DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2016 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 20 Chargers 17 Post Game Thoughts!!

Didn't Crow score twice? and Haden is still injured.. Needs off season surgery..

Does anyone else feel like Duke Johnson is our best offensive skill player and that he doesn't get the ball nearly enough?

I feel like he should be touching the ball twenty times a game at least.

No, I think Crow is better than Duke.

Tough getting enough opportunities for BOTH HB's and then trying to include the WR's with limited possessions...

Hopefully with a better oline, we'll get more possessions and can feed any and everyone who's hungry.

I didn't mean getting Johnson 20 carries, but just touches. He is dynamic when he gets the ball in space.

carries/touches, all the same to me.. I do prefer Duke get more catches than carries tho. His agility is amazing, so definitely an asset when one on one with a LB.

I just saw that Demario Davis only played 34% of defensive snaps. Kirksey played 100%. Nassib, Ogbah, Meder, and Shelton were on the field together most of the game.

Anyone worried about us playing a "3-4 defense" should remember this.

Philly's pick dropping out of the top 10 really sucks.

Mostly because that crazy idea of trading up to 2, and getting both Garrett AND Allen was so wonderful..

Ogbah and Garrett at DE.

Shelton and Allen at DT.

Then you still have high motor guys like Nassib and Meder on the bench?

Sigh.

We gotta trade down...

I don't think it's fair to say this yet. For one, some WR'ers take longer to develop. Also, those two guys have significantly better QB's throwing them the ball. Hell, Brees is/should be a MVP candidate. Coleman has had RG3 and Kessler throwing him the ball. And lastly, his injury happened right after his best game of the season and took him out for an important part of the season.

From what I've seen, Coleman has his moments where he shows he can be a stud. He doesn't go down easy, he is a monster with the ball in his hands IMO. His route running is going to need work. And he needs to stay healthy. But I still think Coleman is going to be a hell of a player.

Remember what the Eagles paid us to draft up to #2? Do you want to trade that for a non-QB?

I don't know if this is a joke or not, but we should definitely trade down with the second first round pick. Banking the future first round picks is a great strategy.

That being said, I'd much rather have him than Randy Lerner. I'm under the impression that Haslam actually cares about the result and its important to him, that he takes pride in it. Seems like he wears his emotions on his sleeve sometimes, reminds me of myself or other fans.

We finally won a game. I didn't even feel like a win with the way the team played, but a win is a win I guess. This team needed it in a worse way.

Going win-less this year would have been almost impossible with all the really bad teams, but I thought our team was going to do it. We just got lucky that SD's offense was horrid and Rivers played like crap and that the refs gave us all the extra help we needed.

The win was great, but even with this win you can see multiple glaring holes with this team. The main one is QB and we have nobody to build around. If we got Sunday's win with a guy like Wentz, then I would feel it would be something to build on and a year of experience. Next year, in all likelihood, we'll be starting all over at the position. That is, if we're lucky. Which means, we're just that much farther away from competing for anything.

I believe thats simply not true. You do not have to start a rebuild with a new QB in year one. If anything, im glad our QBOTF isnt playing behind this line, learning bad habits like Wentz is doing now.

That said, they have to hit on a QB next year, no matter who or where it comes from.

Wentz is struggling in Philly. Do you think he'd be better here?

If Went had been winless as the Browns QB until week 16 people on this board would of said he sucks and wanted everyone fired..

Wait..

in all honesty, watching dak and zeke makes me wonder ... if we had drafted both of them, would they be anywhere near as successful? I actually doubt it

We've allowed 62 sacks so far this season. Dallas, 25. Putting anyone behind this line is cruel and unusual punishment.

Read what I wrote again. Where did I say that this was a final evaluation? Please note the word tense. Do you see how they are in present tense?

It's more than fair.

I like you as a poster, but I hate when people keep making this point. What, we should not draft good players because they wouldn't be as good here? What the heck!!!

And I think Wentz is playing pretty damn good. This rhetoric that he is stinking the joint out is being made by people who don't watch the games.

Maybe Zeke would have done great and our offense wouldn't have given up half the rushed throws, sacks, or hits to the QB causing alot of injuries and concussions. And Dak probably wouldn't have started a single game.

We can spin this about a gazillion ways. But why?

You make a very valid point. People keep suggesting that getting great players would be a waste because of our OL.

That has to be one of the stupidest things I read on here! How is this team ever going to get better without better talent? You need good talent to compete. Let's say we do improve the OL. Will it help that much with Kessler in the pocket? Of course not. He is a very limited QB.

When all is said and done, without good talent to build around, you won't go far. Having those strong building blocks is the future of your teams core. Without them, you have nothing to build around.

I would take Zeke and Dak all day over some of the bone headed picks that are on this roster.

Each season you have to solidify needy positions on your roster. At least two positions must have defined answers. We can't seem to accomplish that. When we do have the picks to accomplish that, we either trade down or make terrible decisions.

Nothing will change if that continues.

Sign makers probably not as dumb as one would think, their sign did get alot of air time. Mission accomplished!!!

I don't believe that is what people mean when they say that. My interpretation is that people want to point out that you can not assume that players on other teams would have the same production here. I don't think anyone would say not to draft them. Just that here their numbers are unlikely to be as good.

I take nothing more nor anything less from it

The reason I say this is because of the "yeah but" factor. ie.... "Yeah but if we would have drafted him he wouldn't have been as productive."

The "yeah but" factor makes it seem like some excuse. The fact is, you would still have that talent on your team. You would still have potential game changers at positions where we don't.

I guess we just perceive it a little differently.

WED DEC. 28, 2016

Browns Get One to Grow On





Inside an emotional scene in Cleveland, where Hue Jackson’s team closed the book on a dismal 2016 with a victory for its veteran leaders.




Today, I’ll take the top of my column today to report on the Cleveland Browns getting off the schneid.


When he took the field Sunday for Cleveland, all-pro left tackle Joe Thomas, the best player on the worst team in recent football history, was 3-32 in his previous 35 games. His coach, Hue Jackson, was 0-14 in his rookie year with the Browns.


“I’m sure people would look at you funny if you told them, here we were, 0-14, with nothing to play for that people would see, and everybody thinking we’re going 0-16, and we really wanted to win this game badly,” Thomas said from Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon. “This was something really important to the people on this team, the people on the coaching staff and front office, and the people in this city. In 10 years, when I’m gone from this game, I’ll look back and wonder, Why was I so emotional back on that day in 2016 when we played San Diego? You just had to be in the stadium Sunday to feel it. You had to be in our locker room. The fans just wanted a win so bad. So did we.”


During the week before taking the field against 5-10 San Diego, Jackson acknowledged he thought of the obvious. “This was our shot,” he said. “We couldn’t be going to Pittsburgh with them needing to win to make the playoffs or for seeding and … ” He didn’t have to finish. Jackson’s an NFL veteran. The Browns weren’t going to Pittsburgh and pulling a Buster Douglas on Mike Tyson. They had to beat San Diego.


The night before the game, in a downtown hotel, Jackson told his players this was their last opportunity to play together in Cleveland, as Browns. He told them things would change, big time, in the off-season. He told them that for Joe Thomas and Andrew Hawkins and Gary Barnidge and Joe Haden and for Tramon Williams, veterans who did things the right way, the young guys needed to win this game.


“We owe it to those guys,” Jackson told his team.



Then Jackson sat by himself in his room, for 20, 30, 40 minutes, looking at the game plan. “I looked at it 20 times at least,” Jackson told me after the game. “I sat there knowing we had a good plan to win, and thinking we were 0-14, and going back to all the different games we played, how many ways we’d lost. But this week, I felt really good about our plan. Mostly, I felt good about our players. They just worked. They never mailed it in. My ending scenario had us winning.”


But his ending scenario usually did.



When Jackson walked onto the field for warmups Saturday, Christmas Eve, he saw the signs. We Believe in Hue.And In Hue We Trust.What fans, he thought. He felt a different energy in warmups, from his players and the fans who showed up. The team built a 20-17 lead with six minutes left in the third quarter and hung on desperately. Cleveland had the ball five more times, trying to buttress the lead. And the Browns quarterback—first Robert Griffin III, then Cody Kessler—was sacked once on the first drive, twice on the second, and then once each on the third, fourth and fifth drives. Hanging on. Desperately hanging on. With 3:49 to play, the Chargers lined up for a 32-yard field goal. The Browns’ nose man on the rush team, Jamie Meder, played college football at nearby Ashland College. Meder grew up in the very blue-collar Cleveland suburb of Parma.




Meder pushed past the Charger center, and then the right guard, and stuck his right arm straight up in the air.


THUMP.


“You hear that thump,” Jackson said, “and you think, ‘Something good is happening to this football team.”


As Thomas said after the game: “The ‘Pierogi Prince of Parma’ does it again. That man is awesome. He is one of my favorites. I think he is playing in the polka band here this weekend on Christmas Day so if you guys get a chance, go out and watch him. He is the accordion player.”


“So fitting a guy from here makes the play,” said Jackson. “So fitting that a guy who does nothing but whatever’s best for the team—plays out of position, plays anywhere—makes the play of the game.”


Afterward, Jackson was asked what he said to Meder. “ ‘Great job!’” he said. “So many other things I wanted to say to him, I needed to say to him, I wished I’d said to him. But what do you think of at that moment, after the biggest play?”


It was a blur after the game. Jackson tried to say something to his team, but choked up after, “I told you guys about the veteran players, okay,” … and then couldn’t get anything else out. Thomas, weeping, stood next to Jackson as Barnidge stepped up with a game ball. “For sticking with us for the whole year … hasn’t been the way we wanted … but this one’s for you, Coach,” the vet tight end said.



Somebody yelled “MERRY CHRISTMAS COACH” and then there was a scrum around Jackson. Thomas hugged Jackson.


“I love you, Joe,” Jackson said.


“I love you too, coach,” Thomas said.


Jackson had a 15-second embrace with GM Sashi Brown. Jackson hugged half the locker room, and owner Jimmy Haslam. Jackson said this is what it’s supposed to feel like.


“Hopefully,” Jackson said, “what we did is a glimpse of what the future should be and could be. And will be.”


The most interesting thing about my conversation Tuesday with Thomas: He realized one of the truly important things about this first win. “We didn’t lose the first overall draft pick, because San Francisco won too,” Thomas said.


Now there’s a man who understands the real purpose of the season, after the Browns’ year all went so south. Draft season is pretty important in northeast Ohio. If the standings don’t change between now and Sunday night, the Browns will hold the first and 10th overall picks in the first round when the draft kicks off April 27 in Philadelphia. It’s almost 2017, and hope springs eternal in Cleveland—whether there’s reason for it or not.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/12/28/cleve...flow_twitter_si

oh I forgot...Seth Devalve showed a lot of heart and desire going up for that seam pass

Didn't get a chance to add anything after the game, because I was out of town for Christmas, but wow what a finish. So glad to see these guys get a win.

It means nothing, and in fact, it almost cost us an overall pick (thanks SF), but if you saw the video in the locker room, it meant a lot to those guys to get their coach a win.

It's been a crappy year, we still have our annual last game pounding against the Steelers, and there are a lot of guys on this team who have no business being first on the depth chart, but I really hope the ownership and front office stays firm on their faith in Hue Jackson. I believe he can coach. I know there has been some questionable play calling from him at times this year, but when you just don't have the players, and are constantly playing from behind, you're probably going to call plays that look awful. It's simply how the league works. You tend to look worse when you chase, and the Browns are pretty much always chasing.

I do see a lot of positives with some of the young guys in this group. I love our tandem of running backs. I still see some potential with Corey Coleman. I really like the way Ogbah plays. I think Kirksey is a legitimate starter.

Best thing of all, that stupid parade got canceled. This was dumb stunt put together by people who only wanted twitter followers, and dolled it up by offering to donate proceeds to charity.

The parade organizer ended up donating over $10,000 to the Cleveland Food Bank, and in a pretty classy gesture, the Browns matched that donation to the Food Bank.