DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum John Dorsey Cont...

This is imo a great post and exactly how I feel. Don't panic, don't over react. It takes time and these guys will get better 100%.

The two biggest, glaring issues I do have and I *hope* get fixed quickly have nothing to do with players gelling and everything to do with COACHING. [1] Discipline ... I noted somewhere else how Williams immediately virtually eliminated most of the penalties last year. To me that was a sign of good coaching by the HC. Yesterday's atrocious discipline showed me abysmal coaching by Freddie. Huge concern. [2] Play calling ... I noted preseason that I hoped the school yard play calling we saw was a way to prevent tipping our hand ... well apparently it wasn't ... again the offensive scheme and play calling is about COACHING and it was woeful and less to do with the players and execution. Obviously when a play is executed successfully it's considered a good play - but there was no balance and while Baker was off and made some bad decisions, the play calling overall was crapolla.

J/c

Good point about Williams eliminating penalties .. that’s what it takes.

Quite honestly, that’s the poorest coached game I can remember from a preparation, discipline, organization, etc standpoint.

And as I said somewhere else, I’m not one to bash coaches (or really even notice the coaching) ... but IMO it was THAT bad yesterday

I think Freddie better be having a nice, long discussion with King John about yesterdays performance on the field. That was not a performance by an NFL team.

Hell, I have seen pee wee teams more prepared than that. Freddies message of wanting his guys to clap back, not practice penalties, and not backing down was shown. He better change that message immediately.

At least our long snapper looked good

Dorsey did a great job in getting great players but did he make the right HC decision? Time will tell.

Not directed at you or at any angry posters here.

I am reminded of the mindset expressed as a major focus shared by a Japanese business leader for his company and every employees to keep the focus on their reason for existing:

"Do not fix blame. Fix problems." All energies went to that single focus.

I feel it is great advice for the team, FO, coaches, and fans. It will be challenging following that first game, and it is easy to get sidetracked. This does not mean ignoring mistakes and problems exposed.

What do the Browns do if the problem ends up being the HC? Do they fix it by firing him?

I agree -

Fix the discipline - eliminate (most) penalties.

Fix the play calling - call balanced plays that play to your strengths, once you have shown some success and ability to do your base offense, hit the D when you can call something 'unexpected'.

Fix execution - time will help the team gel. (Better play calling will give them the max opportunity to achieve execution.)

A vast majority of the penalties likely don't happen if we have Robinson the entire game. There were so many offensive holding calls because of our tackles that it was ridiculous. Additionally, him going out was the added pressures and hurries, which no doubt aided in the three INTs.

It isn't terribly unfair to pin the entire loss on Greg Robinson. His one tantrum with the two kicks was the wheels coming off. He ignited the chain of events that led to that death spiral.

I hear what you are saying ... but at the same time, it's a team and "next man up" mentality has to come through. Whether injury or idiotic moment of madness like GR showed, one event can't so completely unravel a team .... not if they are good and expecting to challenge for a playoff run.

A mentality can only take you so far. If it was all you needed Rudy would have been a starter and an All-Star.

Once Lamm went out, it was over. They were absolutely abusing our tackles and they had to hold. After getting beat a few times, the false starts started.... I haven't looked, but I'm pretty sure more than half the penalties came from the OT spots, and most of those after Lamm went down.

We already had 7 penalties before Robinson got kicked out of the game with 5 minutes left in the first half.

cascade effect.
I saw it all go downhill within 3 plays after the ejection.

Yes, and we finished with 18.

It wasn't good before he went out, but we were overcoming it. Once he went out, it went into the crapper. Once Lamm went down, we were done. Unrecoverable.

... and then we started to get our feet back under us with the offense running the ball and the D starting to catch its breath. Then the long Henry TD happened.

There were “unsung” plays that I thought had a huge impact on the game:

- When their punter hit it SEVENTY yards and pinned us way deep.... that led to a safety
- When OBJ was called for OPI and it cots us points and was very questionable
- GRob’s tantrum changed everything

Yes we had 18 penalties, 7 in the first 25 minutes of play, excluding Robinson's ejection, that means we had 10 in the next 35 minutes of play. That means we averaged almost the same amount of penalties per minute before the ejection as we did after.

I think the turning point might have been the missed extra point. We score a TD then the air get deflated.

I don't think so. I was there and the fans were still very excited about the TD drive. Later we learned that that was the first time we scored a TD on the opening drive since 1995. I've not fact-checked that...but I read it once and heard it once.

Watching it was the Derrick Henry 75 yard TD. After that the game was sealed in my mind.

Yep...it looked like we were about to get our heads out of our butts...didn't last long. Same block as on Robinson...with no call. Typical.

I've been at every home game since the return except for? The one we won. Yeah...I'm 0-18-1 on Opening Day.

I agree, but the maddening thing is it didn't have to be like that. There was still a lot of time left.

How did Henry basically go untouched on that play? I was too busy face palming myself after that...As I recall there was no one there but I think Greedy? And he got thrown into the ground.

They had a very effective playfake to the right and our entire defense shifted that way ... threw it all the way back (a very nice pass and catch ... wasn’t easy) and we had one defender who got swallowed into the ground ... and it was literally just a straight shot 75 yards

Pretty good description. We overpersued after the fake and were terrible out of position. Another example of poor discipline by this team.

Thanks for the clip (or, no thanks )

J/C

I am extremely mad about what happened, and put it squarely on Freddie not having these guys prepared.

But to sit her and talk about firing a coach after 1 game, is well.....idiotic. Anyone questioning if we need to fire the HC after 1 freaking game - well, go pick up watching tennis.

There's a difference between turning point and game sealed.

I would agree that that play sealed the game

I respectfully disagree w/you. Big time. No way do I believe the turning point was the missed PAT. It was the first freaking drive of the game. If that were true, we are even more mentally weak than I thought.

I agree w/the dude who said it was the 75 yd TD after we pulled to w/in 2 points. My issue w/that is that was a ton of time left in the game and no way we should have folded in that situation.

The team played w/a lack of focus. They were undisciplined. And they quit.

I hope it was just a one-game thing. They have some soul-searching to do this week. I am hoping they come out and play w/focus, discipline, toughness, and most importantly...as a team instead of a collection of individuals.

I agree here ... the missed PAT was too early to be the big turning point. I think after we scored so easily the offense may have taken the foot off the gas mentally ... then couldn’t regain it.

But, the long TD was a huge play. The loss of GRob was big.

Baker’s first INT was a big time deflator too

thanks for the info dawg

I think the team bought into all the hype about themselves and then when they drove right down the field and scored on that first drive I believe it reinforced that thought and they forgot that they still have to play the game.

Hmm, maybe just his typical state of the franchise bye week address

...not typical in Dorsey...

I can see this going several ways.

Yes.