DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Higgins?

Seems like Bake has tossed his security blankie out the window ....

Perhaps this is the reason we have not seen much of him.


https://heavy.com/sports/2019/11/browns-rashard-higgins-refused-to-play/

According to J.R. De Groote who was born and raised in Hawaii and still lives there? He knows less than many of the guys who post on these boards.

What's a Higgins?

J.R. De Groote is simply regurgitating the original report by Jason Lloyd of The Athletic that was published a few weeks ago.

Dawg pound daily also reported it.....who knows what the truth is. However it does seem odd his playing time has been cut down so much.

He's been playing, but he hasn't been getting the same number of targets.
The one that I can think of he got in the Steelers game, he dropped.

It was tipped (PD) by the CB.

I'm wondering if, with Baker trying to build a connection with Beckham, his connection with Higgins is suffering.

not to mention the emergence of Hunt, Landry having a good year, and the focus on Chubb

I would pick Hunt as the one stealing targets from Higgins. Hunt is quickly proving he can be that security blanket.

Should be room for more success. Da Fins are not the yardstick you want to use to measure overall success IMO. We have more to do, and we can do more. Higgins with a hot hand would help the others. But there is no room for nonsense. We need some Edelman type performances to register in our offense.

We still have a bunch of upside.

With the scheme upheaval from the offseason and throughout this season, and pass catchers coming into and out of the lineup, we are still waiting for the roster to sort of settle.

I have no problem (to an extent) of 'encouraging' the Baker-OBJ connection. With Calloway gone, I was hopeful Higgins would get more field-time... but we knew from the beginning of the season of the real possibility of there being too many mouths to feed on offense. That whole situation just needs to settle out naturally.

I think we should prepare ourselves to see Hollywood become a star in some other team's uniform.

We were talking about this during the Miami game. He is all but forgotten in this offense. His injury doesn't help, but he was non-existent this past weekend.

IMHO the difference between Baker this year and last, and when he has good games vs. poor is when he spreads the ball around. Freddie and company have him striving to get the ball in the hands of the 'playmakers', I guess Higgins didn't make the cut for that list.

I think the answer is pretty obvious based on the comment about the departure of Calloway being cut, "not changing the offense". Higgins took over for Calloway, and as we see, Higgins playing isn't changing the offense either.

We have four guys and the TE position all being more of the focus than the third WR position and it shows. Between Chubb, Hunt, OBJ, Landry and TE plays, it doesn't leave a lot of scraps for WR3.

And Shobert and Randall.

I don't want to lose any of the three.

If I had to rank them from most important to least I'd go Scho, Randall, Higgins. Something tells me the FO feels all of them can be upgraded.

Who cares, we don't need good football players.

I would rank them like that too. I’d really like to keep Scho and Randall, though I don’t think Randall’s price tag is gonna fit here

Higgins is becoming a bit of an enigma.

Early season injury didn't do him any favors, attitude afterwards did him even less. He practiced all week leading up to Seattle. Probably upset that he didn't start, he refused to enter the game. Rumors are he used his knee as an excuse. Kitchens, in his post game said "Ask Rashard why he didn't play".

Personally, I thought the Denver game would be his party. Playing at "home" (Colorado State), Jarvis and OBJ limited all week in practice... Eight receivers caught passes, Higgins had one target and no catches.

Freddie gave him a big hug and their exchange seemed genuine after he caught the game-winner vs the Bills. Since - back to ambiguity.

Hunt has jumped in and excelled. Seems like he's always where he is supposed to be, is an excellent "release valve" when he's not a primary target. OBJ looks less like a deer in the headlights, Landry is getting locked in.

Subconsciously, especially given the early season miscues by receivers, maybe the "trust" isn't there yet for Baker.

Now, Njoku is returning. Higgins may get pushed to the back burner yet again.

j/c

One thing I think we all need to remember is Baker is the guy throwing the ball. Unless fans believe that Freddie is telling Baker not to throw the ball to Higgins.

Higgins is on the field 30% of the time. Meanwhile Jarvis and OBJ were on the field nearly 100%. Hard to gain any type of chemistry with that going on.

And to add to that, Baker has been far better with 12 personnel. We were begging Freddie to go with two TE early in the season, if that's the case we are going with Landry and OBJ. And now we are wondering where is Higgins... We can't have it both ways.

Higgins is good. We didn't need OBJ. That was my stance then and is now. I don't expect Higgins to be here next year.

As I said, the #3 WR doesn't figure into the scheme. Be that WR Higgins or Calloway.

The rest is your opinion and you are entitled to it. But I'd be willing to bet you almost anything that few if any people around the league would say OBJ isn't a huge upgrade to Higgins. On a personal level I find it hilarious.

It doesn't right now no. I agree. However that's with Kareem in the lineup. That may change when Kareem leaves next year (which is very possible).

J/c

Good points about our 12 personnel and Higgy not fitting there ... especially now since Hunt is in the fold

I think it will have a lot more to do with the OL than it does Hunt being here or not. I mean I think we both agree that Hunt is a big upgrade to Duke, but the point being it doesn't take a huge investment to get a guy to play such a role. Houston paid way too much for Duke which was a good thing for us. But backs in general aren't that expensive. So there's no doubt in my mind we'll have someone filling that role.

Keeping two TE's in is more about blocking than anything. If our OL finds major upgrades at the OT positions, we may be able to get away from the 12 package more. But otherwise I think that's where we'll be for a while.

I would hope we at least address the LT position via the draft. And as late as we'll be drafting, I don't expect a stud like Joe Thomas to be sitting there. So IMO, even if we draft a LT in round 1 we'll be in that 12 package for another season.

Agree on this. Tackle has to be our #1 priority going into next season as far as acquiring new talent goes.

Both can and should be upgraded, which would allow us to more flexibility in what personnel we are running.

He will be a RFA. Chances are pretty good that he will be a Brown next season imo.

Im not quite sure anyone thinks OBJ isn't an upgrade over Higgins. I would find it funny as well, I guess.

Most of what I said isn't really opinion. I'm a huge OBJ fan and I think he's our best WR. However, I still don't think he is needed. Based on the results on the field, one could argue that factually we didn't need him either.

I guess the simple fact is this: with OBJ, Landry, Hunt, Chubb, and the TEs all catching passes quite effectively, it probably doesn't matter much at all who the #3 WR is.

That said, I'm quite happy with it being Higgins because he IS good, and he does know how to get open, he runs good routes, and has good hands. He is just one more guy a defense has to account for and that alone gives him value because it means that can't just let him go; they have to account for him which means that reduces their options for providing extra coverage over OBJ, Landry, Hunt, etc....

Higgins is also a very good downfield blocker.

I would agree. But I think he's probably going elsewhere.

I really really hope not. We're a long way away from being a team that can really take advantage of OBJ's talents. It would make more sense to trade OBJ than Higgins, if that is what we have to do.

Why do you say that?

When OBJ was brought in and the offense we saw out there (and still see, to a lesser extent), it became evident that the powers that be wanted an offense that could pass 1 gajillion times a game and run defenses up and down the field. That is simply not this team.

IMO, taking full advantage of OBJ's talents means we're making him a staple of the offense. Lots of passes going his way, lots of shots down the field to him. Currently, our offense is all about the run game.

Again, IMO, in order to get the offense more into the mold of an OBJ-focused one, we would need Baker to make that huge leap and upgrade our offensive line (particularly at both tackle positions) to handle the pass rush with less help. Neither of those things are short-term changes.

Yep, it appears he’s gonna be out

Writing this one off.

Be careful what you wish for.

Thanks for the good you gave us. Good luck!