DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2017 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 18 Steelers 21 Post Game Thoughts

-Kindred looks to be a much improved, much more well rounded safety than he did last season.

-I would have liked to see us in Ben's face more often, but overall I'm pleased with how our guys did in a mono a mono approach. Having Peppers back that deep seemed funky, but I think it was edromeo that laid out the philosophy behind that. It seemed to work for the most part. I would have liked to see Peppers in a better position to make some plays happen, but if a team like the Steelers has second thoughts about going deep because he's back there, it's all good.

-I know Bell was rusty, but this D handled Pitt's accursed bubble screen very well.

-Kizer impressed me. He didn't look lost to me. He did look like he was seeing and processing what was going on, which I think is a good thing. Clearly the game has to slow down for him, but he did recognize some opportunities to swing for the fences, so good on him! I was impressed with his toughness.. .took some big cheap shots and got right back up!

-Run game... meh. I think it could have been better earlier. I don't know if our O-line was just a tad on the disjointed side, or if Pitt was really that disruptive.

-Honestly I know this isn't going to be the same Steeler's team it will be throughout the rest of the season. But I don't think that should detract from how competitive we played. If we had a QB with a little more experience, this would have been one of those games we should have been able to take advantage of and pulled out the W.


I have to say though, that after this game I'm actually feeling a lot better about the next 3.

I will respond before reading the posts already in the thread.

I was at the game. First time there for opening day, first time at a Steelers game. Took my two boys. Great time, great atmosphere, great weather.

My observations, from my untrained eye:

*** Special teams:

Great start with the blocked punt for a TD. Next couple almost blocked but he had good kicks, when he got them off.

Gonzalez did not put any kickoffs out of the EZ, like he did in preseason. Touchbacks, still, but not out of the EZ. No big deal, just an observation.

That last kickoff, from the 50, not sure of the strategy behind the pooch kick. What were they hoping would happen?

Peppers - not a lot of chances on the return. Bobbled one but covered it. Taking a KO out of the EZ and only getting to the 12 was not a good choice.

*** Offense:

Kizer has the tools, and outside of DA I have not felt this way about a Browns QB in a looong time. He is a rookie and will look like one at times, but we will have to learn to live with that.

Too many sacks. I know some on Kizer, but maybe not all of them? Definitely held on too long at times. And the sacks were big sacks, 7-9 yards. I wonder if maybe the OL was at fault sometimes, as we could not run for crap.

Kizer had some guys open deep and overthrew them. If he showed some accuracy on those throws then today people would be talking about how badly Haden was torched. We had no issues getting receivers behind him. None at all. Even though supposedly healthy, he looked like the battered Haden from the last couple of years. Big cushion, slow, grabby. Still can tackle, though. He just did not look good. The talks of him going step for step with DHB in practice? Not buying it.

Britt? Second and 19 and you're wide open over the middle for the 1st down. Youy are hit in stride, in the hands. You have one job on this team and that is to catch the @#$%^ ball.

*** Defense:

Improvement, that's for sure. Held Pitts to 14 (though the last drive would have been points, most likely). Agressive and fast.

Pitt was ineffective with the run. Only one rush of any consequence, and of course it was when we could least afford it, on the final possession.

One long gain on a pass that was deflected and another long gain on the pass on the final drive (and it was a good catch, correct call to not overturn it), and that was really it. And a long pass interference that was questionable. I was pleased with the D, though we need to learn to not leave the short stuff so open, and clean up the tackling.

Nice sack of Ben by Nassib.

AB still killing us. And if anyone things Haden would have helped contain him, I don't think so. We may miss him in a few weeks when AC Green comes to town, but AB not the best matchup for Haden.

*** Overall:

Disappointed at the loss, but encouraged at the future.

I do think at the end of the season, when we have 4-5 wins there will be posters who will talk about "how close" we were to 10 wins and the playoffs. And they will bring this game up as one "that got away" because we lost by 3, and had that blocked punt for a TD. This game did not get away from us. As close at it was, it never felt like Pitt was not in the driver's seat. They were in control and we kept it close.

I don't like it either. I'd gladly take 15 & ejection if some of our guys went on an ass-kicking rampage after a hit like that to one of ours. Ironically though, it was all that dirty play that probably kept us in the game.

(Note: they're clearly being taught to do this. Piling on after the player is down, aiming at shoulders & such with the crown of their helmets. It's blatant, and they should be sanctioned. They're too consistent with it to think otherwise.)

I think some of the problem is that the league must not being looking at trends within a team. Sure, it's obvious when the same player keeps getting flagged/fined every week for dirty play (a la Suh).. but week after week there is at least 1 or 2 plays by the Steelers who purposefully take that unsporstmanlike shot clearly to cause an injury.

And why not? what's a 15yrd penalty if you can knock the starting QB out of the game?

I don't think those hits were dirty. It's more a case of Brown's fans whining again.

Antonio Brown is an amazing receiver. Once he gets going? It's hard to stop him (sighs).

I completely agree. It's calculated, strategic, and an ingrained part of their defensive philosophy. I love that the refs were calling them on it, but what good does that do a team if they take out your star players? (Which is clearly the intent.) The league needs to look at this, and start taking away money, then draft picks should they continue this practice. Unfortunately, the league would be loath to sanction their beloved Steelers.

Yeah, he really is amazing. We shut down everyone but him and James.

The defense looked good yesterday. I'm encouraged.

One guy I forgot to mention earlier was BBC. He looked fast and decisive.

Yes, the Steelers were clearly being penalized 15 yards for "Browns Fan Whininess".

The calls were the right calls. That's the rules nowadays. I just didn't find them dirty. The rules have changed.

I just hate reading every week after another loss about how bad the Browns got screwed, or this team is favored, or this team is dirty, or how the NFL and the refs are cheating the Browns.

It's the talk of losers.

Well I would have started Hogan ( that is just me ) . We don't have a #1 CB so you loose the AB battle even before it starts .. Crow is Crow and I don't think he will be here next year anyway .. As stated , handicapped by only having three Wide Outs ready to go .. Williams missed the Boat by NOT dialing up a few Blitz's .. You have to love the overall play of the D .. The next five games on the schedule should be fun to watch ..

Vers , your nuts my friend ! lol

Calls were right, but the Browns fans are whining? Really?

I'm not putting this loss on the refs, the NFL, dirty play or anything else. In fact I've already stated that the results would have been MUCH more one-sided had they played it cleanly. But when your QB (or anyone else) is on the ground, and a defensive player dives crown-first into his shoulder, ribs, head or whatever, that's not only a penalty, it's dirty play. And it's been that way as long as I've been watching football, regardless of the new rules. When a guy is down, you don't dive at him head first. Period. This is a common practice with the Steelers. It's taught and it's applauded by them. The refs reacted to it. It cost the Steelers several points. It they don't stop the league needs to take notice and start doing something about it. JMHO

One thing I was thinking about was the penalty on our last TD. We scored but the Steelers got flagged for 15 yards, personal foul or whatever. That gets assessed on the kickoff, and what a waste. With most kickers putting it out of the back of EZ from the 35, what exactly does kicking off from the 50 actually gain the team? That's the idea of a penalty, to give some benefit from the team who was wronged.

Would it have been better to assess it on the ensuing 2 point conversion? Would going for 2 from the 1 yard line be better than kicking off from the 50? We converted anyway.

Or, and this would be messy because of all of the other things that could happen, assess the penalty after the ensuing kickoff. Move the team back 15 yards from the end of the return? Of course the kickoff and return could easily have its own penalty, so would you assess that as well as the 15 yarder from before? And what if the KO return is for a TD? Or what if it was an onside kick?

Just rambling, some random thoughts.

Shazier's hit ?

TJ Watt trying to hit Kizer well after he was down (thankfulyl completely ineffectively)

And the DB leading with his head (spearing) Coleman at the goal line.

Those plays weren't dirty? They shouldn't have been penalties?

When I played 30 years ago I was taught not to do any of those ... and you think they are legit in today's game?

I guess we disagree.

I think Shazier hit was a spear. But I saw no problems with the rest

The hit on Coleman was close but it looked shoulder first. I know we would be pissed if they called that on us

But your right it's the new NFL. Soft

I understand and agree that we have had plenty of instances where as fans we feel unfairly hard done by and it's something of a crutch to blame bad calls, dirtly play ... whatever.

After so many losing season's it's what fans do. We do the same with the players, the coaches, the owner .... it's sort of human nature imo.

That said - also imo - it looked like Pit were obviously coached to lead with their helmet in an effort to hurt players. It happened way too frequently to be coincidence.

Totally agree. It's one of the most useless penalties, and a screwed-up rule (like a five and a fifteen off-setting or one penalty off-setting two). It needs to be assessed after the kickoff, IMO.

Penalty can not be assessed on 2pt attempt.

BBC did have a really good game... he laid the wood on Bell on that one play near the goal line!

As for the hits... look, I know the difference between a good, hard hit and a dirty, intentional hit. I think Ricardo took a helluva shot on his deep reception.

But in EVERY single game we've played against the Steelers since Harrison's shot on Colt, a Steeler's player takes a head shot at our QB. EVery single damn game. That's not a coincidence. They also do this in other games too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMVRUhtWBEk

50 seconds is the clearest replay .... to be the DB is looking to decapitate Coleman.

As for the NFL being soft ... based on the number and extent of data coming out on past players I personally don't expect the today's players to suffer brain damage for my entertainment. jmo.

You are correct. Thanks

Question .... the hit on (I think it was Louis) WR where there was a long delay before the flag came.

I understand that the DB hit our player with his shoulder pad ... it wasn't helmet to helmet.

BUT - is that shoulder to helmet hit legal? Louis was in the process of trying to catch the ball. To me he is a defenseless receiver at that point. . . he bobbled the catch and was trying to 're-catch' the ball when the hit happened. That adds some uncertainty. But to me - even with a clean catch the receiver would not have had time to get his feet down and turn or make a "football move" .... and to me that hit to the head, while not helmet to helmet, was still an easy call.

Or am I interpreting the rules incorrectly?

I think there is a lot of latitude in that "defenseless receiver" rule. (This actually speaks to the "soft NFL" that others were alluding to.) They have to protect the players, and I get that, so I don't have a real problem with the latitude they show. Having said that, when it happened I told my wife, that hit is on Louis. If he would've caught the ball initially he wouldn't have hung himself out to dry. JMHO

j/c:

This is why I despise all the whining about the calls and the woe is me attitude of Brown's fans.

Once a person brings up the calls, the thread evolves into this BS instead of talking about actual football.

Knock yourselves out. I'll stop posting and reading this thread.

The rule now is basically saying you can't blow up a receiver when they're trying to catch the ball. This should probably be looked at like: "If you aren't wearing pads and a helmet, would you make the same hit?" If not, then it's a flag.

However, outside of the hit on Coleman and the hit on Ricardo, which were "blow up the receiver" type calls (although they did lead with their helmets too), the other hits were just downright dirty. Hitting Kizer at the end of his slide, hitting Kizer after he was already sacked, etc. That's not Browns fans whining, it's just typical dirty play from the Steelers.

I know, it's ridiculous. Post Game Thoughts should really be moderated more to your high standards.

At the time, I thought it was dumb, but looking back at it, I don't think it was as stupid as I felt initially.

I think the play happened exactly as you described ... Brown caught the ball, Hue called time-out to stop the clock as you normally would in that instance. It looked like a catch from what I saw live. Then the jumbo-tron plays the replay, they show the ball popping out, and Hue throws the challenge flag.

Now, whether it was a good challenge is debatable. Looking at it myself, I thought it was still a fairly obvious catch. But like others have said, the NFL has been pretty wishy-washy about "making a football move" and such. Maybe he felt it was a last ditch effort to get a lucky call and go for the win/tie with time still left on the clock? If he hadn't of challenged, then if we're fortunate, we maybe get the ball back with 20 seconds to go? Then people crucify him for not trying to challenge? I can think of worse time-management crimes to pin on him.

It was a hail mary and I don't blame Hue for challenging it. IIRC, that was 3rd down. A faint hope of incomplete means the Steelers had to punt deep in their own territory. The Browns would have the ball with over 2 minutes remaining with 1 TO left only needing a FG to tie.

It was a risk worth taking. Just didn't pan out.

I think you and Vers are right. What idiot would spend a TO in order to decide if he wants to risk losing a TO.

I don't that initially the play came into question. I don't think Hue's intent was taking the TO to review the play to see if it's worth challenging. I do think that during the initial TO his guys in the booth alerted him that the odds were very good to have that call reversed. So he trusts them and then challenges and loses.

I know. I was not suggesting we had the option of having it assessed on the 2 point conversion. My point was that it would be more beneficial if that was an option.

Yes, at that point in the game I would much rather be sitting in that situation than in a situation where it doesn't matter what we do.

On another note, I was thinking about the run game, and it would be easy to wonder about the effectiveness of the o-line, and the ineffectiveness of Crow, but weren't the Steelers stacking the line most of the day? I think their strategy was to take away the run and make Kizer throw. I didn't see many holes, and Crow's dreaded forward lean didn't help, but the Steelers did a great job shutting down our run game. Eventually, as Kizer gets better, teams will need to back off from that approach and (especially as our O-line gels) the run game should open up.

Refs blew the call late to Anty Brown (dropped it under himself). Might have changed game complexion.

Passive D in 3rd quarter was a forced march. Still pleased overall, and Nassib grabbed my attention! So did DeValve.

Some tthoughts...

The Browns were competitive in this game. If not for a special teams flub its arguable that the Browns could have won this game.

I like that Hue kept giving the ground game a chance, even though they struggled. The Steelers were a strong run front last year and its not easy to keep stick with it when they're not having success. When you run the ball against good fronts sometimes there are gonna be games like this. But sticking to the run even still sets up play-action and eats the clock.

I think the fault can be spread all around, but I ain't mad at them. I thought a few plays could have been checked out of, I thought they could have schemed to run against nickel fronts, I thought the interior OL could have opened more holes and I thought Crow missed a couple reads.

Run game: C-(mainly because they stayed with it)

Myles G might have been a difference maker yesterday. P-Borg got a fluke early. Kizer missed a wide-open receiver in the end zone. Coulda happened!

Well, at least we battled . . . .

Fair post, Hack. This D bottled up a rusty Bell. Apparently our gameplay had a number of spectator sacks built in, like a number we can play with competitively. Still. much improved for us. Yours was so-so IMO. But each team has upside.

Yeah, if Dayes the up back on the punt team lines up on the left instead of the right the punt probably wouldn't have been blocked. Pitt had 5 guys rushing from the left side and we only had 4 blockers to that side.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw yesterday. Might be some hope for more than a few wins this season. Defense played great up front. DK will learn when not to take those sacks. Run game needs a spark for sure.

The Bad Challenge: I was a bit confused that the long pass at the end of the game was looked at. Waste of time. It was not NFL "clear evidence".
But...there was a HUGE hold to spring Ben loose so he could throw that. Right in front of a ref too. Oh well, spilled milk.

GO BROWNS! Woof.

I think the only reason he did it was because time was running out and if he could have managed to get it overturned Pittsburgh would have 3rd and 12 from their own 18 and if we could have stopped on the 3rd down we should have had good field position after the punt with only needing a FG to tie.

I didn't read the entire thread but here goes anyway.....

OL

For the money invested on the OL, I certainly didn't see the run blocking everyone said we would see. But then I wasn't as impressed with the signings as many others were. If the run blocking doesn't improve it could be a long season. While it's true that Kizer held the ball too long on some of those sacks, it's also true that on some of those sacks, their D got to him before he had a chance to do anything. There's enough blame to go around on those sacks. The OL is a unit I really wasn't very impressed with.

Secondary

Kindred looked great! He's progressed by leaps and bounds! Body Calhoun is also a player who seems to be on the rise. I believed from his play last year that he was the type of player who would progress but in the case of both of these guys, it seems that are stepping up. Otherwise I didn't see anything to get excited about in this unit.

D front seven

Everyone seemed to do what needed to be done in stepping up in the absence of Garrett. Ogbah stepped up as well as Nasib that stood out to me.

Kizer

While there's good and bad here, the bad was expected and the good just can't be taught. As I mentioned earlier, some of those sacks were on Kizer, some weren't. The speed of the NFL is something all QB's have to adjust to and Kizer is no different. He will have to get used to surveying the field much faster and get rid of the ball quicker. Throwing the ball away and living for another play is something he'll have to get used to. As much as Browns fans hate to see it, he needs a constant check down option as a safety valve. All young QB's do.

I think what everyone should keep in mind is that every O in the NFL is a little rusty going into their first game. At least almost every O. What we saw yesterday is a snap shot, not a feature length film. Yet after saying that, I liked the snap shot.