DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Duke Johnson Traded

I agree (with a couple of changes). We could of had Jim Brown in his prime in the backfield - and the play-calling, discipline and QB regression would have still prevented us from winning games we 'in theory' could have won. Duke was not going to be a differentiator. jmo

j/c I don't think that there is a single outcome this season that Duke would have changed. He's good, and a great guy to have, but he is quite literally NOT a game-changer.

This enigma that is Duke Johnson just continues to roll along. Texans fans up in arms... "Why isn't he getting touches?" "Why do we keep running him up the middle?" Duke had a beautiful 19 yard run against the Colts Thursday. Jumped up with his usual why aren't you getting me the ball demeanor. The rest of the night was 4 carries for 3 yards.

Duke has three catches for 12 yards in the last two games. "He's known as one of the best receivers out of the backfield. Why aren't we throwing him the ball??"

Welcome to the club, Texans fans, we don't know either.

According to some of our fans, several HC's, now with two different teams, have no idea of how to use the great and wonderful talent that is Duke Johnson. And the saga continues......

It's always a good thing to defer to Mike Pettine, Hue Jackson, and Bill O'Brien when referencing how a player is used effectively. I mean, these are some of the best.

The Seattle game. I made a post a couple pages ago.

The Hilliard drop that led to the game ending INT, turns into 6+ yard gain with Duke.

Don’t know how to use him?

He led the league in RB receptions for 3 year period under Pettine/Hue. Just Kitchens couldn’t figure it out, but he can’t seem to figure out the most basic stuff.

The short memory/revisionist history of so many people on this thread is shocking to me.

And the fact that so many people still talk about Duke Johnson is shocking to me.

That's odd. It's directly relevant to today. 3rd round draft pick. Loss of games. Why wouldn't we talk about him?

I'd rather have the 3rd rounder and draft a player that wants to actually play for the Browns vs someone who demanded a trade.

If you read any of the news about him... he is pedestrian and the Browns fleeced the Texans.

Just in the context of "we'd have won if he were here for this" talk. He was here - for quite awhile - we never won. I'm happy for a 3rd rounder and I sincerely hope to be done with Duketalkers forever.

We fleeced them because guys like Duke are apparently a dime a dozen because... ????

The guy has the talent and belongs at the NFL level. At the end of the day, you make trades to acquire more talent (either short term or longer term). You don't make trades so you can run back to your charts and graphs to see if you 'won' the trade.

I loved having Duke here, but man that RB was crowded and we now have an additional pick where we should be able to get an NFL talent at another position without hurting our overall RB talent that much. Yes, we could've used him earlier this season, but smart money says he probably doesn't affect the outcome of any of those games, and wouldn't have affected our main issues.

Yeah, he's at most a third down back with a back up role everywhere he's been. How did we ever let him get away?

Not everyone who wears a Browns uniform is a superstar. And Duke fits well within that description.

He. Led. The. League. In. Pass. Catches. For. A. RB. Over. 3. Year. Period.

Ya know what, I give up, it seems like nobody is actually reading or paying attention to facts. Just stating how much they don't want to talk about someone by coming to a thread to talk about them.

Not you specifically PitDAWG, just clicked on your post since it was the last in the thread.

I haven't been reading this thread, mostly, before today.

I wonder if the Browns had held on to Duke Johnson from the start of the season, among other things, if it would not have led to the Browns having won a couple more games and led to them being above the playoff cutoff at this point in the season.

For that to have happened - and for Duke to have been the difference - we'd have been relying on:
= Freddie being a better OC than he was in the games we lost but *could* have won
= Freddie being a better HC
= Baker not having regressed so badly that he was throwing everything too hard and mostly inaccurately
= The OL was playing better than it was

I don't see it. I was a huge Duke fan, loved how he always made the first tackler miss .... but he didn't want to be here and with the 4 factors above and some other issues with the team as well, I don't see how anyone thinks Duke was going to be the difference maker. Is he better than Hilliard? By miles yes, was that what decided those games? No.

lol, nice one

I just don't like thinking the only thing keeping the 2019 Browns out of the playoffs is they are a
Jabril Peppers away,
or a Danny Shelton/ Trevon Coley either or, away;

or they are a Breshard Perriman plus Higgans and Callaway being ready and able all year, away,

or they are just an Emmanuel Ogbah and or Nassib and Seth DeValve away,

or they are an undoing of the one for one swap of last years tight end for Harris at tight end this year away,

from having played better as a group, enough,

maybe just enough to not start out 0-1 in the opener vs the titans, or maybe just get a play here or 5 game minutes of momentum there against the Seahawks, ie. or the Rams

from really being in the drivers seat of the playoff race, instead of the,

well instead of hoping the Ravens suddenly lose 3 outa 4 to have a legitimate shot.

I just want people to consider one thing about the "horrible play calling".

Some people are assuming that we are running exactly the same offense as last year ... and we are not.

Last year's offense was Haley's offense, with some Kitchen mixed in after Freddie became OC.

This year's offense is a Bruce Arians based offense. It is a different offense, from the calls on up.

Now, if this is our long term head coach, and our long term offensive scheme, (and the defensive side, as well) then is it horrible if we struggled at 1st, as players learn the offense, and we have dealt with some difficult injuries? We have seen some confusion, with players not in the right spot.

This seems to be improving with time and experience. Some might say we have played easier defenses, but the Bills and Steelers are both respectable on that side of the ball.

No matter how this season turns out, I hope we keep the schemes and coaches in place, so we can go into the next season without players having to start over yet again.

The offense was a HOT mess for like 6 weeks. It has looked much improved.

We still get too cute on a damn near quarterly basis.

We are to cute when the plays don't work. We are hero's when they do.

Just remember all plays are successful when the execution of them is perfect.

We have a very low success rate on gadget plays.. which is why there is the frustration... we are marching the ball down the field just fine then run a gadget play and lose yardage or do something stupid.. if things are working, just keep doing them until they aren't working any more.

Yet almost every team does the same thing. You know damn well that if we never ran any trick or gadget plays that the fans would have been crying and screaming about that.

Just score a TD or FG on every offensive series and the rest will tend to itself.

Yet no team in the History has ever done that for 12, 14, or a 16 game season.

Even this one?

I stand corrected LOL

I agree with you 100%. The frustration of the fans when this happens is heard and felt. The success of gadget plays is a result of timing as much as execution.

However, IMO FK all-too-often tries to outsmart the opponent in getting away from what the opponent has been unable to stop. There is a fine line from making 'making them prove they can stop you' and 'becoming predictable'. At times this year we have failed at BOTH of those issues. No matter what we do and how well we do it, we look clunky almost all the time.

We'd have won more games if Hunt were available all year...

Then again, had Hunt been available all year, he would probably still be with KC.

In the end, we don't miss Duke and he is still doing in Houston what he did here.

Duke is what he is...think Theo Reddick.

Nothing wrong with that. It is what it is.

Our offense is still a work in progress. Earlier in the year, the gadget plays were the only plays that were working.

For some people reality bites.

And yet he is on pace to surpass all his production from 2018 in total yards, TDs, and avg. per catch/rush. All simply by being used more efficiently and effectively.

Reality can certainly bite for some.

He is a role playing RB. Not a starter. Never has been and never will be. But some people seem to really get into that type of thing. Some of you make him sound like the second coming of Jim Brown. He was replaced with a much better and more proven player. People should quit carrying on about the inferior back we had before Hunt.

We actually upgraded and people still keep droning on.

How so?

I love it when people try (and fail) to take people's opinion to the extreme.

Some people waste tears and rant about some career back up RB too.

You are right, that hunt is better than Duke, no argument there.

But I would say that trading duke has cost us AT least 1 game this year (sea I think it was when Hillard dropped an easy catch into the hands of a defender), which at this moment, could very well cost us the playoffs.

If we had the choice to keep duke this year, and make the playoffs - or trade duke for a 3rd (I think that's what we got) and not make the playoffs. Give me the playoffs.

To me .. The way the TEAM played in the Tennessee game .. and the 49ers game come closer to costing us the Playoffs than trading Duke. Not any one player has cost us anything. The lack of discipline and entirely too many penalties play a larger role than Hilliard replacing Duke.

I was going to dispute this but then looked into it and they have remarkably similar stats.