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

" There are three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad. "

Do we want our athletes to be honest and real or talk in cliches and be robots? I prefer them to be honest and real. It is more entertaining and doesn’t actually hurt anything in the end.

Could it be that Baker was injured on that pass he threw on the next to the last play of the first half? He took a good shot on the release. That could be the reason coaches did not have him pass more in the second half.

Agree, and how much you bet that had to do with Hue saying "baker aint that good, TT should be starting" lol

In the last 5 weeks, Baker Mayfield has thrown 158 passes.

13 (8.2%) of them ended great (TD)
110 (69.6%) of them ended good (Completion)
33 (20.8%) of them ended harmlessly on the ground (Incompletion)
2 (1.2%) of them ended very bad (INT)

Given the odds, especially he KNOWS he has to be careful, I would have taken my chances a few more times.

and yet, it is a passing league like never before.

Also, there are four things that can happen and two of them are good.

I just want to add something.

What let's a team that is way behind back into the game the fastest? Turnovers. Mistakes. We did our best to make sure that didn't happen.We played field position. We were up 35-7. We let them do what we have done for so long, and chase points. They scored 13 in the 2nd half. They got to within 15. Even if they had somehow scored on that final drive, they would have still been down either 7, 8, or 9 points. (depending on XP, 2 pt conversion, or failed conversion attempt) They were 4th down at our 45 ..... with 1:20 left. I can't remember if they even had any TO left.

The game finished up the way it should have. The Bengals chased points. We won the game. Man it's nice to be on this side of things.

I disagree with 2 of your points. What let's a team get back into a game like that is allowing them to capture some momentum.. we allowed them to do that by playing almost the entire second half in a shell on offense, and soft prevent on defense.

We also didn't play for field position... in fact, that is exactly what I'm arguing we NEEDED to do.. Getting the ball on your own 25, gaining 3 yards and punting isn't playing field position... Playing field position is getting a couple first downs, getting out close to mid-field, running a few minutes off the clock, then punting them deep.. we didn't do that... at all.

If not for a couple penalties on the Bengals, we would have moved the ball less than 50 yards in the entire second half..

I thought we should have mixed in a few more PA plays to keep them off balance the 2nd half. It wasn't really about scoring, but possessing the ball more

"To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often"
Winston Churchill

Math is complicated.

Yet he never coached a football team.

Speaking for myself, and possibly even DC, the decision to take the conservative approach wasn't a problem so much as the timing (too soon in my opinion) and the execution on the offense.

The defense did their part by making them use a good amount of clock to move down the field for the most part, and while it would have been ideal to keep them out of the end zone or hold them to field goals, we had enough cushion to not sweat it too badly if they scored 7. The offense, however, needed to have done a MUCH better job getting first downs and grinding away the clock on their own.

It all worked out in the end, and that's great... but there are definitely things to learn from there. If you simply look at the result and conclude that because you got the result you wanted there is nothing to learn from it, then you are most certainly a failure waiting to happen.


As for the timing, I would have preferred the wait until the start of the 4th Qtr before hitting the cruise control. Again, it worked out ok, but the sooner you go conservative, the longer you have to weather it.

I see another rookie of the week coming ... Baker Mayfield 19-26 258 Yards 4 TD's ) Int's

Negative yardage , Fumble

The timing? The Bengals scored a whopping seven points the entire first half. The odds were well on our side to be conservative on O for the entire second half.

He just helped win a world war.. and is that any worse than the fact that the guy that did say it was a football coach in the 1930s?

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200301050pit.htm

I only had one "bitch" as we stuck to the run game in the second half while my wife was literally losing her chit. During our second to last possession (I believe) when there was four-ish minutes left on the clock. We ran it, and I believe Chubb actually had one of his better runs, got the first down, and ran it twice more which left us with 3rd & 3. My bitch was this: Kitchens called for a post route to (I think) Callaway. It was a moderately long, well covered, low percentage pass when (I felt) he should have called a higher percentage crossing route to Landry or Njoku, which he'd had success with several times in the first half. A first down at that point would have pretty much sealed the game. For me, it was a case of the coach outsmarting himself. But overall, I knew exactly what he was doing with a 35-7 lead and completely understood his reasoning for running the ball even though we had much of the 3rd and all of the 4th quarters to go..

Honest question for you Pit.. with 12:13 left in the 3rd quarter, right after we went up 35-7, would you have had a problem with the Browns going into the victory formation every time we got the ball? Kneel on it 3 times and punt? Would you have been ok with that?

Play the 'odds', someone said.

Here are the odds: The bengals were playing against the run, and we made them pay by passing. After half time, the bengals were still playing for the run.

On a neanderthal level, us trying to run in the second half was 'playing the odds', take 2 minutes off the clock on each possession, right?

On a higher level? Play the odds. Bengals think we're going to run it, and are doing what they did in the first half? Pass the ball, the exact same way we built a nice lead in the first half.

Take what the D gives you. JMO. I'm not as smart as some on here feel they are.

I thought we should have been able to run the ball better than we did but I was more dissapointed in the punt returns we were giving up. Bottom line is we won by 15 on the road against the bengals. We have come a long way.

We have a +14 TO Ratio ...

I'm okay winning the game. And yes, I think we still would have won the game. I'm not as into style points as it appears some are.

It's funny. I stuck up for the last coach and took flack for it. Now I'm sticking up for this coach and taking flack for it. And this one even won! By 15 points no less!



Some things never change!

Don't be silly Arch.. playing the odds has nothing to do with continuing to do the only thing that has been working for you.... it means with a lead you abandon all of that and coach like Knute Rockne.

I will add... I'm obviously glad we won, glad they didn't get that last score to even bring the chance of an onside kick into play... it's hard to say that what we did "didn't work" because we won the game... but there was a lot more drama than there had to be... Plus, I hated that they were willing to show absolutely ZERO confidence in Baker Mayfield to just make a few plays to help his defense out a little bit... the dude has done nothing but make plays for weeks now.... He, like everybody else, needs to be part of learning how to close out a game and they took it completely out of his hands.

You didn't answer the question. There is 12 minutes left to go in the 3rd quarter, the Browns are up 35-7... the come out in Victory formation on their own 25 yard line.. are you agreeing with it or yelling at your television?

And stop whining about things never changing.. it is possible, on a MB like this, that those who disagreed with you for sticking up for the last coach... and people who think you are wrong here... and different people....

It is also possible that the people disagreeing with you here (re: me) love this new coaching staff, but just happen to disagree with the way they handled a few things down the stretch yesterday...

I said I'm okay with winning the game and I believe we would have still won the game. I actually thought that was pretty clear.

And yeah, handling the game in a way that gives you a 15 point margin of victory truly sucks!

You still didn't answer the question. Let me make this easier for you...

A. Had the Browns gone to victory formation early in the 3rd quarter, at that moment I would have thought it was a great idea.

B. Had the Browns gone to victory formation early in the 3rd quarter, at that moment I would have thought they were nuts.

Now you just have to pick a letter.

You left no room for middle ground. I never considered you that much of an extremist?



At first glance, as a fan I probably wouldn't have cared for it. Had we won the game, I would have concluded that the strategy worked. I'm all for any strategy that creates a win for my team.

See, I don't make seven figures to make these decisions. As long as they work and we win I'm fine with it.

I answered your question, just not the way you framed it or would have liked.

I would say that I understand a more conservative approach, offensively, once you have a 35-7 lead. Run the ball, work the clock, throw safe, smart passes when necessary. Tell your RBs and WRs to stay inbounds - more than a couple times yesterday I swore at the sight of a Browns' player going out of bounds. Keep the clock moving. But defensively, if Marty taught me anything, it was that you never take your foot off the gas. Pressure, pressure, and then more of the same. Do not concede the soft underneath middle of the field. Get after the QB. With that said, we did win by 2 TDs, but it could have gotten scary if that long completion to the TE inside the Browns 10 yd line hadn't been negated by an illegal shift penalty.

Thanks, you finally answered the question... the fact that you keep resorting back to the fact that it worked and we won is not a part of the discussion at this point..

Just because you achieved the desired result, doesn't mean you made the best decision...

In fact, we would have been better off if we had knelt on the ball every possession and punted, we would have run more time off the clock.. by my calculations, you can run 2:04 seconds off the clock by kneeling 3 times and punting.. we only had 1 drive longer than that the entire second half.. plus we would taken the risk of fumbling way down by not handing off and running into traffic...

I really hope we get a chance to test this because it would mean we have another big lead... but I'm betting that if the situation happens again where we have a big lead, we are just a little more aggressive with some short passing and attempts at actually controlling the ball...

Process over results.

Oink, Oink, Oink, some people are not satisfied with a victory, the want a crushing victory.

I would rather have an ugly victory, than an impressive hard fought loss

I will let things slide today, I am in a very good mood.

TWO IN A ROW IS A START.

shake and bake 35 points
143 qb ranking excellent job run away rookie of the week
Chubb 2 tds plus 125 yards excellent
Calloway next years Higgins
Njoku excellent game no drops
defense 2 takeawys only 7 points in the first half good
would have like to have seen more sacks

I agree with you and DC.

True, but at the same time they knew that we would try and bleed the clock with a large lead, but like you if I had to pick a bone with the game ... It would be the lack of execution in the run game. There are a few plays I can recall that we didn't get a hat on someone and they blew up the play. Too much penetration.

We need to clean that up.

Completely and totally agree, and it's a philosophy going forward that teams must adapt to. This isn't the old days. You can't sit on a lead. We did, and it worked, mostly because it was the Bengals and it was a backup qb, but I really think even one score in the second half would have put that thing away.

Even then, they allowed 13 second half points, so it wasn't like that ever got super interesting.

But yeah, going forward, mix it up. Maybe don't throw into double and triple coverage, or try and extend every single play, but just trying to chug it along with handing it off won't work with how the game is played and officiated today.

Who isn't happy with a victory??

I'm pretty sure everyone is happy with the victory!

Folks,
I'm Happy about the win but WE ALMOST LOST THAT game!!.. Hey, not for a player not set penalty, Cincy is first and 3 at the goal line. It was good that we won but that second half was way too tight for me. The offense was playing well in the first half and slept the the second half.

Take the win, but you cannot just play off of emotion the next game.

NO WE didn't!