DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2018 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 14 Chargers 38 Postame Thoughts

Aaron Wilson
‏ @AaronWilson_NFL

Browns worked out six players today, group includes former TCU WR John Diarse and two other WRs, plus FB Dimitri Flowers, two OLs and a LB

You can always put us both on ignore. It's your call.

I want to get back to something I said earlier about Landry. After I made that post, I heard Victor Curz [former NFL WR] talking about how wide receivers get upset when they are open and the qb doesn't get them the ball. He talked about how it affects their attitudes.

We can debate whether or not that is a poor attitude and more evidence that most WRs are divas. However, we also should at least consider that guys are perhaps getting frustrated because Baker isn't seeing them.

It was very evident yesterday that Baker was late w/his reads and missed open WRs. He was also late on some throws and some of throws were not accurate.

I want to make this very clear before people flip out. It was one game. He is a rookie. All rookie QBs struggle. Goff struggled, Wentz struggled, Peyton "Freaking" Manning struggled back in the day. All of the rookie QBs this year are struggling at times.

The key is what happens moving forward. Does he overcome the issues that were evident yesterday? Does Haley put in more plays that perhaps mask some of the issues? An example of that would be moving the pocket, which I mentioned earlier. Do we incorporate more misdirection plays? Do we drop him deeper in the pocket? Do we look for some quicker throws to the backs coming out of the backfield? Does Baker get quicker w/his reads?

I do think Baker getting this experience this year is a good thing. It should help us next year when we are more ready to compete for a playoff win.

The only thing that is bothering me a bit is that it "seems" as quite a few people are giving Baker all the credit when we win and blaming the losses on others while ignoring his performance. And the only reason that bothers me is that might not sit well w/his teammates. That isn't Baker's fault, but stuff like that can happen in a locker room.

to me, criticizing our offense is basically criticizing the QB ... they're one in the same. It's his team out there. He's gotta get production

#Browns say Rod Streater (neck fracture) is doing well, full recovery expected, surgery not believed to be required.
— Scott Petrak ct (@ScottPetrak) October 15, 2018


Get well soon Streater

Indeed, get well soon - hate to see things like that so it’s good it’s a positive prognosis.

J/C again - Brees would suffer from the same issues as Mayfield ala passing lanes I would assume? How do NO help Brees out? I was thinking we need more designed rollouts to move the pocket but that’s just a guess from very limited knowledge.

Baker Mayfield is a rookie - everyone needs to relax. He does not suck.

There is literally one competent WR on the roster right now. Tough to execute in the passing game when guys cannot catch the ball.

Haley didn't do anyone any favors - run the ball, shorten the passing game. Hyde, Chubb and Duke are pretty good weapons to use. Use them.

Williams and his "come get some" nonsense needs to shut it. Figure out a way to stop the run. SMH

The officiating in this league is a joke. Will these clowns EVER be held accountable for OBVIOUS blown calls? Not the reason the Browns lost THIS game but it's getting old. FAST. Hue Jackson needs to step up and be openly critical of this garbage. Jimmy, write the check. Enough is enough.

Hopefully Dorsey can bring in some WR help this week. Haley needs to dumb down the playbook for now.

On to Tampa Bay.

They game planned for Baker. I dont think anyone else did that.
Good couching on the Chargers. We will figure it out now that they showed us.

Well, let's rip into this! lol

First I think we can all agree that this game was a disappointment to say the least. I'm sure there are quite a few other verbs some would use to describe this game but I'll just use the word disappointment. That's a given. I'm just not sure who actually didn't feel we would have some disappointments along this journey.

First I'll address our WR's. In case anyone missed it, we only have one. When you can double cover the only legitimate WR your opponent has and single cover everyone else, it makes your job stopping the pass a pretty easy one. And with the depleted WR unit we put on the field yesterday, that's exactly what happened. Yes we can talk about all of the drops. They happened and there's no denying that. But we saw the pecking order the week before and both of the WR's on the depth chart below Landry and Callaway are injured. Higgins and Willies are both sidelined. And while Callaway has raw speed, his hands have been in question for a while now.

How much the signing of Perriman will help is onyone's guess at this point but from the reports I've seen his hands looked much better this year in preseason they they have in the past. What his signing did show us is that the coaching staff and the FO knows it's an issue. So were there inexcusable drops? Yes. Could and should they have been expected? I think so.

Let's move on to Mayfield. First let me say something everyone already knows. He's a rookie! And rookies are going to do what rookies do. They won't be perfect. They're going to have WTF moments and WTF games along the way. This was one of them. But let's examine some of the reasons why. First let me say that QB's have to have some familiarity and faith in the people they are throwing the ball to. I think the obvious connection of Mayfield/Higgins and Mayfield/Willies were quite obvious. Both were WR's Mayfield had worked with and felt some comfort level with. When you take that safety blanket away, doubt and questions enter into the QB's mind.

I do think tweaking the ankle had something to do with the way Baker passed the ball. That's a pure opinion and nobody really knows for sure at this time but his passes just didn't seem the same after that. But one thing was certainly obvious. Something many of us tried to say but were questioned about. Baker needs work on going through his progressions quickly. Now this isn't a knock on Baker. It's something most every rookie needs to work on because it's not something they've been expected to do or taught to do in college. So it's a work in progress there folks.

Now let's move to the play calling. I sometimes find humor in certain fans reactions at times to play calling. Our OC will call a play and fans will say, "What the hell was that? They shouldn't have made that call! Nobody would make that call there!"

Let me clue you in on a little secret. That's what you want to do to surprise your opponents. Calling a play they aren't expecting or prepared for is something you WANT TO DO! Does it always work? Certainly not. But the element of surprise can be your best friend. Yet fans sometimes think running the most obvious play instead of using the element of surprise is some brilliant though process. lol

I could go on but won't bother. Most has already been covered in this thread. Run containment was an obvious weakness has been covered. Hubbard being underwhelming to this point has been covered. Outside run containment stunk to put it mildly.

But in closing let me say that fans need to stop believing their own hype. Diam came up with his "Isle of Optimism". Which isn't a bad thing. And I believe that while Diam is optimistic he manages to keep a proper perspective on that. I think he understands we will have weeks like this in the mix. That the optimism he speaks of is based on the influx of talent on a team that had virtually none. That this year is a huge first step in a process of rebuilding. Maybe I'm wrong about that but that's my opinion based on what I've seen posted.

But once you cross that line you are setting yourself up. If you think every game is going to be a nail biter down to the wire, that's fools gold. And that's why I've been so cautious about the Isle. Many of our fans can't reign in the difference between optimism and blind faith. There's a difference between optimism and unbridled expectations. And from what I'm reading that seems to be obvious.

We have heard for years about the five year plan. The three year plan and every other type of plan you can attempt to sell a fan base. But at the crux of every plan we were told about required accumulating talent. The only way any plan can succeed in sports is to build something. That's why every plan we were told about to this point failed miserably.

This time is different. Talent is being brought in. But still all in all, it's a process. It's a plan. And if year one of it is any indication, this time we'll see that plan develop and succeed. You won't see that in week six. You won't see that in week ten. You're not going to see it this year. You'll see bits and pieces of it. You'll get glimpses of it. I'm good with that. Do I want more than that? I most certainly do. But I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I'm a realist.

I agree with a a lot of what you posted except for this:

I will have to go back and look, but I know of two of the sacks - I watched Mayfield go through 3 progressions before he got hit. And about every analyst that has talked about him, has stated how he goes through his progressions when most rookies do not - and that is one of his biggest attributes. I think it was more of two things 1. Receivers not getting open or 2. Mayfield is literally not seeing the first progression over the lineman and then going to option 2 who is then covered, and three.

First case, can be fixed - reps with these new WR, and some getting healthy. Second case - is more of a concern as his height then becomes an issue.

I am leaning toward it being 1st case, as he has not had trouble getting the ball over the middle or getting the ball out before this game.

Later in the game, he may have been slower through his progressions - that's what I would have to check. But that could be just because by then he lost all confidence in a few of the WR and didn't want to go their way. IDK. Just spit balling about this.

But def remember watching him go through his progressions - 1...2...3...sack.

A snippet from Zac Jackson's article in The Athletic...

CLEVELAND - The Browns were getting blown out Sunday afternoon, and I went looking for caffeine. I wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping, but in jockeying for position to get a quick glance at the wild last minute of the Bengals-Steelers game, I stumbled into a press box conversation between two former NFL players.

I won’t name them, because both look like they could still play. Both could toss me from here to Tuesday. But behind them the Chargers were chewing up the final minutes, and fans were filing out of FirstEnergy Stadium, and there wasn’t much to praise about the Browns’ performance outside of Britton Colquitt’s all-too-frequent punting.

“This is why you don’t give the players a Victory Monday after one win,” I heard one ex-player say to the other.

Actually I think if you go take another look you'll see that I said, "Baker needs work on going through his progressions quickly".

The thing about him is he seems to be a quick student and is picking up the game at a rapid pace. I certainly do see him going through his progressions. But I do think he needs to work on making them quicker. It's a process and I've seen nothing to indicate it's something he won't be able to do. It just takes some time is all.

I think the first half he was going through them fine, then when he started piling up the bad possessions, drops, sacks, and lackluster performance - he started slowing down as did the entire team.

We will see how he bounces back, I have not once other than yesterday in the second half, noticed him not going through them quickly.

No offense, but I think you are mistaken. Baker has made a lot of quick throws. They come when he thinks his first read is open. He is decisive and fires the ball quickly.

That's make a read. Going through progressions is different. It's when your first read is covered and then you move to your second read. Then your third read if need be. This is where he is struggling.

He's also struggling seeing the field. That leads me to the question about Drew Brees that someone asked a little bit ago.

Drew has been doing this forever. He is very smart. He's seen it all. He is one of the very best to ever play the game in regards to reading the defense pre and post-snap. We have to remember that he struggled when he first came into the league.

Again, Baker is a rookie. This is part of the process.

Most excellent post. Agreed.

Baker can make the first read and fire immediately if the guy's open. He's a touch slower with the progression. He is, after all, a rookie. (as you stated)

Brees has how many years in the nfl? And his height hasn't been a problem for him.

We've got a rookie qb that is going to make rookie mistakes. I sincerely believe his reads will improve with.................time.

I guarantee he'll work at it. Dude seems very driven.

Btw----anyone else notice how intently he is studying the tablet after he comes off the field? I like that!

That's been one of my many observations about how hard he works at his craft. You can see his progress and determination.

Its ONE of the reasons he has a shot ...

It was a simple recipe: take away our receiving targets and crank up the pressure. Once they scored and were ahead, and our D was showing little signs of being able to stop them, it was done.

Had our D been able to put up a fight and keep us in the game, we could have tried to not be so reliant on the pass... but, we were down big the whole game and had little choice, and we had nowhere to go with the ball and no time (both game clock and play clock) to wait for people to get open.

The wheels didn't come off our bus so much as the axle was ripped out, a la 'American Graffiti'.

On the other hand, the Browns stopped LA several times after that first drive and our special teams provided our offense w/great field position. The offense did next to nothing w/the good D and special teams play. They are just as culpable for this loss as the defense.

The only unit that played well was the Special Teams unit.

A few things...

Baker hasn't thrown a pass to his 3rd read one time this season unless he was already scrambling. That is expected. He's a rookie that was supposed to be sitting this year. He only sees that 3rd guy when he's rolling to that side. Baker also hurt his ankle this game and I am sure this effected his scrambling. It kept him in the pocket more than he wanted. I didn't think about the height thing until you guys brought it up, but it would explain why he didn't see open WR's in the middle of the field. Also his feet were worse this game. Much worse. One of interceptions looked like he was throwing a jump pass. His height may have been an issue there too, but again he's a rookie and we knew he had poor footwork when we drafted him.

Landry is the only WR the Chargers had to worry about. It was him and a bunch of no-names this week. We should have played both Duke and Devalve much more this game.

Chubb really needs to improve his pass blocking so he can get on the field more.

It's funny that our DC unloaded Shelton and Meder and traded size for speed and yet our run defense has been pretty solid until this week. Even when our run defense finally gets beat, it's on the outside where that speed should have helped and not on the inside where the beef was. I really have to watch the game again, but each time it seemed like we had someone there to contain, but they were solidly blocked and there was nobody home at the second level. That swarming defense that we see every week just wasn't there. I don't know why and that scares me.

Peppers finally looked like the returner that I thought he'd be when we drafted him. Colquit had a great game. Why is it our special teams finally looked decent in the only week that it wouldn't make a difference?

The sky isn't falling folks. We are an average team with a rookie QB and a lot of injuries that got served lunch by a playoff caliber team. We are going to have a few more games like this very soon. Don't overreact. We weren't headed to the Super Bowl this year. The young guys will learn and get better.

My impression of Landry is he is more quick than he is fast. In Miami he caught a lot of quick throws...outs, screens, slants. We seem to be putting him out in to deeper patterns where his quickness goes away and his speed catches up to him. We might want to put him in more of a slot role again.


Calloway needs to bump it up. He has the talent, but he needs to make catches. It's still early in his career that things can change, but they do need to start changing.

I am starting to get on the Beckham train, but as soon as i do I get off.....not sure he is the guy you want leading the receiver room?

The big question i have is why in the heck don't we play Chubb and Duke more? I don't get it...

Solid takes.

Agreed about Devalve. He's a big, rangy target who can catch the ball. He had struggled with the hammy, but I'm puzzled as to why he didn't get more PT the last couple weeks.

Haley is gonna have to get creative, our WR room is depleted. The Higgins injury was a big one.

This was the epitome of the definition of the word FLAT when it comes to NFL teams. Happens to every team at least once in a season.

I saw it right away that we were in trouble.

They go up 7-0. Callaway misses a TD, can't convert 4th and 2, Ratley misses another huge play. They go 80 yards in 2 plays. GAME OVER.

On to Tampa.

We'll come out swinging. Take the Browns and the points right now.

We should. We are entering the teeth of our schedule. The next 4 games are the Bucs, Steelers, Chiefs, and the Falcons before the bye week.

We need to beat the Bucs. It won't be easy in any of those games. The Bucs are ranked around 24 in rushing defense. We will need big games out of Hyde, and Chubb better get some work. We need to keep Winston off the field as much as possible.

As for Duke, he is probably going to have to support our passing game more than the run game.

Probably Landry signed here to stop playing the slot...

I honestly don't think its a question of talent, it just takes time to build an offense, specially the type of O we are trying to run.

I agree. I am just saying I see him more as a quick twitch type of player and not one who is going to have great success over the top.

JMO. No knock on Landry.

j/c

We managed to commit a penalty before one second ticked off the game clock. How do you have illegal procedure as the RECEIVING Team on a kickoff?

That brain fart was the foreshadowing of the day.

haha oh yeah I forgot about that

IMHO we should be using Duke for that.

Honestly think that we need another TE to emerge, Njoku is turning out to be a good surprise (for me), but we need another weapon to move the chains.

We also need a major improvement on Special Teams, our O right now cannot score in long fields.

Still I think this O needs more time, problem is that time is scarce in the NFL.

Its also time to manage expectations regarding Baker, the kid needs time and space to develop.

Vers and Pit,

Thanks for the run down on what you saw (earlier on this page). I appreciate the balanced takes on Mayfield's game.

As I've said numerous times, I'm focusing on the play on the field this season, not so much the win total. This game was the first one where they failed to meet my expectations (be competitive). The game was a blowout, and they didn't look like they belonged on the same field as the Chargers, ala the past 2 seasons. That's extremely disappointing, but not entirely surprising. We were bound to have setbacks. As one (or both) of you mentioned, the really important part is how they respond, and this goes double for Mayfield.

Did Mayfield just have a bad game? Did the Chargers exploit a legit weakness of his? Can he adapt and overcome?
In a way, I'm kinda glad he had this game. It was inevitable, and now we get to see if he can be "the guy" and overcome it. Kind of makes it exciting, as long as you had reasonable expectations for this season.

Vers, Pit and others.... Why, specifically, did Mayfield have such a bad game? He didn't see receivers... did the Charger defense put a blindfold on him? :-p Honest question, as there was a very noticeable difference in his on-field execution of those passing plays. He just looked lost... almost flustered. Kept wanting to pull the trigger and then bringing the ball back down. It was really weird to watch.

The announcers said several times that the Chargers were really focused on Landry. Calloway and Njoku should be able to eat the defenses' lunch if they're selling out to stop the other guy. They need to step up.

I'm curious why we haven't had Duke fill in at WR with our injuries. After reading up on Perriman, perhaps he can be a slight improvement/stabilizer to Calloway. They seem to be similar type receivers (speed, can't catch or run routes). I have no problem bringing him in on the cheap and trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Probably won't work, but worth the gamble.


Sucks we're having these injuries just as we're getting into this portion of our schedule. Bucs are beatable, but the Steelers are finding their feet. Falcons will be another test for our D, but our offense should perform ok. I just hope the offensive line can continue to gel and stay healthy. They need to get better protecting our rookie QB.

I think DeValve has the ability to get open and catch the ball in traffic. Not sure why we don't see him more often.

With our depleted receiver corp, we might start to see him play more. He has even played wide in the past.

I completely agree Peen - at least DeValve has proven to have reasonably good hands and is a big bodied target. This forthcoming week and game is not just a test for Mayfield, Landry, and the rest of the players but also our coaches. This was the first game where I felt we were in check as soon as we started and couldn't adjust out or have a plan D. It's to be expected - a young team, learning. As long as it isn't a trend its invaluable in the learning process. Please no more Victory Mondays.

I think our competitiveness in the first 5 games ended up raising expectations beyond where they should be. We are an extremely young team, just crawling out of the abyss of a rebuild. We are not done rebuilding but are on the back end of the process.

Before the season started a lot of us were saying that even 5-6 wins would be a big turnaround, but we really wanted to see a better product on the field, and to competitive and not just another bye week for whoever lined up across from us.

I think we are seeing that. 2-3-1 is a far cry from the last few years, and we were in two of those losses until the end. This was the first game this year where we were absolutely waxed. I am pretty sure we have at least one more with KC. We may have a game where everything goes right and we have a good plan and we dismantle someone.

This team has managed to finish games this year, and get a taste of winning. It is key for them to respond to this butt-whooping by playing hard and taking it out on the next opponent.

I agree that this game with Tampa is very pivotal for the future of the franchise.

Yeah, it's time to stop over-thinking it and start getting the ball to playmakers like Duke, Landry & DeValve. Get Chubb in there, and let's go. The low number of target to these guys is as ridiculous as the high number to Calloway & Ratley. It ain't rocket surgery, get it to the guys with experience and high yards per.

Anthony Lynn, their HC, said the plan was to bring pressure from the outside to keep Baker in the pocket. I thought the Chargers then brought late pressure up the middle and flooded the short to intermediate middle of the field w/their linebacker.

I think all of the above affected Baker's ability to adequately see the field. I also think he passed up some opportunities to run after he injured the ankle.

Yeah, and it looks to me like he either didn't see or ignored his check downs. Rookie mistake, held on to long. He'll learn. When he does, he'll begin dissecting Ds, IMO.