DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2018 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 35 Bengals 20 Postgame Thoughts

This game was extremely fun to watch.

Not too often do we go to a division rival's house and put a beatdown on them.

Let's hope it the start of a trend.

Great to see a solid win against a division opponent.

2 solid games in a row.
Great Qb play mixed with solid running game with a good defense and a coaching staff that creates a superb game plan equals a team on the rise.
That's more than we have been able to say in many a year.
It all starts with the Qb. Mayfield has silenced what few doubters there might be.
We can now build for the future with a GM that actually has done this before and been successful.
I haven't been this confident in my team EVER !!
Come one come all....the isle still has rooms available.

Wow...Feels good to be a normal team for once and win not only a game, but back to back games. I missed bits of the games, so I won't pretend like I saw everything...Here's just what caught my eye.

-Saw Corbett near the goal line (first time I've ever seen him)

-We have been finally using our back-ups in our DE rotation the past several games...Our front 7 looked gas, even our LBs looked tired.

-I love Myles...I don't know if he's playing too many snaps, but he didn't look as explosive...we all know he still gets washed away far too easy...Still our Best Dlineman

-Saw Ogbah flash a few times, which is nice as he normally is dormant

-Ward played like he was a lost rookie, gambled on his guesses (Had that dumb helmet penalty too)

-Collins should have had that easy interception

-When Driskel snuck it from 2 yards out, Why did Collins and the secondary player just stand there? And not engage and pull Driskel back

-Randall has been a superb trade.

-Colquitt is playing superb

-Kudos to Baker, guy is playing prime time football

-Higgins was real quiet

-Njoku flashed some big plays (and did he actually go dropless? Thats nice to see) Look at his blocking though, he wiffs so badly...He needs to go practice with the Oline.

-What happened with Duke? Did not see him in the second half...Devalve I can't recall, I know BBC was injured...did he make it back?

-Oline had problems with the initial push, are OT's are really week.

-Glad to see Tretter playing, but he didn't seem as good as he usually is.

-Perriman needs to sustain his blocks

-Landry actually kept his emotions in check

Was a great game, I was nervous near the end...Our D was gassed, so I wont harp on them too much...But they do scare me in the events of protecting leads.

Impressive road win against a division opponent. They looked relaxed and looked like they were having fun most of the game. They didn't crumble when momentum shifted. I turned to my wife about half way through the second quarter and said, "Isn't this fun?" She agreed. The most fun we've had watching the Browns play since we were at the game watching them kick the Steelers ass during the Petine era.

Yeah - but he doesn't wow me. He's not calm enough.

Wonder if there are still some haters out there that can't get over their post-draft angst.

I don't really see that.

Do you?

I owe an apology to a lot of friends - I had defended Hue all last season and into the beginning of this season. I'm delighted to see the Browns play such good football - but it is really starting to burn that we have Hue holding this team back all year. I saw others post that we should have won two other games this year where the refs made atrocious calls .... well I will be honest and say I am glad we got those bad calls because I think Hue might still be HC without them.

two weeks ago there were still 2 posters saying Baker was not doing anything special. Then one of those posters went on to praise Rosen because he is so calm and he hasn't created any drama in the locker room

You realize those posters are trolling the board on purpose, right?

They're probably laughing at the fact that you just posted about them.

I just think Baker's growing more and more comfortable, confident, and intelligent. He's WAY better now than he was in his first couple starts

Forgot to add: one way he's really gotten better ... he checks it down and isn't taking as many risks

Not really - the two posters have been posting anti- Baker posts since the draft. I don't think they were trolling I think they have been setting an unrealistic bar for giving Baker credit ...

Just a quick question, the roughing the passer call on Avery, was it really a bad hit? I missed the replay.

Hue and Haley turned him into a check down Charlie. It was some of the worst coaching we've seen.

He's now chucking it when needed and checking down when warranted. He's striking the perfect balance.

It was the right call. Avery went low.

agreed ... he was totally going into a shell

Avery's hit was a bad move IMO.. not saying dirty, just not a good play

I have absolutely no problem with Baker Mayfield going after Jackson a little bit in his post-game presser.

I think he probably was talking for a hell of a lot more than himself with those words.

And Baker was only part of it for roughly half of a calendar year. Some of these other guys have put up with it for 3. A lot of these guys don't have the wiggle room or stage to say what Baker said, so I think he felt like he kinda represented a lot of people within that organization.

I've said it before on this board, but he came into the organization to a literal standing ovation. He was expected to create an atmosphere change, and did nothing but lose games and pretty much blame everyone but himself. Then he gets fired, and goes on a tv tour somehow trying to make himself out to be the victim.

Yeah, I bet that game today felt real good for a lot of those guys.

I shot down the thought of retaining this coaching staff through next year, but man, I would love to see a situation where Freddie Kitchens sticks around. There's an article on Cleveland.com by Mary Kay Cabot that says Bruce Arians, who will only come out retirement for the Browns job, would keep Kitchens and possibly Williams on his staff.

Now, that is interesting. Arians has wanted the Browns job for a long time. He would be an amazing personality in that locker room, and you could not have too many better voices in Baker Mayfield's ear. He's just so good with QB's.

Kitchens has paid his dues. He's bounced around football for 2 decades in positional coaching jobs. The way he's moving this offense up and down the field, I think even if it weren't Arians, he makes one hell of a case to stick around, and I know that's really tough when you bring in a new coach who obviously has his own ideas. Arians may be the smartest move, and maybe they can work with Bruce behind the scenes to prep for someone to one day take over, because we know Arians is not a long term answer. Would love to see it. Browns fans would absolutely love BA.

I'd love BA for all the reasons you listed, but I do worry about his health. I'm not sure Dorsey is going to go with an old guy ... we'll see

It really is a concern. I hope for the best for the guy, and obviously NFL football is not a good job when you've got health issues, considering the insanity of a grind coaching at that level is.

It's a tough spot, and as much as I would love it, I would not blame the Browns for opting for someone else. It sucks, because the guy can coach.

We're in such a critical spot of this rebuild, I'm glad that John Dorsey is going to make this call, whenever that comes.

This team is so much fun to watch right now though. Greg Williams is doing a great job in an insanely tough spot.

Just got back from a Florida for Thanksgiving trip. Great time watching with my wife and brother before heading to St. Pete airport for the flight home after 3 days with her mother in Venice

The game went as I though. Baker is a star in the making. He keeps getting better each week. That cat is going to be good. It's fun to watch.

Chubb is going to be good. So in Njoku and Calloway.

I don't know if Williams is all that good of a coach, but he has done a tremendous job of pulling the guys together. The guy deserves something. He is doing things Hue could never think of doing. We are winning games and look like men while doing it.

Jim Donovan's face while Jabril Peppers is talking to the media, lol....

J/c

Outstanding performance today! I know most of you guys are a tad bummed about the 2nd half performance, and i was initially but then i thought about it in the broader scope of things. The odds are against us, but this team IS playing to get to the playoffs. We have to win out to have a ghost of a chance.

Dawgs, we won this game using only half of a game plan. Yeah, i wanted to run the score up too, but why show any of our opponents more than we need to?

I was glad to see the attitude and swagger. Hats off to Tretter playing through his ankle injury and really leaving it all on the field. IIRC wasn't it he that was heads up enough to push Njoku in to the endzone?

If you are Twitter you should be following Jake Burns. His film breakdowns are excellent.

We had our foot on their throats in the first half which was awesome and came back in the second and took it off. Didn't like that at all. To conservative on offense and the D went soft. Should have played the second half just like the first on both sides of the ball

We made their second string QB look like Drew Brees. I am a firm believer that if you have a team on the run,keep going after them and rack up as many points as you can on them. They would sure do it to us. Hope we don't do this to often cause it will come back to bite us. JMO

74% Completions and 8.8 YPA 2 Sacks.

That's INSANE for any Rookie QB.

j/c:

Jarvis Landry continues to impress.

I like that we've used Perriman as our deep guy to take the top off .. and slid in Landry/others underneath him, as their strengths suggest

I think there are things in the second half performance that both the players and coaching staff can learn from.

There's something to be said for shortening the game (with the run), just getting out of their with a win, and to a certain degree, protecting Baker. By that I just mean not exposing him to unnecessary hits, he's already taken more than his fair share this season.

At the same time, we obviously took this too far. You have to be careful about letting off the gas, we were in complete control of the game into the second half. At a certain point, you have to trust the players to make plays. We had a 4 touchdown lead at 2 points in the game and the Bengals very nearly go it down to 1 touchdown with time to go.. that shouldn't happen.


It reminds me of an interesting quirk I came across years ago when researching 4th down strategy, which I posted some pretty scathing thoughts on in the John Dorsey thread (these thoughts were not about John Dorsey, naturally.) Ideal 4th down strategy takes into account many different game factors, including score and time remaining. The idea would be to make decisions that maximize a team's win probability... they're not necessarily the decisions that keep the team 'alive' the longest.

So there was a situation.. I forget the exact details, but it's with some time left in the 4th, where a team has a higher win probability being down 1 compared to up 1. All other factors are equated. This is based on data from NFL games.

You ask yourself, how can that be? How can a team have a worse chance of winning with 2 more points? All they have to do is play the same way and those points will often be the difference between winning and losing.

That's the thing though.. coaches most certainly do not play those two situations the same at all! (I'm not implying they should, merely that the difference shouldn't be as great as it is.)

When down 1 in the 4th.. coaches tend to be much more aggressive. They go for it on 4th downs more (something they should be doing anyway), they play for touchdowns because being up by 2 is a dangerous proposition in this league, and are generally 'playing to win'.

When up 1, they go into the shell. Speaking in generalities but it is largely true. A particularly frustrating sequence is run up the middle, run up the middle, incomplete pass, and punt. They get even more conservative in bringing out the special teams. Giving the ball back to the other team-- even via punt-- carries with it a lot of risk as well. This is especially true in the modern NFL where offenses keep getting better and better.

There's something to be said for playing to win instead of playing not to lose. "Playing to win" as a phrase is too imprecise for my liking, but I get the idea... and it turns out to be right more times than not.

What can I say that hasn't been said?

I loved this game. We just killed them in the first half and kept them enough in check in the second half to have a 15 point win.

Some keys:

Chubb's TD Catch... Geez, that was insane and it worked. Not sure I've ever seen that before.

Njoku's TD Catch... Funniest TD I think I've ever seen. Tretter and Johnson pushing Njoku into the end zone..., Geez.. That was funny. The team is playing as a team now.

Something happened to this team after Jackson and Haley were fired. It's like someone flipped a switch and BOOM, a beast was born. Not sure how! But I like it.

Chubbs TD run, again, some push from behind or so it seemed. Nice.

Mayfield, he just continues to impress me. Didn't care for his post game comment on Jackson, but that's just him being him. Outside of that, the kid is a winner and he's OURS.

Where in the heck did Callaway come from all of a sudden. He had a heck of a game. He's improved. Again, since the coaching change.

Landry was quiet yesterday, what did he have, 1 catch. But the ball was spread around to a bunch of guys.

Seems like every week we see something fun out of Duke Johnson. That was a nice catch...

Defense was on target. Target being anything with Bengals strips on the helmet. Geez, swarming, pressure, blocked passes, blocked kicks and an interception. Not sure what else we can ask of them.

With each game in which they play with this "new found" energy, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that Williams and Kitchens need to remain.

Good news is, we have time to make that final decision. But if I'm the guy that has to decide and I have to decide today, Willams and Kitchens remain in their current roles.

For whatever reason, this team is responding to them.

I tend to agree. Or at least that was my perception of Williams as a HC before he got the gig.

Either he's a freaking genius and Hue really isn't all that bad of a HC ... Or GW isn't all that amazing and Hue truly is the worst HC in the history of pro sports and completely fooled me for 2 years.

I expect the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the more average Williams trends as a HC the worse it reflects on Hue. I'm rooting for Williams. He's surprised the heck out of me as has Kitchens. Finding out how Williams and the team does down the stretch is going to be fun.

Post Game thoughts:

I really think Randall dislikes hue

Njoku owes the guys a dinner for getting him into the endzone lol.

Baker is the real deal.

Chubb, with little to work with in the run blocking game, just runs so hard.

Baker's two TD passes when he stepped up in the pocket were things of beauty

I can actually say I am a Browns fan and not face ridicule or sympathy. Feels good to talk about winning instead of what seemed like endless losing.

Baker maybe the franchise QB we have needed for so long. No more revolving door at QB. Can't remember the last time we were up 28pts on anyone. Felt really good.

Baker, along with Williams, Landry, Randle and Peppers are giving the Browns an attitude thet you need to win games in the NFL. For years we have been a soft team but that is changing.
This reminds me of the days of Byner, Bernie, Minnifield and Dixon.

Add Ward and some others. I am in love with the chemistry I see in games starting to gather steam.