DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum How Long Does Hue Put Up With Giving Up 27 PPG?

I am not a fan of continuity for continuity sake. I don't believe that keeping a coach just to say we've kept him is a good strategy. Horton's Defense is abysmal. This past Sunday I saw LBs covering the speedy Edelman, and no one covering the tight ends, against a team that is notorious for using the TE's in passing situations, and running two TE sets. We still can't stop the run. There's no pressure on the QBs. And Horton's D has allowed almost 30 points per game, in every games we've played. Directly in line with his historical numbers.

I realize we're talent-light. I realize we're five games in. I realize we're playing rookies. I also realize we're not seeing any improvement. The wrong defense is consistency being called. Pressure to the QB is always late. There's a real problem here, and I think it's the DC.

Now, I know a certain contingent will vehemently argue that we have to give Horton time. I disagree, and I'm stating that up front. He's not doing his job. How long until Hue cuts ties?

At this point, I would have fired him Monday, but I don't think he'll last the season. What's your over/under? If you think he should stay, please explain why. No nonsense about needing time, or talent, or that we need continuity. What have you seen on the field that says to you that Horton is the answer, and will have the D playing top 10 football within two or three years?

I probably wouldn't fire anybody all season to be honest. It's an evaluation year and what's the point? We'll lose 14-16 games regardless.

There's nothing on the field to back up keeping Horton obviously, but I think we need to keep him for the season

I'm guessing he puts up with him at least until we have average players for him to work with across the board. Considering how many young guys he's had to plug-in that just got with the team I'm surprised they haven't looked worse. Defense is about all 11 guys doing their jobs. A lot of the players he's working with weren't here during the off-season for the install. Paea, Holmes, Lemonier, Boddy-Calhoun, Wright, etc. New England makes lots of established D's look bad. No need for a knee-jerk reaction.

Hue hired him for a reason .. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't to fire him 1/3rd of the way into the season with this talent ...

Hue saw something he liked and I'm sure nothing that has transpired this season has changed his mind ..

Just wondering ... Do u think Ray just ignored Edelman or the TE's? .. I'm pretty sure his plan wasn't .. Maybe they won't use them this week .. *L* ..

I think Horton has SUCKED since he left the talent in Seattlle and has proven to be a BUST at every stop since ... I have no clue what Hue saw in him .. But he is who he hired .. So hew sees something we don't ..

I wonder if we do analytics on the coaches ... Or the FO staff for that matter ...

They'd have to FIRE THEMSELVES if they did ... *LOL* ..

Does anyone think another coordinator could come in with a plate full of rookies and people new to the scheme and make our defense better?

Is it Horton or the talent pool he's working with, or both?

Bill Billicheck may be able to get it down to 25 points a game .. MAYBE ...

I think Horton has UNDERACHIEVED and has STUNK since he left Seattle .. And he may be doing a HORRILBE JOB here ... But here it just doesn't matter .. We have NO TALENT AT ALL ..

He should actually be given credit for the run D against NE ... I was shocked at how well we played the run ...

Quite frankly ... Hue has made way more HEAD SCRATCHING calls than Horton ...

Until we get some better DB's and a better pass rush, teams are going to keep putting up points against us.

Our team sucks. This was expected. We have little talent because of horrible drafting and much of the talent we do have is very young.

Horton has never worked for Seattle as a player or a coach.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to Zona.

Well if you want people to ignore that we have no talent, and simply call that nonsense, how can they give you the main reason Horton can't be evaluated at this time?

I'm not sticking up for Horton because I'm not sold on him as a DC, but you can't tell people to simply eliminate the glowing reason that we can't evaluate what he's done here so far.

It's more then just sucking.

You may be looking at the 1st 0-16 Browns team in history.

Your crazy if you think Hue survives an 0-16 season. Haslam will can everyone including Sashi and Depodesta. This whole thing has the ripings of a complete disaster. Even Mangini"s teams were not this bad.

I'm telling you there zero excuse for 0-16 if it happens Hue and Our FO will be gone. Regardless of circumstance 0-16 is simply unacceptable. We will be left with little choice but to part ways, and start another new train wreck.

How we end up in the messes is just beyond me.

When jimmy is im not trying to stir things up here, I see the worst pile of dung I have ever seen as a Browns fan since 1980. This atrocious even Shurmur, Mangini, Crennell coached teams were not this bad...he'll even Terry Robiskie fielded a more competent group of scrubs. I think many of you really have no idea how bad things actually are for the Browns...but.....you are gonna be up to speed shortly...yup.....this is so gonna be an epic crap show if a season..

I'm not ignoring the fact that we're light on talent, I stated that up front, so that is a given. I'm asking what is Horton doing with the talent he has that makes you think he should still around. And BTW, it's not like they're going to add eleven player to the defense. Meder, Shelton & Nassib - Who's getting replaced or upgraded in that group? Ogbah, Davis, Kirksey, Shobert - Who's getting replaced or upgraded in that group? Haden, Taylor, Poyer & Campbell - Who's getting replaced or upgraded in that group?

Like it or not, most of your starters next year are already here, so where are these imaginary major upgrades happening? Do you honestly believe a couple guys here or there will be enough to make the difference?

My point is, Horton isn't doing anything with the talent he does have.

The Bills gave up 25 points a game the first two weeks. Rex Ryan wasted no time in firing the offensive coordinator.

Not a typo.

Inexplicably, they've given up about 12 points a game since.

Yeah, head scratcher. But they made a move because they weren't happy with what was happening on the field. So did the Ravens. I wouldn't be shocked to see us do something similar.

I'll repeat what I responded to Pit: Meder, Shelton & Nassib - Ogbah, Davis, Kirksey, Shobert - Haden, Taylor, Poyer & Campbell - Who's getting replaced or upgraded in these position groups? Like it or not, most of your starters are already here.

Who's not average here: Meder, Shelton & Nassib - Ogbah, Davis, Kirksey, Shobert - Haden, Taylor, Poyer & Campbell?

Firing coaches every year is a big part of it ...

He may have seen something. What in the hell is he seeing now? Hue has an inferior offense putting up points, he must at least expect to see something from the D, but he's getting nothing. As they say, that was then, this is now.

So you think the problem is with the CBs, DB & OLBs? I won't argue that, so who gets replaced? Ogbah or Davis & Haden, Taylor, Poyer or Campbell?

Then call me crazy. Hue & Sashi aren't getting canned this year, regardless of 0-16, IMO. But you're right, it looks like it's shaping up to be a complete disaster.

Same question, who stays, who goes? Meder, Shelton & Nassib - Ogbah, Davis, Kirksey, Shobert - Haden, Taylor, Poyer & Campbell?

I disagree. Would you have kept Shurmur? Pettine? Chud? Romeo? Butch? Mangini? Personally I would've stuck it out with Mangini, but with Holmgren, that would've been impossible. Shurmur, hell no. Butch, not without a real GM. Chud, don't think so, but maybe. Romeo, not a head coach. Pettine lost the locker room, so no. In some cases the coaches had to be fired. In others, timing was wrong. Bottom line, first, you have to have the right coach. I'd keep Hue around awhile.

mac... bull$#!%.

Ooooops ... Thanks for the correction ... And DAWGLOVER was right .. I was REFFERING to Zona ...

Horton's been a BUST since then underachieving at every stop ..

Cal - U made one good point ... U listed the players at the position groups and asked ... WHATS NOT AVERAGE? ... Great question .. Problem is the CORRECT ANSWER is NONE of it is average .. It's either BELOW AVG. OR WELL BELOW AVERAGE ...

The secondary is HORRIFIC .... There's two maybe three NON BELOW AVERAGE players in the entire group ....

I'm not quite sure what u expect(Ed) or what u think a new coach could get out of these guys ...

Like I said dude .. And u can argue over it all u want but itain't gonna make it ANY DIFFERENT ..

Hue saw SUMPTIN in Horton through all that FAILURE and I'm sure nothing has happened here that has Hue going .. WTF if he was willing to ignore it when Horton actually had talent to coach ..

But u go ahead and keep beating your head against the wall looking for answers that just aren't there .. *L*

Cal, while you are right about a few positions, you are so wrong about others. Exactly how many of those you listed would be starting on other teams? You severely overrate many of our players on D.

Outside of Haden, everyone in our secondary could easily be upgraded on. Same for ILB and OLB.

So far only Nassib has looked like a pass rusher and none of our LB's have looked even average in coverage.

At some point you have to stick it out with someone, and at the very least, bring in coaches that have the same philosophy as the ones you've let go. Our problem, especially with defense, has been that we bring in a guy that wants to do the complete opposite of the guy before, so we have to let go of half the roster just to get guys that fit the system that the new guy wants to run.

This isn't an overnight thing. Defense at this level is very much about 11 guys knowing what they are supposed to do and trusting the other 10 guys around them. You only get this through years of repetition and getting familiar with the guys around you. New England is able to plug and play just about anybody into their system and it works. Why? Because the system has been around since 2000. If one guy leaves, the other 10 can help the new guy get up to speed in no time. If a D coordinator leaves, they don't switch up the system.

Imagine I give you and 10 of your buddies an encyclopedia volume. Say the Letter "M". You have to memorize the entire thing and answer questions about it on a weekly basis. Chances are you'd break the thing down by sections so each guy would have a specific part to know and probably one or two other guys would learn similar parts so that they could overlap and cover if somebody forgets something.

Now, it's going to take you weeks, if not longer, to get that thing memorized. It's not an overnight thing! Even if you have "smart" guys and "dumb" guys in your group, given enough time, even the dumber guys will know their specific part and the smarter guys might even know what sections they need to provide a little extra cover for. Even average guys will start to look "smart" at some point, because they know their little section so well.

If at some point, I remove one of the guys from your group and replace him with a new guy, it's much easier to get him up to speed, because the rest of the group can show him what he needs to learn, and he also has one or two other guys that know his section that can help cover for him until he gets up to speed.

But if I remove the Encyclopedia Volume and swap it out with another. Everyone is back at square one. Add to that, I replace 4 or 5 of your guys with new people, then you're really setting things back.

To stick with the metaphor, if we're really dead set on "swapping out the encyclopedia", then we should be sticking with the same letter as the one we had, just a different publisher. If we had a 3-4 with a cover-2 type scheme, then bring in a D-coordinator that wants to run the same thing. The guys will at least have a sense of familiarity and not be so behind.

People think that there's this "magic bullet" defensive scheme that we can plug in and magically have a top 5 defense. It's not going to happen. It has everything to do with the personnel knowing exactly what they're doing each snap and not have to sit and think about it because they've done it 100 times already.

J/c
Just to add to something else that hasn't been said:

- Players need to gell in a defense, that usually takes time.

- we do need upgrades or time for their development at positions

Also a question added to yours, say they fire Horton...then who do you promote? Who do you bring in?

The way I look at it, it's a developmental year. I ride with Ray for the season, and if you fire him you wait till the offseason when teams start firing coaches, coaches leave their teams for greener pastures, then you have more options to choose.

Now if Ray hops on a plane and goes to Vegas with a few players to go party it up during the season....

I was wondering how long a thread like this would take to hit the board.

I agree w/a lot of the responses that have already been given.

The Brown's defense is hurting in several areas. I think we have the worst secondary in the league. Haden is the best of them, but he is overrated. T. Williams stinks. Taylor is hot and cold.

Our FS should be a dime player at best. The two other safeties stink in coverage. A lot of people liked Campbell at the end of last year and a lot like Kindred, but both guys are similar players. They like to hit hard, but have absolutely no clue in coverage. I am continually amazed by the choices they make in coverage.

I will say that I wish Horton would NEVER, EVER line either of those two up at deep saftey again. They continually make mistakes and provide ZERO over the top help.

I want to mention one more thing. A lot of people crucified last year's staff for using LBers who usually play on the line in coverage. You brought it up w/this year's team. I have a question for you guys-------------Do you watch other NFL games? Because all teams do it. It is not unique to the Browns.......either last year or this year. They ALL do it. Hell, I see DT's and DE's dropping in coverage. It's called "mixing it up." I wish that criticism would disappear.

I just hope that Haslam has learned his lesson and will give all these guys enough time to get things done. It's way too early to talk about firing anyone.

I agree. But in the mean time, Hue's job is to get the kind of game called he wants, and I cannot believe the weekly scores, points, yards, no sacks is what we go for, but we do it the same dumb way. Change some stuff that is killing us on D; stop doing it. Just a bit more hard core crashing than silly dropping linemen. Stuff receivers at the line. It can't all be personnel. First check for responsibility is two coaches on the sideline. Are we really embracing this as some "new normal" we have to live with? Simplify a bit. Do fewer exotic things, and target doing a few things better. We don't seem to adjust to compensate much, and go down with the ship weekly.
We need turnovers and fluke scores and takeaways on D rather than 4th quarter giveaways. Or we should be trying to get there.

Bard, the Brown's defense sucked last year. Remember? And we have worse players this year than we did last year......at least in terms of what they can provide this year.

Pit, I wasn't making a statement as to the quality of our players, because honestly, it's hard to tell whether some of them are decent or not, or will be, or can be. It's more of a question about which player stay and which go, if we're so talentless? Are we talking wholesale replacement of the entire defense? That ain't happening. So to your point, is the emphasis on this year's draft on secondary and LBs? And if so, will that make all the difference? Finally, are you saying, beyond your thoughts on talent, that Horton is the guy?

This is strictly my opinion on the talent level on those players. Who the hell knows what the Browns think or do and frankly my evaluations and those of many on here have beaten theirs for years now that little trust in their "expertise" should be expected.

I'll start with Poyer. Probably the worst starting FS in the league. He must be one hell of a dude (and he probably is) that he keeps surviving regime changes and getting more and more playing time. FS play around the league is down for years now, so to be among the worst is really, really bad. I'd say FS is the biggest pure talent need on defense.

On the DL, there's not one above AVG 3 down player. Thank god Shelton at least has stepped up defending the run, as last year he was completely useless. That said, he's still useless vs the pass, so that makes him a rotational, one dimensional DL. Good at what he does, but limited since he's bad vs pass and it's a passing league now, so....

Nassib has shown promise and is one I have a little faith in to become an above AVG 3 down player in time. Meder is diem a dozen rotational DL. Cooper is the pass rushing version of Shelton, but even more inconsistent. On paper the idea is to "platoon" them, but hasn't worked out well yet.

LB: good god, where to start? Kirksey might be the most overrated Browns player right now. He's not physical enough and not much of a blitzer. His best use would be that of a nickel LB covering RB/TE on passing downs. As a 3 down starter, he's well below average.

Davis might be the closest thing to average in terms of talent, but I don't expect him to care about this team enough to reach his ceiling. Think Paul Kruger effectiveness.

The rooks, Ogbah's and Schobert's tape from college was pretty bad, so was Orchard's, so I'm not surprised that they suck and we don't have any kind of pass rush.

DB: I like both Campbell and Kindred and TJ Ward-like in the box SS. Both are physical and good tacklers, but they suck in coverage. They looks worse than they are because of bad LB and FS play. They have to do stuff they shouldn't and wouldn't be asked to do on a more talented roster.

I actually think our CBs might be the strength of this D, lol. Haden can be good, he's inconsistent, but still not the problem. Not much of a leader though, so he's not helping there. J.Taylor is better than T.Williams was last year, though that's not saying too much and the Buddy-C guy looks like a decent find. Overall as a group, the CBs might be the closest thing to average the defense has to offer.

To recap: our front 7 absolutely sucks and our FS is worse. There's your problem.

Now go root for the Indians

Aside from the lacking talent, you're good with Horton? Are you okay with his history of allowing 27ppg? And you're okay with putting linebackers on Edelman?

Look, I get that know one wants to hear "let fire the DC". I realize how stupid it sounds. But that's all about appearances. I don't give a crap about appearances. I didn't give a crap how it sounded when I said Holmgren was incompetent when he was first hired, I didn't give a crap about what people thought when I said Bowe was washed up, I didn't care that folks were upset when I belittled the FO for not taking Wentz, and and I don't care now. I think Horton is a problem. I think time will bare that out.

The D is sad, and the whole defensive showing is disgusting. I don't see the issue as strictly a talent issue. A guy gets beat, he gets beat. A player whiffs or is out of position, that's on them. A player is outclassed, then so be it. When the entire defense looks like they're out of their league, that's on the DC. JMHO

Go TRIBE!

I said this before the season started, but evidently no one paid any attention to it, but Horton dumps his entire defense on his players, and lets them learn it as they play it. He doesn't do a little here, and then a little more there. He lets the players make mistakes early, and corrects them in tape sessions.

That is why the defense got better later in the year when he was here before. The players start figuring it out around mid-season.

Obviously that doesn't work well when you are changing coaches every year ..... but the players should know the whole defense before long, and should make fewer and fewer mistakes as the year progresses.

Now, if there is no defensive improvement, then I could see Horton being in jeopardy. However his track record is that his defenses get better as the players figure it all out.

I completely agree with everyone's remarks about the FS stinking.

I mean you can't expect Ray to make chicken salad out of chicken crap. What have ya'll said about another year with Jimmy O'Niel? At least pieces like Danny are playing light years better. Kids like Nassib and Ogbah appears to be doing in some good direction. We've surprisingly have been doing okay against the run it seems.

A player replaced here and there, and I'm not saying we'd be elite, but damn maybe we could devise a means to cover a TE. I'd love to know the play call and each player's assignment on those plays. If it is Ray Horton calling a crap call, and he's yet to correct himself - then yeah... Hue shouldn't put up with that. But I just don't know.

If otherwise, give the man another year at the very least...

At least 4 more months at a minimum IMO

Other than occasionally lining-up Kindred or Campbell at deep safety [I won't call it FS], yes, I am okay w/what he is doing.

Cal, it's tough when you have a terrible secondary and no true pass rushers. Heck, some of the dudes we got off of the streets and practice squads look better than the guys we drafted in terms of pass rushers.

I am not including Nassib in that. He has looked pretty good as a pass rusher at times.

Anyway..........terrible secondary and poor pass rushers spells disaster.