DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Team Morale

I agree also, but somewhere these players who are supposed o be professionals, need to step up. The coaches ain't dropping passes and missing tackles. It is time for THEM, t step up. Excuses are for......., well you know.

The game plan was weak IMO, but the players need to grow some, and dig down and play like a pro. A whining player after a game where they showed no enthusiasm and poor effort, is a cop out IMO.

The players need to play like a Brown, PERIOD!

They did that last week.

we played like something brown, alright.

LOL. Now that was funny.

With as much as Ol' Jimmy likes "improving" the look of the uniforms....and as "good" as they look currently...that right there might as well be our helmet logo.

We should have invested in 60 or so of these instead of wasting money on new uniform designs.

Note to Browns: Get angry, like the rest of us
Sep 18, 2015 -- 6:00am

The mood: The fans are angry. Season ticket-holders I’ve spoken to are angry. (Their sales reps with the Browns can attest to that.) At least one former Browns advertiser I’ve spoken to is angry. The media are angry. I’ve heard the owner is angry.

But are the Browns angry about that 31-10 losing effort against the New York Jets in Game 1?

I went in search of that emotion this week and came up empty.

The closest I heard came from safety Tashaun Gipson.

“We are a little bit (ticked) off because we know we’re better than that,” Gipson said of the defense.

Only a little bit?

I was particularly interested in the defense because that is the side of the ball that was supposed to lead the Browns this season.

The offense is challenged, we all know, because of the decision by GM Ray Farmer and coach Mike Pettine to build the team with defense first. As always, actions speak louder than words.

According to Spotrac, which tracks salary cap information of every team, the Browns rank second in the NFL in spending on defense. The Browns are devoting $62.3 million in 2015 salary cap money to defense. Only the Houston Texans at $63.7 million are spending more, according to the Website’s figures.

The Browns are second in spending on the defensive secondary (to the New York Jets), 19th in spending on the defensive line, and sixth in spending on linebackers.

The Browns are 21st in spending on offense. Those figures break down this way: 27th in spending on quarterbacks, 30th on running backs, 11th on wide receivers, 17th on tight ends, and fifth on the offensive line.

The responses: Here is a sampling of reaction to my query about the mood of the defense this week:

Defensive end Desmond Bryant: “I think it was more disappointment in ourselves. We know we can play better than that.”

Cornerback Tramon Williams: “Angry? I don’t think so. We understand in the NFL it happens like this at times. It can be frustrating, but you have to learn from it and let it stay in the past and not let it carry into the next game. You have to hit the reset button. I know it’s cliché, but in this game, all the ups and downs, your mindset has to be like that.”

Defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil: “Ready to bounce back. I think that they were a little embarrassed by what happened on Sunday. I was embarrassed, but it’s a resilient group. They have a lot of pride. They compete. Had a great practice yesterday so I love where we’re at. I love how they’ve come back. I’d be shocked if we didn’t play well on Sunday.”

On Tuesday, safety Donte Whitner apologized for the effort at the close of an interview with Marc “Munch” Bishop on ESPN 850 WKNR.

Unprompted, Whitner said, “To all browns fans, I apologize for this game on Sunday. It was very uncharacteristic of our team and what we embody and what we’re going to do this year. We’re going to put a better product on the field Sunday.”

“Being from here,” Pettine said of Whitner, “he knows what it means to our fan base.”

Almost toxic: Probably the most disturbing aftermath of the loss was the observation on Monday by Williams, the former Green Bay Packer, of heads hanging on the sideline in the third quarter as the Jets were taking control of the game.

I checked in with Williams on Thursday for a clarification.

“No energy on the sideline,” he said. “It was everybody, really. It’s almost toxic when you see that on the sideline. It’s like cancer. It can spread.”

Did it become a topic of conversation during the week?

“We mentioned it,” Williams said. “I think guys understand we have to be better than that. The good thing is, it was just Week 1.”

Which, to me, means that Game 2 – to borrow from Jimmy Fallon’s Donald Trump – is huuuuuuuuge.

The defense shoulders the responsibility for keeping this season from turning into a chemical spill. The offense is challenged by Farmer’s archaic, misguided philosophy of building a team without devoting priority to quarterback and receiver.

The defense is highly paid and also has the greatest orators on the team. Even after the Jets – in Gipson’s own words – “imposed their will on our seconday,” Gipson still said on Thursday, “We still feel like we’re the best secondary in the National Football League.

“We’re definitely not in a panic mode because we know who we have back there.”

All good. I just wish somebody showed some anger. Some emotion. Some passion. Like the rest of us.

“To me, when you lose you should be upset,” Pettine said. “That’s to me an indication that it’s important to you, you’re passionate about it, something you put a lot of time in and came up short.

“You get guys that are motivated by what winning brings to you, the feeling that you get when you’re in. You get guys that are also motivated by the fear of losing. It’s a coaching cliché, but when you lose you want guys to remember the feeling.

“To me, if losing doesn’t bother guys, they have the wrong make-up to be in your locker room.”

http://espncleveland.com/common/more.php?m=49&action=blog&r=17&post_id=49491

The only part of this I don't think I quite agree on is that it was a weak game plan. I'm not saying it was masterful by any means, but had the players execute properly, not missing tackles, holding the outside contain, etc... I think the game plan would have been sufficient.

The more I think about it, I think the lack of veteran presence in the preseason, between those held out for minor injuries or given days off, is why we saw such a lackluster and at times a lack of cohesive effort.

LOL, maybe we could have the elf dropping a deuce!

That is very unsettling... Disappointed? Embarrassed? We understand?

They lost morale because they knew Johnny was not going to score anymore points and they knew they couldn't stop brandon marshall.

get over it guys. Let just hope Mariotta(that guy Farmer would have drafted last year if he came out) doesn't kill us too bad.

Last year there was a point after the Texans MAN HANDLED us and then the Colts edged us that we lost morale ... but that was weeks 12/13 or something like that

Head up bundt is hardly a morale issue. It IS an "I can't be bothered enough" issue, an "I love flagged football penalties by the dozen" issue, and so on. I guess as a fan Ia m to rivet on snappy explanations after losses and continue to care more about the game than the team does.

Interestingly enough, my ticket rep for my season tickets called today to check in. Looks like they are in full damage control mode already.

J/C ......

I think that it's OK to be angry behind closed doors, but I don't think that it does a lot to be angry publicly. When a player is angry, the next question is, "who/what are you most angry with?", and that lease to a whole line of questions a team does not need.

Fans overreact so badly. I remember the 2007 season, where we lost in week 1. The OL "sucked" according to many ..... the team stunk .... the season was over ......

We put up 50+ points and beat Cincy the very next week .... barely ..... and when I got home and read the board, people were talking about how badly DA played, and how much he stunk.

Fans always overreact. Players don't always overreact. Players are taught to be careful when speaking to the media, and I am sure that the coaches told them to be careful not to blast a teammate. The players don't always just blow their stacks. I am also sure that none of the players wanted to have anything they said come off as blaming Manziel, since he went in under less than ideal circumstances. Let's face it .... beyond the penalties, the 3 turnovers by Manziel were probably the biggest contributing factor in this loss. (and then the collapse of the secondary, and the play of the OL ...) Does it do a whole lot of good to blast Manziel, especially after he had so little time to prepare in the preseason?

These guys have fire, but there is a difference between fire directed at the other team, and raining down friendly fire on your own teammates.

Maybe anger is the wrong word.. maybe just "emotion" is the better word. Granted, I can only see what the TV shows me, but I saw very little. I saw very little during the game on the field as the Jets were starting to pull away, I didn't see any on the bench trying to motivate or galvinize a group of guys to keep fighting while we still had a chance...

Did it happen? I don't know, but if it did, I didn't see it.

I don't think it's as simple as that. Remember the movie with Keanu Reeves called the replacments. He had a line about what he was afraid of and his answer was Quicksand. The more you struggle to get out, the worse things get.

If there was a morale issue, I'd say it's the feeling that everything was just going south.

They are professionals, they gotta lift themselves up by the boot straps and get the job done. There is no time for that Hang Dog feeling. Move on, this is a new week.

Perhaps you are right, but I watched the game and I didn't see a whole lot of "fight back" in that team once things started going south..


Might not be the worst team since 1999.... but it sure looks like a lot of those teams we've watched along the way... and lack of improvement doesn't improve morale.

I won't speak for anyone else...I saw a team with low morale starting in the 3rd qtr Sunday. I know this isn't the worse team we've had since '99 but they gave up on both sides of the ball and laid down for the Jet's.

The Brown's are almost always in the game to the end. Not last Sunday, they gave up.

They need a booster shot badly and smacking every other team in the mouth is going to be the only fix here.

I'm sure that the Browns players know what time it is with this team thus they ain't mad.. I ain't mad cause I honestly expect them to lose.

I can hate this season love the draft and love all the seasons to follow. Upset disappointed that it is what it is, but better days are coming just to bad there so far away...

Sad

I feel your pain but tomorrow we'll be very telling, I'll wait till 4pm before I go for the shower curtain rod....

We're tied for second in the division.

A few things:

--I have clearly stated that I am NOT using just the one game for my concern.

--I clearly stated that I was not positive that the team's morale was low, but I was concerned and would keep an eye on it, as opposed to being a person who just turns a blind eye to the situation because I wanna be "positive."

--I never once mentioned that team was going to start a mutiny.

--I gave examples from not only the game, but practices, roster moves, slogans, draft choices, FA moves, comments from players throughout the preseason, the soft TC, the interference from a GM who is suspended for interfering, the team's body language on the sideline, etc, etc.

--I want to add this, the comments coming from Berea are disturbing. What Williams said about the sideline demeanor is telling. He certainly never saw that type of "quit" in Green Bay. This team has a morale issue. It doesn't have mental toughness. They quit too easy. They get down too easy. They don't have a strong resolve. The FO making one boneheaded move after another and having a HC who runs a soft camp and then sits there hiding behind his sunglasses and showing no emotion on the sideline are only adding to the problem.

Vers you started a thread last week about are u excited? I never got the sense this team was excited to be playing. I was very concerned with 20 guys riding the bike heading into the last couple of preseason games and almost all were guys that made the roster.

The defense felt disengaged throughout the preseason and it carried into week 1. This team loved solomon not because he was great but because he brought it on every play. I didnt see a lot of that from the rest of the defense.

I saw McCown and Manziel put it all out there on offense but there just wasnt a lot of enthusiasm from that side of the ball either. Its hard to describe it other than there just wasnt any energy displayed.

Hawkins not even looking back when no one was covering him, gets his head around its 6 pts. Dray and Barnidge dropping balls. Gabriel dropping the one at the end. Crow missed a couple really good holes and didnt look mentally ready. I thought the interior of the line struggled mightily in this one.

I dont know if it was due to any personnel decisions but the game worries me as I do like Pet. These are the kind of games that get coaches fired.

anybody wanna guess what the team morale for KC is after thursday night's game?

The defense let them march down the field on them right out of the gate and a blown play and a shanked field goal was the result of that one. To say it was because they lost their QB is just silly. The defense played their ass off down the stretch when Hoyer, Manziel and Shaw was playing like total garbage.

Losing a 36 year old journeyman backup isnt gonna devastate a team.

Unfortunately the lack of competitiveness from the team against the Jets reminded me of Chud's last few games.

My cousin and I were texting about it this week and he said it's rumored that Pett is a hardass behind closed doors and shows a ton of emotion when not in front of the camera. Anyone else heard this or read anything like that?

There are a lot of people who think the team quit because of Manziel. I didn't really feel that watching the game. I think Camp Cupcake, Pettine's lack of emotion, and lack of fiery, competitive players turns this team into mental midgets at the first sign of adversity. At the professional level of competition I find that to be pathetic.

Hell, we have weekend warrior type pick up basketball and football games here every Saturday. We show more competitive fire than the Browns. Hell, really good friends will almost come to blows and go several days without talking to each other after some of these games. LOL.

I will try AGAIN.

I am NOT talking about just one game.

When I rewatched the game, the defeatist attitude really came out and yea I felt worried about Pet after watching this and I am a big Pet fan but he needs to pull this team together in a hurry or its #1 pick type bad.

If they are that mentally weak then I fully recommend a complete blowup of this roster and staff.

We should know tomorrow about 3PM

Agreed. It was just one game. But, if we see much more of that, people need to go. And lots of them.

I've read that in the military, when a unit just can't pull together, they basically blow the thing up and move all the members to other units.

Now given, that was just one game, but we cannot have guys hanging their heads and accept losing. Especially in the third quarter.