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

Chemistry seems to be what is fueling this team. They are playing with a swagger like they have been a winner this whole year.
They aren't going into games expecting to win....they going in feeling like they are gonna win period. IMO that has been the difference!
I'm VERY impressed !!

j/c...

Some fun facts courtesy of Zac Jackson and Jason Lloyd

- This is the first time since 2007 in which the Browns have not allowed a sack in consecutive games.

- The Browns scored an opening drive TD for the first time all season.

- Chubb is the first player in Browns history and fourth rookie in NFL history to have back-to-back games in which he scored both a rushing and receiving TD.

- Mayfield is the first rookie in NFL history to have back-to-back 140+ QB ratings.

- The Browns 28 first half points was the most since 1991 against the Colts. Baker was't even born yet.

- Mayfield threw for more yards in the first half Sunday than he did in four of his six games with Jackson and Haley in charge.

- The Browns scored 28 or more points three times in 40 games with Jackson as their head coach. They’ve now scored 28-plus points twice in three games since Jackson was fired.

- The Browns 2-1-1 start in the division is best since the division was formed in 2002.

One of the most amazing catches I've ever seen was during the player strike by a replacement player for the Washington Redskins. The receiver was well covered, but the DB wasn't looking back for the ball. The receiver reached around the DB, and with perfect timing, tipped the ball over the DB, turned and caught the ball as he dove into the end zone for a TD. Chubb's catch was better. At first he barely had a grip on the ball, but re-positioned the ball, then brought the ball from around the defender...all this with no visual on the ball and the defender between him and the ball.

Bless'em was targeted 5 times, made 3 catches. One was over the middle, he caught the ball short of the marker, made the first guy miss, then turned upfield 2-3 yards past the marker. One was a 9 yd gain on 3rd and 3. I couldn't find the 3rd in the highlights, but I recall he caught one on the sideline, just past the marker on 3rd down.

As an aside, I was impressed by Driskell. It took him a few plays to get settled in, but once he did, he looked pretty good.

Driskell did look good. He was decisive. That said he was helped out by circus catches by his wideouts. He was spraying the ball all over. His guys made him look better than he was as far as actual accuracy goes.

First half was so great to watch. Literally, EVERYTHING worked. Even the freaking refs let us be, and didn't go after us as normal.

Second half, I wish we didn't let up, but I am glad we were able to finish and get the W.

Baker is doing a great job. The chemistry continues to grow through this season and it shows on the field. I really liked Kitchens play calling ever since he's been put as OC (- minus the second half). I think he listens to his players from a scheme stand point, and tries to get everyone equally involved.

Defensively, great game. We gotta get better at tackling if we want to be relevant though. Mixon shredded us. I also expected the defense to better contain the Bengals QB. That didn't happen.

Room for improvement for everyone, but overall, mission accomplished!


As far as the after the game stuff. I'm cool with the no hug, but not cool with Baker expressing his feelings to the public. Keep that to yourself or inside the locker room.

Hue was fired. No other team was gonna show love to Hue going forward except 1 team. ONE! And that's the Bengals. Hue has a career, and had some tough years in Cleveland bc his GM wouldn't get a top notch QB in the draft. Who expects Cleveland to be relevant with Cody 'can't throw past 10 yards' Kessler and Deshone 'can't make a solid decision' Kizer? Why would he say no to coaching the team that has been nothing but good to him? He darn near begged Haslam to let him have his offense back when Haley was sabotaging the offense (and undermining Hue) banking that Hue would get fired. Haslam said no, and the decision was to let him go.

Folks say well he's getting paid, he didnt have to coach right away. No, this is his career. Coaching opportunities in the NFL are SLIM pickings, especially after coaching CLE. Take the opportunity when its presented, because jobs will QUICKLY move on to plan B.

Hue's loyalty will always be with the Bengals, and especially Marvin Lewis.

The situation/logistics itself is crappy, but I can't fault Hue for moving on. Wish him the best, except when he plays the Browns.

I hope Hue replaces Marvin.

That thought does give one a warm-fuzzy, doesn't it?

J/C

Looks like Baker will add another ROTW notch to his belt.

- Watching the offense not only move the ball, but scored TDs if fun, I could get used to it.

- Took our foot off the gas too soon. Baker has shown the poise and decision making to give him a little more latitude to run the offense even with a lead. There was no need for the Bengals to be that close to having a chance at an on-side kick and a chance to tie.

- Chubb is a beast running and catching the ball.

- Amazing how when you make plays and get leads the stupid penalties decrease.

- A lot of empty seats in the Jungle (unless all of those club level folks were inside where it was warm)

- Myles Garrett gets held on almost every pass play and when he doesn't, he gets pressure.

- Baker isn't mad because Hue took a job with the Bengals after being fired, that's just his on-camera reason. He's mad because Hue embarrassed him by making the #1 overall pick "compete" for the back-up job while never giving him a chance to actually compete for the starting job.. then he's even madder because on his way out the door, Hue blamed being fired on the fact that Baker wasn't playing well.... and we see how that turned out. The fact that Baker didn't give him a Kirk Cousin's-esque "YOU LIKE THAT?" at midfield showed professional restraint on Baker's part. Screw Hue, Baker has every reason to not shake his hand.

How Baker feels about Hue is his business and may be totally justifiable. Baker shook his hand and that's all he needed to do. He didn't disrespect him.

Exactly...

To me, yesterday was the first time in YEARS where I felt like we'd never lose. Literally from like the first 2 minutes on ... I knew we'd win. What a feeling.

I'm finally getting some time to sit down and post.
A few thoughts:

Randall's pre-game talk about what's gonna happen if they don't have AJ: I liked it. I thought it was a bit bold and had a fair chance of backfiring, but I liked it... and we lived up to it!

Baker's post-game comments: I love it. Period. Don't hold back, Bake. Yes, Hue was fired, yada, yada, yada... BUT, he's still collecting money from us and took a creatively titled job position to go help a division rival while collecting another paycheck IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON after preaching & pleading for these guys to believe in him. Screw that dude.


Njoku's TD & Randall's gift to Hue: I literally had tears streaming down my cheeks from laughing so hard. On each one, I was just sitting in my chair watching the game, laughing out loud and laughing harder on every replay. Seeing Randall give the ball to Hue in the middle of a beatdown was just freaking priceless. Then, Njoku leaping up and turning sideways to put his junk right in the facemask of the defender only to be carried and pushed into the endzone for a most ridiculous and improbable TD - I had trouble breathing


I'm all fine and dandy with going conservative, but not as early as we did. Someone needs to send film of the 2002 playoff game to Berea for them to review. We got away with it this time, but we almost didn't. If so much wasn't falling our way so consistently, we had a good chance of blowing it.

On the flip side of that, we still have to play them one more time this year and they know we let up; we didn't keep humiliating them, so that might tone down their drive for "revenge" a little and instead make them think of how much worse it could have been. Also, we let them think that their backup might be a guy they can run with longer term.

I am a little surprised, still, that Chubb's receiving TD wasn't overturned, I thought there was a middling chance it could be, but I couldn't see it as well as I would have liked.


Overall, this was an absolute pleasure to watch right from the start. To see us score on the first drive was AMAZING. To see us score on our first four drives straight was SURREAL!!


Now, I want them to enjoy and savor this for a day and then put it behind them by tonight... next week's opponent is on tonight and I hope the team is getting together in squads for a viewing party.

I agree. I'm pretty sure if it had been called incomplete it could not have been overturned that way either.

It was very hard to tell, from any of the angles shown, when exactly he gained control of the ball and whether or not he was already laying on the white line.

I like what the players are saying about believing in the game plan and leadership now. They are coming together as a team. All for one and one for all. Plus there is an accountability to details.

That's insane for any QB not named Brees

As I was watching it occurred to me that the Bengals looked like the Browns of seasons past,everything that could go wrong did.
And the Browns looked,well,damned good.

Yes

That is almost unbelievable!

We don't settle for FG's in the Red Zone anymore we score TD's 5 for 5

We are winning division games now 2-1-1

We Have a Stud RB Week after Week

We Have a True Franchise QB

OL is Looking Much Better

WR's/TE's/RB's are Catching the Ball

We Have a Stud DE with 10 Sacks

Our Secondary is 1,000 Times Better

Tpost game thoughts hmm.
Short, shotgun spread QB, next johnny football. Head coach once banned by the NFL is just a loudmouth. 3rd best running back on that GA. Team. No weapons on offense.

First round bust is a selfish me player traded for a QB bust. Undersized corner should have drafted Chubb. Linebacker to small and to slow. Linebacker is a freelancer team cancer.

Last but not least who the he'll is Freddie Kitchens?

The English language is not your friend, huh?

Honestly bro, I don't know if you are trolling, being sarcastic, or just are completely blind to what you are watching???

Either way, a complete thought wouldn't hurt to type out once in awhile so posters have a better idea. JMO

Sorry you that you didn't get it.

He's trolling, and he's rolling.

j/c

Under Williams/Kitchen, Nick Chubb has been targeted 7 times, 7 receptions with 2 TD.

Post game thoughts.

Some fans seem to care more about Running up the score than winning. When you're up by that many points you don't risk beating yourself. Your D held them to seven points the entire first half. You leave the game in the hands of your D. You play smart by playing the odds. I know everyone likes the idea of scoring 60 points but this isn't basketball.

We played a sold game in every phase. We are lowering our penalties, WR's are catching the ball, Chubb is a very good RB and the D is stepping up.

Mayfield has the tools to be a top franchise QB in this league. He played nothing short of amazing yesterday. It's obvious the game is slowing down for him. His ability to move in and out of the pocket while keeping his eyes downfield and making plays is the sign of a true NFL franchise QB.

I was nothing short of overjoyed with how this coaching staff knew when to turn on the gas and when to hit the brakes. They coached a balanced and well thought out game. It's obvious the players are rallying around this staff. It's obvious this staff requires accountability from their players. When you have an older, more veteran centric team, a players coach can work out well. The veterans can guide the youth and the accountability from the youth can be accounted for from your veterans. But when you have so much youth as leaders of your team, a more discipline oriented coaching staff can work wonders and we're seeing the fruits of it since the coaching change.

While there was far too much to be positive about to focus on the negative, I do have to make one point that did bother me. It was troubling to me that we had so much trouble making holes for Chubb against such a poor run defense. We should have been able to run it up the gut at will.

thats why Baker was so deadly in the pass game though.

the bengals went into the game thinking every rookie QB is the same; if you stop the run and force a rookie to pass, he's gonna make a ton of mistakes.

so they stacked the box. yea, our line didn't do a great job of opening up holes, but you can tell the gameplan was to stop chubb.

but they forgot to do everything else.

Yet after Baker burned them the entire first half, coming out in the second half the results were exactly the same. See, I understood that when the game began. But after Baker starts tearing you up, the running game should be there. No matter how much Baker lit them up, the run game never transpired.

The Bengals seemed to often stack the line to stop the run. It worked, but we often spread them out when they did.

Baker played great. Everyone played great. I don’t personally like the comments Baker made about Hue.. the one where he called him “fake”. Not a big deal but just not needed. Loved his gameplay for sure... he’s the teal deal.

Now let’s temper our enthusiasm though... Bengals were banged up. I’m very interested in next weeks game... I think it’ll be a good test personally.

Another post I agree with.

My opinion only, on the second half, is the bengals didn't adjust because, being down like they were, they felt the Browns would try to run to keep the clock going. So, they continued to look run first.

No Pit.. it's not about scoring 60 points.

We had 1 possession in the entire second half that lasted longer than 1:45..... We had 1 possession where we ran more than 4 plays.... We had 5 first downs, 3 by penalty on the Bengals....

I'm ok with shifting the focus when up by 4 touchdowns to a safer, more defensive focus.. but the offense can't just STOP playing and trotting the defense out there to get exhausted.

With 1:31 and down by 2 TDs the Bengals completed a pass to our 4 yard line... a quick score from there and we are looking at an onside kick attempt to give them a chance to tie the game... fortunately that pass play was called back for a penalty... there was no reason for any play in the final 8 minutes to have had any drama associated with it at all. Our starters should have been resting..

It wouldn't have mattered to me if we scored another point once we got to 35... but we should have been looking for some first downs and that was only going to happen by throwing the ball.. and not just on 3rd and 8...

Baker has shown the capacity to not take risks, to take the check down, to throw the ball away, even to take the sack... they should have put more trust in him and stuck to the game plan with some dump offs, screens, even a deep shot once in a while to see if they were sleeping... It was working and it would have kept working... catch the dump off/screen, get the first down, don't fight for extra yardage, stay in bounds, let your defense rest a little.. not that hard.

They played it safe and by the odds and we won by 15. The proof is in the pudding.

The run game was even less likely to open up after we had a 3 or 4 TD lead.. they had to know we were going to shut down the passing game and focus on running the ball even more, which we did... which is exactly why we should have thrown the ball more. We did nothing to keep them honest in the 2nd half.

Ok.