unwilling as we did. That's the problem. Not the loss, but how we went about losing.

Good point about Depo. It's the "I'm the smartest guy in the room", syndrome.

I guess I'm not that emotionally upset as others are about the loss. I believed in the Las Vegas spread of this game and as well as Vegas' highest expected team total for the Ravens among all NFL teams yesterday. I believed that the Ravens not having a change of coaches and, thus an 'easier' offseason in general but even more amplified during the COVID offseason was going to be a huge benefit. The biggest concern is how far away we seemed to be after one game compared to other teams that were in a similar situation. A quick turnaround on a short week, coupled with the injuries sustained, it not ideal either. From the jump, it was a problem.

Odell looks, to put it mildly, disinterested. For someone who is being forced fed the ball, either due to his name or any attempt to satisfy a disgruntled WR (speculation), this is not the attitude from your expected #1 WR. Body language galore was showcased yesterday by OBJ and it didn't look good. Again, all these targets towards OBJ are like we're trying to keep him happy. If true, this isn't good for the team. He has been very disappointing so far.

Baker, for what I am guessing are several factors, didn't trust himself or his reads. Tons of pumps, happy feet, etc. I don't have any game review package that shows coverage by their secondary, but timing was an issue....either mentally by Baker or with the WR. I don't know the play calling details but I feel like we saw very little play action. I think that is Baker's strength in those plays so hopefully, we see it more. I'm not upset about seeing that Baker threw 40 times. We were down 24-6 at the half and down almost immediately in the few first few drives. Of course we needed to throw as a result of a bad game script.

I saw Clayborn in on a lot of snaps, particularly in the second half. Was that a specific replacement of Myles or Vernon? Or spelling both on rotation?

I thought Ogunjobi has a good game. Seemed very disruptive on the interior (forced the fumble) and had Jackson rolling out. Unfortunately, that's where Jackson can be at his most dangerous.

Njoku took advantage of each of his three targets and was the bright spot in the passing game. Landry, too, to a lesser extent but caught a handful of passes Baker was able to pull off.

I thought our two OTs did fairly well. Thought the interior didn't do so well and blew up plays quite a bit.

I'm interested to see the snap count review for this team after Week 1. Namely:

- The snap count for Hooper as I believe he was only targeted once
- Snap count for Vernon considering so much perceived Clayborn snaps
- Ronnie Harrison played in a couple snaps....perhaps because he was so new to the scheme since the trade?
- Our fullback? Again...negative game script and needing to pass more my have limited his involvement.

Expected to lose. Also expected to play better.

Got beat on offense, defense and special teams. Turned the ball over three times.

Scored 6 points that will not get it done. Baker was below average. Lamar was very good.

My fear going into the game was defense. The Ravens had one drive from deep in their territory into our end zone. Like we didn't exist. Red zone defense was horrible.

I was expecting to run the ball. Then run some more. Then use play action. TE's, fullback, Chubb, Hunt. We end up way to much in spread with shotgun?

The only part that looked good was the OL.

Short week have to move on.

Now they know what it takes to win in this league.

If we can not defend the middle from the DL through the linebackers and safety's; we will not win games.

The Browns have a lot to correct and figure out. Not much time to do so. If they lose the next two games this season will get away fast.

Have to see how they play this next game. Easy to over react because I expected more. Disappointed to say the least.

I honestly can not remember the last time we won the first game. What a sick feeling.

Well at least there will be close to no fans. Less suffering.

Already beginning to wonder if I will ever see a winning season.

"but the Ravens defense pretty much shut the run game down."



Between Hunt and Chubb, we rushed 23 times for 132 yards. That's almost 6 yds per run. How is that shutting down the run game?

I always think we have a chance to win. I didn't really expect us to win given the circumstances.

It will be interesting to see what happens if we get blown out by Cincinnati, or if people start changing their tune if we win.


I wasn't concerned about winning this game although losing sucks. It's how they respond that matters most to me. If we come out flat and disinterested, then maybe we have issues. If we're excited and focused that's a good sign.

Every year I somehow forget to plan and end up leaving a fortune on the table for another year... I should be selling straight razors for all the wrist slitting that goes on after we lose the opener.

OK here's the thing about Baker. He has a ton of talent and potential. Go back and look at his highlight videos from Oklahoma.

The NFL game is still too fast for him. He has to stop pressing and relax. He needs to find a way to slow the game down.

At the start of games give him some easy throws he can make to boost his confidence. He doesn't have to be strictly a pocket passer. Move him out of the pocket now and then. Baker does better when he moves around and buys time for the receivers to get open.

Didn't like anything I saw outside of the effort from Landry, Chubb, Hunt, and even Njoku.

I'll reserve my negativity until I see the result of the Thursday Bengals game.

Because the two were 6-65 in the 1st Quarter... and 9-24 in the 2nd and 3rd. The remaining yardage came after we were down at least 25 points.

That makes sense. I missed the second quarter due to traveling.

I admit, I only watched the 1st half and ended up watching other games in the 2nd half...So obviously I missed some stuff, and could be incorrect

-Sendejo is supposed to be a steady vet who is a special teams stud...He looked poor at best in both defense and special teams

-Taki gets engulfed and plays very erratic (Saw the same thing on his BYU tape)

-Goodson makes Wali Rainer look like a stud

-Spent all that money on Hooper, but I think we threw it what twice to him all day? BTW Hooper did not look good blocking either, least in the plays I focused in on.

-Njoku had some really amazing big play grabs

-Conklin seemed to slip on a pull, which ended up with our RB getting tackled for no gain or a loss

-OBJ...Kind of reminds me of Russell Westbrook in one way...Ultimately talented, but is easily taken away once you get in his head...To be fair, a lot of off throws thrown his way...that drop on 3rd down was a killer. Ditto for that face mask penalty

-Seibert was flat out bad

-RBs looked good

-I didn't understand our O...I thought it would like more of the Vikings, but it looked more like the Browns of last year.

-Hodge had a dumb false step

-Jarvis is our best WR

-Baker...I am not sure because of his size, but he is always confusing to watch. I often see him breaking down prior to his protection breaking down (which you would think would be opposite) Is it because he can no longer see his passing windows? Everything that seemed to haunt him last year, still showed true. Poor reads, footwork, forcing, pocket feel, batted balls, accuracy, heck his deep ball looked worse than it ever did. He looked like a rookie out there, idk perhaps all these coaching and philosophy changes have done him in. He did not play well.



-I never shut the game off, and I had to resort to doing so in week 1

-We better come to play Thursday night

It was my intention to read the whole thread prior to posting this, but it's a hectic day at work.

I was helping my dad at his place while the game was on, so I was listening to it in the background. Listening to the game live was maddening. My parents, in the usual dance we do week 1 every year, asked why they're so bad. I started on the whole "well, new coaches, COVID, offseason..." thing, but then stopped. It's the same ^$%#'ing conversation every year and I'm tired of it.

Then I watched the game last night (Gamepass is awesome and cheap). I gotta say... after knowing the outcome, and getting past my frustration to watch the game as a series of plays... the team did look better than I thought and looked better than the score suggested. Not good (don't get me wrong), but there were positives in between all the bad. I was just surprised at the number of positive things I saw when I watched.

To be clear, this post is NOT a "moral victory" post. If anything, it's a "I told you so" type of post. We were sloppy and disorganized, almost as if we were doing new stuff w/o time to prepare, and doing it against an obvious SB contender. The Browns played about as poorly as I feared (but not worse) and the Ravens played just about as well as I feared. They came into Week 1 in midseason form.

We made waaaay too many mistakes, and the Ravens made us pay for dang near every one of them. Oh, and breaking news... Lamar can throw the ball.

Here's what I saw...
We were able to somewhat move the ball. Just over 300 total yards of offense (Balt had more, but not that much more). ToP was even. Over 100 on the ground. What I saw was not a complete disaster on offense... we were able to do some good things, but then would make a mistake and Ravens would make us pay. Again, not excusing, but as someone who was expecting us to start the season slow, I can't get myself too worked up.

Baker made a LOT of bad throws. I also thought he made some good throws. His game definitely went downhill as we went into desperation mode. So if it sounds like I'm being easy on him, I'm just taking that into account (not fully counting the end of the game, when it's already out of hand, but we're chucking the ball all over the place. Baker's accuracy was where it was last year (bad). He had some misses on some bombs that were there. He also struggled (at times) to get the ball right where it needed to be on those tight throws where YAC is key.

I'm closer to giving up on OBJ than I am Baker. Baker was bad, but OBJ was worse. If his drops weren't bad enough, he was picking up discipline-related flags (face mask).

I thought the Oline (like our offense in general) did some good and bad. There were times where they gave up pressure too easily up the middle. There were times where Baker could take a nap back there. I thought they did, overall, pretty well in the run game. Not a surprise, but Tretter is NOT 100%.

I'm glad Njoku got that TD. Dude is fighting for his life every single game/play. Baker is clearly pretty comfy with the new guy, and the TE room is CROWDED.

My love is not diminished for Nick Chubb, but DAYAM did Hunt bring it yesterday. Chubb was solid if unspectacular overall, but Hunt jumped out of the screen.

Landry made some tough catches, but I cringe every time he gets the ball. Baker needs to do better about not getting his guys killed with those passes high/behind.

Great analogy. Did you see the Ravens' players talking crap to OBJ what seemed like all the time, but not really at anyone else? I think they knew they could rattle him easily. Apparently they did.

I don't know what to make of our defense from yesterday. While I don't possess enough football knowledge to speak intelligently on Dline and LB play, my eyes showed me that the big boys up front played fairly well, overall. LBs are as advertised (dreadful), though both knew they were going to have their hands full with the opponent being who they are. Plus, let's be honest... probably the biggest issue with our defense is our offense. Lots of turnovers and short fields isn't their fault.

I thought Ogunjobi played alright, overall. He showed up on a couple plays.

Our secondary played BAD. Sendejo can hit the road right now, if you ask me. I'm being serious... and while it may sound like a toddler tantrum, just stay with me for a minute. It was his non-block that was largely responsible for the Gillan fumble. Granted, we were going to turn the ball over on downs anyway, but that effort was an embarrassment. You're telling me that in your first game here, on a trick play that you probably know is coming your way, you're going to give THAT kinda effort. I hope Prieffer tells KS that he doesn't need Sendejo anymore, and that he can easily be replaced by someone who will play like he gives a damn. Then Sendejo will have to keep his roster spot with his play on the defense (fat chance of that). From one game, he appears mediocre at best.

Speaking of Prieffer, dude has a LOT of work to do with this group. Good grief. First thing is to take a long, hard look at Siebert. You can get a high-school kid on the roster that can make XPs.

How does Hodge get 40 snaps at WR while Higgins gets 16? All Higgins has ever done when he played is produce, yet he seems to remain in some perpetual doghouse that has lasted through 3 coaching regimes. It makes me wonder why they re-signed him.

I think the safeties and LBers looked bad, especially the safeties.

I don't know where this ranks among kickers in the NFL from 2019 and 2020, but he has missed 6 extra points so far.

If it's been discussed on here, then I missed it. If we had more time until the next game, I'd go back and re-watch to really key on the defense, but.... what is it, scheme-wise, that we're going for on defense. Not trying to be snarky... honest question. Maybe that info can't be gleaned from one game, especially one against the Ravens (tough AND different offense).

I don't know.

Missed EPs are such a momentum killer ... they suck the air out of the sideline and the fans. I think I knew how yesterday would turn out when he doinked it.

Cinci could give us a better idea. Ravens, even if they weren't as good as they are, run a different O. I'm beginning to wonder if, regardless how our team develops, they're just always going to be rough as a matchup. A line the talking heads said really resonated with me... "you earn the right to pass rush". Well, with a team like the Ravens that can run it down your throat as easily as anything, what does having a pass rush demon like Garrett get you? What does having (hopefully) really good cover corners get you?

Looks like an error in the article. OBJ was targeted 10 times and only had 3 catches.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=401220147

j/c:

Watching some sports shows this morning while reading the board. I have seen multiple complaints about OBJ being targeted too much. Well, on TV, I saw that DeAndre Hopkins was targeted 16 times yesterday. The commentary is that Kingsbury and Murray know that you have to get your best player the ball.

The back 7 was atrocious.

OBJ is not the best player, though...

Hooper had two catches on only two targets.

Here's the snap counts...

j/c:

I am going to join the chorus that doesn't feel that mayfield has "it".

The play calling wasn't great but he had time.

Yesterday looked a lot like last year.

Poor coaching.
Poor QB play.
Not much heart, discipline, desire.

Agreed. I made a huge spread of food, had a ton of people over. I was so excited about the new season. I couldn't stomach more than a half.

I was going to take my kids out Thursday to see the Bengals game. I can't watch another crap show, so I will do something else.

Didn't get to see all the game ; but I don't think the front four of the DL got all that much pressure on Lamar ?

My son was over watching the game w/my wife and I. The second half was tough to watch. We always have two TVs on and I was paying a lot of attention to the other games on the other TV.

I don't think many of us expected the Browns to win, but I doubt many of us thought we would look so freaking bad.

I think you are right. It's hard to tell w/Lamar sometimes because he bounces away so quick. But again, I think you are right that the DL didn't pressure him much.

I wonder how many times we blitzed? I don't think I saw much of that.

Yup. I was naive and thought all that talent the browns have they would at least score points. They looked like a tiny college playing 'bama

I sure did, I saw it from OBJ last year too...I gave him a new slate once he became a Brown...At times he seems more of a distraction vs an addition...Though he is talented, he tends to get into so much "yapping" that he takes himself out of games. However I think he did a good job sideline wise, as I didn't see him going off on anyone (though I didn't see the second half play by play) It's just a shame, our offense has been so off rhythm since his addition (obviously not entirely his fault, as Baker has regressed a lot) I was just hoping for better, as I'm sure we all are.

I may be the minority, but I didn’t think Baker was terrible. He had an average day. I believe the presence of OBJ is more damaging than good. Landry, Higgins, and Njoku can carry this team. Going away from Chubb’s bruising style in favor of Hunt was a mistake. I understand getting down big in the second half may have changed the game plan.

Bite the bullet and tank for Trevor...

Talk on the local morning radio shows was that the Ravens' chirping got in his head, and that opposing teams have discovered they can take him out of his game that way going back to that big fight he had with a DB (Ramsey?) when he was a Giant.

Also, like you I didn't see any sideline antics by Beckham, but Grossi was just on the radio saying the opposite. Maybe its just Grossi being Grossi, but he said Beckham was gesturing, yelling, and kicking things on the sideline, and that he reminded him (Grossi) of Braylon Edwards at his worst. If that's true, he should be off-loaded ASAP. Maybe we can get Myles Jack for him. I'm sure Odell would love to play in London.

I don't think Baker was as bad as some would say. I thought Chubb was ok-good, but Hunt was runnning VERY strong. I thought he had a great game.

If Baker plays like he did Sunday on Thursday then I will start to worry.

53% comp rate will not do it in this league, Baker was not playing like an NFL starter,maybe rookie or backup level. He was completely overwhelmed, no composure no command of the team.

Time for him to ride the pine. He is clearly not ready to be a starter.

j/c...



https://twitter.com/wildlifeluvr/status/1305512759040319493

It’s good to see Teller on that list. It would be nice to not worry about that spot.

For us to ever be in a 3 WR set is a recipe for disaster. We have a lot of information to support us using 2/3 TEs per play.

Also, I’ll say two things about our TE play yesterday:
1. Njoku balled out ... that was one of the few positives
2. Hooper with 2 targets? Unacceptable

Baker was 3-10 passing to OBJ for a 30% completion percentage.

Baker was 18-25 passing to everyone else for a 72% completion percentage.

I do not know why these two cannot get in sync with one another.

I went to PFF and here is their grades for the game:

Offense

QB
Mayfield - 57.0 on 73 plays

RB
Chubb - 60.2 (35)
Hunt - 64.4 (36)
Janovich - 57.7 (10)

TE
Hooper - 60.7 (56)
Njoku - 92.3 (17)
Bryant - 50.5 (31)
Carlson - 74.7 (13)

WR
Beckham - 46.6 (55)
Landry - 69.2 (52)
Hodge - 54.3 (41)
Higgins - 66.2 (16)

OL
Tretter - 74.0 (73)
Bitonio - 75.8 (73)
Teller - 91.2 (73)
Conklin - 73.1 (73)
Wills - 63.2 (57)
Lamm - 62.7 (16)

Defense

DL
Garrett - 65.0 (48)
Vernon - 48.3 (42)
Richardson - 76.8 (36)
Ogunjobi - 94.1 (32)
Clayborn - 66.4 (32)
Taylor - 74.6 (12)
Elliott - 76.4 (26)
Gustin - 58.1 (11)

LB
Goodson - 38.4 (49)
Takitaki - 66.3 (54)
Smith - 87.2 (19)
Phillips - 47.5 (12)
Davis - 61.1 (10)

S
Joseph - 51.8 (59)
Sendejo - 30.9 (59)
Harrison - 60.3 (2)

CB
Ward - 58.0 (59)
Mitchell - 60.9 (59)
Thomas - 45.8 (28)

Thanks for sharing this info!

What I saw :

Baker does not throw in rhythm, he waits too long because he doesn't trust what he sees which results in most plays being broken plays. I'm not sure how much of this is a Baker problem or play call problem.

Baker locks on to his primary target and his eyes stay there....he doesn't look safeties off...big problem

On Andrews first TD Karl Joseph was at the back of the end zone and actually slid the other way where there were no receivers....go back and watch it...ridiculous

Our secondary looked really confused all game

Hunt looked explosive... I thought he looked better than Chubb and Chubb looked fine. It will be a problem finding enough touches for these two

Our Tackles looked really good...pass protection was excellent

OBJ looks disinterested. Hardly saw Higgins

jacob Phillips has good burst... he is thinking too much right now but I like his potential

Too many empty backfield sets.... I hate that, especially on 3rd or 4th and short. Need to keep the LB's and safeties honest which we didn't do

Well Phillips is probably out for a long time ... he was injured

Interesting.

I think there are four missing incompletions in the "everyone else" part.

Baker had 4 throwaways when avoiding a sack/pass rush so he threw 39 passes, but only had 35 targets.

I know this is piling on Baker, but I don't think it has anything to do with OBJ. I think a better QB gets better results from Odell. Baker doesn't go through his progressions, doesn't recognize who's open, doesn't have any anticipation of what might happen after the snap, and ends up running a very disjointed offense where no one is in rhythm or flow. Then you probably have guys losing confidence in Baker as well and things start to snowball.

I don’t even think Baker's presnap recognition is where it needs to be. There was a play yesterday where someone other than Humphrey was guarding Odell. I don’t care what the play call in the huddle was...you recognize that and your first read now becomes OBJ. Baker never looked at him and threw an incomplete pass. Odell was wide open. Come on, this should be football 101 ....elementary stuff.

Believe it or not, I think Stefanski was a bigger disappointment than Baker. I kept commenting on here that it didn't look like they were accomplishing much in training camp and that Baker didn't look good and needed more work. Stefanski gave an even number of reps to him and Keenum from the stuff I saw. It was obvious Baker needed more work than this. Your objective as a coach is to prepare your team to win games. It looks like the only thing Stefanski did was "teach" the playbook and try to keep everyone healthy. That didn't help us win the game.

Could have gotten the same result with Freddie. Where's this huge improvement we were supposed to see.

Got it. Thanks for clarifying.

j/c...

That doesn't sound good for Siebert.

Agreed.

Man, I feel bad when these guys lose their jobs, but you almost have to cut Seibert at this point. One, he missed his only two kicks in beautiful weather with no fans in the stands. Two, send a message to the rest of the team about accountability. Third, he wasn't that good last year. No reason to think he'll turn it around.

I hate the Ravens, but Justin Tucker might be the best kicker I've ever seen.

I thought that too. Tucker is dang near automatic

Just send Seibert to the PS and promote Cody Parkey. Also, tell Seibert to get to the hair salon and get his hair dyed back for good measure.

We can watch Parkey doink the ball off the uprights for a game.

I think Baker's troubles w/reading post-snap coverages is also causing him problems in other areas, such as accuracy. It's gotta be hard to be real accurate when you don't trust what you are seeing.

I think OBJ was bad yesterday. Dude stepped out of bounds on a route. That's lame. The drop was off of a ball that was a bit behind him and kinda high while running over the middle and receivers hate that......but, you gotta catch that pass.

I heard a commentator earlier this morning ripping on Baker and mentioned that there's trouble when your receivers are looking at you sideways because that usually means they don't think you can ball. I wonder if that will happen here or if it already happening?

This is a tough call. It's way too early to consider replacing Baker. He needs more time. However, this team has a ton of talent and it would suck to waste it on a guy who is never going to get it.

I would never wish even a slight injury on a player, but kinda wish Baker's wife was pregnant and he would miss one game to be w/her for the birth of their child, just so I could see what the offense would look like w/a different qb in there.

Too bad the different QB is Case Keenum.

I know, but in a way, it might be more telling. For example, if the team actually looked good w/Case at qb, that might be more telling in regards to Baker.

Based on what we saw during training camp both are terrible but Keenum is more terribler.

If the side-eye starts coming from more than just OBJ, then I'm right there with you. OBJ (for me) is too much of a diva to take these types of things at face value. Landry or one of the TE's, on the other hand... yeah, ok definitely sound the alarm.


If Case Keenum does end up playing, I hope it's for 5+ games. Gotta get him past those first ~2-3 games so that backup magic can wear off and they regress back to the mean. Then we can make a good comparison.

.

j/c

Okay, after muddling through this entire thread, I'm sensing somewhat of a theme. The blame game of how one play or two plays are responsible for the entire failure in the game. This is a false narrative at best. Each individual player and how he is prepared for the game and performs in the game is not the responsibility of others.

This is not a dis on Baker. It's a dis on those blaming OBJ for Baker's woes.

If as some contend OBJ takes Baker's focus away because he isn't the "alpha male" since OBJ is here, that isn't a fault of OBJ, that's a weakness on the part of Baker.

If as some contend one dropped pass causes everyone else to fail, that's not the weakness of the guy who dropped the pass. That's a weakness on those who lose focus when even the smallest of obstacles cross their path.

If a single missed FG causes your defense to give up a huge scoring drive right before half time, that's not on the kicker, that's on the defense for giving up a huge scoring drive.

Let's quit pointing the finger in blame because others failed.

Baker chose to keep passing the ball to OBJ. That's Baker's decision, not OBJ's. And many of those passes were not accurate. OBJ had a terrible game. Baker had a terrible game. The defense, especially LB's and the defensive backfield had a terrible game. Seibert had a terrible game.

There's plenty of blame to go around. What I won't do is blame another player for the terrible play of someone else as an individual.

As for what I saw yesterday it was disappointing even for me. And I'm a guy who predicted a 6-10 record. Sure, I understood we were limited in time to prepare for the season with a new HC and no preseason. But yesterday looked more like a complete meltdown.

It's only one game. And maybe the team will learn from it and improve as time goes on. That I can't say. But the deeper we dig the hole the harder it will be to dig ourselves out of. Time will tell.

lmao this is true

My thoughts on our play:

Defense: DLine was aggressive, but seemed to give up gaps easily. Linebackers - I'm not sure they mattered; Secondary was hot garbage.

Offense: Ever watch a hyperactive, over-tired puppy surrounded by toys? He can't figure out what he wants to do and just kinda spastically jumps from one to the other without warning or rhythm..... that's how our offense felt. Now, spray every single one of that puppy's toys with bitters and his reaction is how we executed my of the time. 3rd and 41.

Special teams: Seibert is gone; well earned.

I was kind of thinking the same thing, but with OBJ instead of Baker. It's a lot easier to swap out one WR than it is the QB. Just to see if things look better without OBJ out there. The first series Baker looked fairly sharp until Calais got his hand on the one- none of them were to OBJ, though OBJ looked like he was doing his job that series.

I'm going back through the game on gamepass. All-22 isn't up yet, so trying to see what I can see in the second pass of the broadcast version.

One thing that stands out so far is Sendejo might have been even worse than I thought. It looks like on the first Andrews TD, he randomly decided to play man when everyone else was in zone and Andrews was wide open in the space that he vacated.

On the fake punt, I think Priefer got too cute. They were trying to take a play out of rugby it looks like. I think it was supposed to be an option, and what looked like Sendejo missing a block was him trying to swing wide for a planned pitch/lateral. If it had been called a straight run, it probably would have worked.

Usually fake punts are based on a presnap read. The punt protector probably saw something and then called for the fake.

I don't feel as bad as I did after the second watch. Lamar Jackson to Mark Andrews is going to give a lot of teams fits. Also, there is a reason Tavierre Thomas has primarily been a special teamer. If he was in coverage, they pretty much picked on him at will. Hopefully we get some corners healthy soon.

I was probably harder on Sendejo than I should have been. He did have the one blown coverage on the first TD it looked like, but it was week 1 with limited reps and a weird offseason. The long completion to Hollywood Brown was just a perfectly placed ball, and I don't think any safeties are keeping up with that guy for long in a foot race. The fake punt, I'm leaning more and more towards blaming the stupid playcall (brilliant if it had worked, of course.)

We ran play action more than I thought. However, we might as well not have, it was consistently sold so poorly. If the running back is nowhere near where you half heartedly jab out the ball, it becomes obvious that its not a running play pretty quickly. The deficit didn't help.

Baltimore's too good to become one dimensional. Once we fell behind, they stayed plastered to our receivers pretty well. Humphrey, Peters, and Tavon Young are all good players.

OBJ's drops are still frustrating, but he didn't check out as badly as I thought he had live.

Add in Sendejo and it is little wonder at the success they had. They were literally just playing catch out there.

I don't know if a player would have the authority to call it on his own in that part of the field. I'm guessing there was an "if they give us this look" you can try the fake conversation. Whoever decided, that's probably not the situation to do it.

Especially with how little live special teams practice we've most likely had.

I don't think Sendejo was as bad as it felt live. Thomas on the other hand was getting blown by by the likes of Willie Snead (and his 4.6 combine "speed") like he was standing still.

I understand what you are saying about his 4.6 speed. However, Jerry Rice ran a 4.7 at the combine. It's not about inline speed. It's about route running.

I feel so horrible right now.

I tuned in to local Columbus radio, at least to hear the talk about the yesterdays opening day of NFL football.

I have never, (and I hate when people use that word wrongly but I'm still going to), "never" in 35++ years of Columbus media

in 35++ years, Columbus Ohio media has never been this negative on the Cleveland Browns as they are this year.

First, pre game, the newscasts barely even mention the Browns anymore, it's Bengals, and
and
and
Time and time again has PROVEN, there are a TON--- MORE Browns fans in this city than Bengal fans,

EVEN IN THE BENGALS 2 Super Bowl LOSS years, it was proven there are a ton more Browns fans in Columbus than Bengals fans,

But these guys are SO NEGATIVE

I just want to give it all up, keep me away from the pills.

They want to get rid of Baker, and they love Stefanski

And I feel like

it's going to be another 10 years if they give up on Baker,

Before the Browns will even be competitive again.

I'm too old,
I'll be DEAD, before the Browns win year after year,

I have to take a step back,

And we're only one game in.

They better win Thursday

What can we say about a team that can't figure out how to cut a kicker in 12 months off,

but after one game,
Cuts the kicker, who missed every kick.


Now HOW CAN I TRUST THEM TO GET A NEW KICKER THAT CAN KICK!

And it's freaking KICKING!
it's not even
it's KICKING!!
One Snap out of 40!

and they've messed that up

WITH 12 MONTHS TO DECIDE,
I mean, did they even have a PRACTICE!

And how do you NOT SEE, that a kicker can't make a kick?

It's more obvious than a Red colored counterfeit dollar bill!

I think the Browns/Bengals deal has more to do with Ohio State fans and the fact that Burrow is there, much like the Browns being popular in Oklahoma after Baker.

Are they really calling him JoBu down there? Because if they are, its BS. JoBu is a Cleveland thing.

j/c:



Disclaimer: Simply because Ogunjobi scored better than Donald in Week One does not mean he is better. Or frankly, if the aggregate PFF score of Ogunjobi in 2020 leaned in his favor, it still wouldn't mean that either.

That said, Larry is good.

#BeginExtensionTalks

If you are an insider as to the feelings of people from the Columbus area then I'll give your thoughts credit,
but my first reaction is I don't think you know what you are talking about.

So we have Ogunjobi, Garrett, Richardson, Vernon, Clayborne ... and our defense sucks still?

You're only as strong as your weakest link, and last week that was Thomas at CB.

It didn't/doesn't help that Lamar presents unique challenges to pass rushers.

I lived in Columbus and went to Ohio State. It's not a Pro "town." The Buckeyes are King.

Well I still think you are wrong, believe what you want.

The worst part of the game is I don't know what you could've possibly done differently. Even Bellichek would've had trouble winning a game with fumbles, missed xp, missed FG, injured LT, injured TE, 3 injured DBs, etc and so on.

Let alone the fact that we are playing against the best RB at QB in NFL history. Vick gave people fits and he wasn't even as fast as Jackson.

10 years-ish ago a running QB would get punished for holding the ball too long and taking too many big hits, but now you can't really touch the QBs unless they're really really dumb, and Jackson is good about launching an overthrown ball and letting his wide open WRs make plays on the ball. I really don't know how you beat them on D in the current NFL rules. Gotta beat them on O, and our O STUNK (yet again).

I don't know Odell. He maybe a great guy. He may be a really hard worker. I keep hearing about his talent from players and coaches.

He stepped out of bounds and came back in. High school players don't do that. Amateur move.

It seems on many plays he complains. His body language is horrible.

During his time here so far has been a disappointment.
Last year hurt. Didn't practice. Ok. Time to show up.

I am assuming you are going to continue to focus on OBJ and ignore the the breakdown that Burns did on Baker's reads?

It’s been one game where his QB was dreadful. OBJ is not the problem.

There was PD article yesterday by Labbe I think and he nailed it. What did we expect? This was a superbowl primed team coming off a 14-2 season with a coach and a system that's been there seemingly forever against a brand new system on a team with no existing culture to speak of, with very limited practice, no scrimmages, no preseason games, and a bunch of key injuries in critical positions. Lol, what really shocks me is everyone fully expecting the outcome, then being totally distraught at the outcome.

Coping skills people. This is going to be ugly for the first half of the season. It just is. I'm fully committed to being 1/2 committed to paying attention and 100% unemotional about this whole wagon ride until mid-October at the earliest. Don't watch the talking heads, don't listen to the sports radio guys. Just turn it off.

We have all recently been concentrating on Baker and OBJ, but most of the team was terrible.

I do think Stefanski and the coaching staff are getting a pass that they don't deserve. Frankly, that was one of the worst coaching games I have ever seen. I kept shaking my head at some of the things they were doing.

I agree. And we JUST had Hue Jackson then Freddie Kitchens, so to standout as worse than them is quite a feat.

So I'm not a shut the game off when we're getting blown out kinda guy, but I did yesterday, I was done. Not to mention I had some financial interest in some of the other games going on.

That was horrible. Maybe a little bit of a pass with a new coach who is trying to build something during this pandemic, but he wasn't the only coach in his debut, including Matt Rhule's team almost winning down in Carolina with that roster.

It was just at times, the offense didn't looked like it had any direction. Mayfield looked confused most of the day, and even when he made a good pass, his teammates would let him down.

Whether it's Mayfield or just the passing offense, that is holding everything with this team back.

You can't just rely on the run. This isn't the stone age of football. We also don't have a great defense that can allow us to be more run heavy.

Nick Chubb starts off the game with a great run. We get them here or there, but there are also times where they run for no gain, you get stuck with the dreaded 2nd and long. Numbers tell you it's not wise to run again that down, and that's the type of situations where Mayfield is failing.

It sickens me that he's on his 3rd HC in his 3rd year (I don't count interim guys otherwise you're talking 4th in 3 years) and I just hope he isn't ruined by that.

I'm sure the morons were out in full force on post game call-in shows and monday morning QB sessions calling for Stefanski's head.

The Browns never have any margin for error. They play in what has been (by far) the most consistently good division in football. Aside from us, the division boasts 2, and sometimes 3 really good teams every single year. You don't get any years where the division is sometimes just up for whoever feels like winning 8 or 9 games (hi AFC South) For as good as the NFC West looks right now it was putrid not that long ago. But the AFCN is ALWAYS good. When the Browns come out of this, they will be for real, because you can't fool anyone in our division, it's just the hard truth.

I am really interested to see how this team under Kevin Stefanski reacts after that loss. The season isn't decided by a game, but I really hope they make some kind of an adjustment with Baker Mayfield because that offense was not fun to watch.

I said in the months leading up to this season, that it was a big year for Baker Mayfield. Obviously a really good rookie year, and last year was just a total letdown. I hate to make this conversation after a week, but if we don't see improvements, the Browns will be in the market for a QB whether that be in FA or through the draft. Joe Burrow looks like he's gonna be pretty good, and so you can already see the Browns being up against it in this division. No margin for error.

Also: I hope someone covered Andrew Sendejo's eyes when they went over the game film, because he was horrible all day. As dumb as that fake punt looked, it may have actually worked if he didn't block like a quarterback when he engaged with his guy. Yikes.

I already said Baker was below average.

I'll wait a couple more games until I start to get on Stefanski's case (not that it matters either way). We were doomed when we went down early and fell further behind. I want to give the rookie HC some more opportunities where the deck isn't so stacked against him.

I do think our D was terrible, but our O wasn't even bad. OL was playing good until the game got out of hand.Hunt was finding space, Chubb was also playing.

Problem with our O is in bad moments we just make things worst. Better to punt on 1st down, honestly. We need a composed QB to just calm things down and not make things worst.

Punting was very good, but D couldn't take advantage of it.

Browns bring back a guy who was VP of player personnel from 2016-2018 and make him their GM and expect different results. Guess what, they didn't win back then and they won't win now.

They also keep hiring guys with no head coaching experience. Here's an idea, HIRE A GUY THAT'S A PROVEN WINNING HEAD COACH! Why do we always have to hire trainees as our head coach?

The difference between us and successful franchises is they hire proven winners while we continue to hire rookies. It's like businesses that hire competent, experienced CEOs that have run profitable companies before and us that puts the head of the mail room in charge of the whole freaking company.

j/c...

A bright spot...

Lots of this topic's coverage has been about how bad the Browns played.

I think it is appropriate to mention how good the Ravens are.

Maybe part of what blame Odell has got should go to how well he was covered.

Maybe all the blame the defense is getting could be attributed to how good the Ravens are on offense. They were the best in football last year.

The Ravens are a good team. Many have picked them to be in the Super Bowl. So I think they should be given some credit.

Proven head coach would probably bench or cut BM..

I love Big Larry, he brings it every single week.

Larry is in a contract year, correct? I’d expect him to play well

j/c...

Yes he is but I don’t think it makes a difference to him. He always works hard and has gotten better every year.

"Coaches film" is up on GamePass now.

That KhaDarel Hodge false start followed by OBJ facemask sequence was pretty brutal. Baker took a pretty nasty sack afterwards in the long down and distance situation (solid shot and torqued backwards awkwardly over bodies on the ground.) We were pretty in it until then. Things really snowballed from there, though. I wonder if Baker tweaked something in his back/obliques.

Another thing I noticed is that Calais Campbell is a bear on D. Even moreso for a shorter QB who needs to look for throwing lanes. His wingspan is ridiculous. It's also kind of wild how far he moved on that deflection that led to the INT. He started out lined up on the other side of the formation. Not too many 3-4 DEs/DTs running cross formation buzz zones.

I saw some people online say that Calais Campbell freelanced on that play because he knew he knew where the ball was going. He’s a great player.