DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Odell

I normally agree with most things you say - and even on Kitchens I don't necessarily disagree but I am mightily worried at a startling lack of improvement and ability. That said -- on a short goal line play - empty back field plays for the Browns are plain stupid. In a compressed field with little depth to have to be worried about, having too many receivers running around does NOT help. Heck early in the season we had break down on how with the full length of the field in play our WR's were running routes too close together - GL and 4 or 5 WR's only makes that worse. AND if you really want that last option - send the RB on a short route after chipping the DE/Blitzing LB..... Zero problem passing, just not from an empty backfield.

Also .... develop the Run / Pass game during training and during the rest of the game - not when you are in prime scoring position.

I'm perplexed by the handling of our players' injuries this year.

We held out Higgins when he said he was ready and then Higgins held himself out. We held out Njoku while he said he was ready. Randall gets hurt during the week...Robinson comes in on Mon/Tue with a concussion...and the icing on the cake?

We are playing OBJ with a freakin' sports hernia on top of him not knowing where to line up and running routes like a 5th Rd rookie.

He's a terrific athlete and CAN BE a dominant receiver, but 75-80% of OBJ right now is NOT better than 100% of Higgins...let alone Higgins + Njoku if the issue is spreading around the ball.

We aren't going to the playoffs and even if we did, OBJ won't be much help and is only going to feel worse as the season progresses with that injury. Shut him down...get the surgery...heal up...and hit the ground running next year.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the argument is for keeping him in right now. Maybe we're pushing for playoffs "Jim Carrey Dumb and Dumber style", but I don't see the downside to shutting him down early to prep him for next year. If he's definitely getting the surgery, sooner will be better than later for his and the team's long-term.

Players always want to play. That's not how such things are determined. Each team has a medical staff that determines when a player is ready to come back. The coaching staff depends on that medical staff and not the player.

And often they will determine that an injury will not get worse by playing (Like Ogunjobi last year) and it becomes a matter of being able to play with the pain.

You are 100% correct in this, however I recall Njoku saying he was released to play from the medical staff, and coaching said they wanted to give him another week. Same with Randall, I thought. Maybe I am mistaken.

I'm sure that OBJ has some bonus incentives around 1k yards and he will play until he gets those incentives

I do know he wasn't activated until right before he started. I'm not sure on the release by the medical staff. In some cases it's a matter of strength and conditioning needed before returning. In the specific case of Njoku I really can't say.

They designated him to return, and then activated him, as you said, right before the last game.

He was out most of the season, and I am sure he had/has a lot to learn about the offense. He also probably had to get back into game shape. A player designated to return is allowed to practice for 2 weeks before either being activated, or places on season ending IR.

Here are OBJ's contract bonus incentives:

96 receptions ($500,000)
1,374 yards ($500,000)
12 TDs ($500,000)
$1M bonus for playoffs

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cleveland-browns/odell-beckham-jr-14421/

That's where I'm at. Dorsey has to have a better feeling for what the mood is inside the building toward Freddie than any of us. If we roll up next year with Freddie, I will expect a lot of the snags to have been worked out. If we roll up next year without Freddie, I will be ok with that too as long as the replacement has a proven record of being better than Freddie in the areas where he has struggled.

Much like yourself, I'm not tied to Freddie in any way. At the same time I'm not about attacking the man on very limited actual facts we as fans have to base such things on. I'm not interested in unnamed sources, rumors and most Twitter feeds.

Jarvis Landry on Odell Beckham: He’s not trying to leave
https://sports.yahoo.com/jarvis-landry-odell-beckham-not-190505169

When Odell Beckham‘s arrived in Cleveland this offseason, he was able to team up with his former LSU teammate Jarvis Landry in the Browns receiving corps.

The partnership hasn’t led to the kind of on-field success that the Browns hoped to have this season and the last week has featured plenty of discussion about whether the tandem might be splitting up after this year. Beckham wouldn’t discuss a report that he might be looking to move on after last Sunday’s game, but Landry said he doesn’t believe Beckham is looking for a way out of Cleveland.

“It’s not even about trying to go somewhere else,” Landry said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “For him, he’s a guy that comes to work every day. He’s a guy that’s playing through injuries. All the things you want out of a player. . . . He doesn’t want to leave and he’s not trying to leave.”

Beckham’s previous comments have been vaguer and another round of similar thoughts in the next few weeks won’t do much to quell speculation that another move could be coming in 2020.

Your last sentence is one of the big things for me. I'm certainly not pushing (in case it matters) for a HC change, but I also understand if Dorsey decides it's necessary. That said, they HAVE to have a clear upgrade waiting to step in. We can't do what we've almost always done in the past where we fire a coach and then start thinking about what we're going to do about the opening. There absolutely HAS to be a Grade A hire if we choose to change. I highly doubt McCarthy is it. Dude was there for the taking last year and everyone passed. Didn't the Jets pass on him to hire Gase? Yeah, that's doesn't sound like prime candidate material to me.

Rivera could be that guy. When all is said and done, he had some pretty good rosters, and his overall record wasn't all that great. On the surface, even he doesn't quite do it for me.

So far... Freddie has come out and said his relationship with OBJ is fine and OBJ wants to be here....

Mayfield has come out and said that he has talked to OBJ and that OBJ is fine and wants to be here....

Landry is OBJ's best friend and has come out and said that OBJ is fine and wants to be here....

Still waiting for OBJ to say, with some level of sincerity, that he is fine and really wants to be here....

A two touchdown, 150+ yd game might do it......for now.

Yeah, why would we want this? LOL

Mike McCarthy (American football)
Personal information
Head coaching record
Regular season: 125–77–2 (.618)
Postseason: 10–8 (.556)
Career: 135–85–2 (.613)

Not sure he is getting any of those this year...

All with a future HoF QB that had sat and developed for a season (or two?) before seeing real action. They never had a dream team, but they had all the major pieces in place to win a lot more games than they did.

And you left out another thing. Dude is unemployed... wasn't picked up by anyone. Was passed over for Gase.

Off topic, sorry....

McCarthy is most likely going to go where there is a stud young QB.

The Jets and Browns come to mind. Maybe Texans if they flop and fire O'Brien. Giants are also a possibility. I'd imagine one of these 4 teams could be the team for McCarthy.

The Jets had issues with McCarthy's staff. Gase was bringing in Gregg Williams. It was also said at one point McCarthy was only interested in the Jets job. So maybe he's still interested in working with Darnold and maybe the Jets will be a little lax on the coaches McCarthy wants to bring along.

The Jets and Browns still have coaches in their first year with the team. They may not get fired. However, Gase in my mind is definitely gone. Kitchens may remain. And Dorsey didn't seem too interested in McCarthy unless he just knew who he wanted all along...

With that said, I hope our coach is either Kitchens or McCarthy next year.

I don't think Gase is going anywhere.

I don't think the Jets can afford to keep him another year... and I'm not talking about money.

They're too cheap to pay him to leave and they had a nice little 4 game win streak the same time we did. Plus Darnold with mono. I think he'll get another year based on some of these extenuating circumstances. Should he? If I were a Jets fan I'd hope not. I think he's a train wreck, possibly worst coach in the league. But the Jets are a terrible run organization similar to our Browns. Poor ownership all the way down. Whatever they do, it will end up bad.

You should never hire someone as your HC that you're not willing to invest at least two seasons into.

That seems rather arbitrary.

Ideally you have good ownership in place that sets the tone of the organization and hires people consistent with that. If you have that, I think you can roll the dice that decisions will pan out because you know the people making the decisions are competent. If you have an organization like the Browns all decisions are a crapshoot. 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, does it really matter? If it looks like you got it wrong, you probably did. No amount of time is going to change that. And even then all you're doing is "hoping" it changes. It's a tough call especially when you're not confident in the people making the decisions.

I know you probably won't receive this message well, but I think what you are saying as a testament to what I refer to as a microwave society. Everything should happen right now. That's not the normal trajectory that things follow.

It has been hashed and rehashed about HC's who have had instant success and those who started off slowly. Some of the great ones started off slowly and some of those who had instant success have had trouble maintaining that success.

So yes, history dictates that time has most certainly played a huge part in success or the lack of it for many great HC's. Had they have not been given that time we would probably not even Remember who coaches like Chuck Knoll, Bill Walsh and even Bill Belicheck even are. So maybe that, "hoping it changes" isn't a bad idea. I would prefer to call it "giving it a chance to develop", but to each their own.

Your supposition would be that Haslam doesn't have confidence in Dorsey making those decisions. I mean that is what we're discussing, right? Whether they will stick with Freddie or not? So in order for Freddie to be fired, either Dorsey would have to be unwilling to give Freddie a second season or Halsam upstaging Dorsey's authority and overriding his GM.

You see, it's all about a person's perspective. Some people would see it as Dorsey being stubborn and unwilling to change his mistake in hiring Freddie. Others will see it as Dorsey having the patience to give this thing a chance to develop.

I've never been a fan of overreaction and making impulse decisions. I was raised by someone who taught me that in many cases patience pays dividends. I believe if you have a plan and have confidence in your decision making you stay true to your plan until such time as it has been given a fair chance to come to fruition.

If you don't have enough confidence in the man your hire as HC to give him a minimum of two seasons to put things together, you should hire someone you do have that confidence in.

The one overriding factor is that there's HUGE money in the NFL and a very impatient fan base as we all can see. It's a reason that both coaches and players often aren't given the time to develop the way they used to. It makes me wonder where the next Bill Walsh or Chuck Knoll will come from. Because in today's game they would never have been around long enough to reach their potential.

Now I'm not saying Freddie would ever be the next Bill Walsh. The problem is, we may never know if you cut him off at the knees after one season.

I want to see credit for the term "Microwave Society®" because I coined that phrase on the old boards.

I don't think it's about having results right now. It's about hiring the right people. If you know you didn't hire the correct or best coach after a year then you should move on. No sense in keeping someone for the sake of continuity.

I think too often teams will stick with the HC even when they know he's not the right one. I think the Jets know he's not the one. But they may stick with him because of the owner situation.

We shall see I guess.

I don't think anyone "knows" after one season.

And yet I gave you an entire list of those who started out early fast, and stayed fast their entire careers - Most of whom were HOF coaches, I see you failed to mention that in your post, weird.

Those guys also didn't have the roster talent that FK started with either. You see, the only reason we have won games this year, was on our talent. There is not a single game we have won where you can say "we out coached them" is there? Please, point out to that win for me.

Yet I can point to multiple games Pitts, NE, Balt, etc have won where their HC simply outcoached the other guy...funny thing is, the majority of those were against FK

Yeah, they were all everybody in year one. lmao

You act as though you're the only one who has a point here. You're not.

I'm sure they do. And by they I mean the team's front office.

I remember reading once something Banner said after he resigned from the Browns. Actually, I think he might have said it recently. I'll see if I can find it. He interviewed several front offices about head coaches and he said that most of them knew after a year but didn't fire the coach until 2-3 years later.

I'm on the fence with Kitchens, but I had a hunch Shurmur and Hue weren't the right guys.

I'd give Freddie another season, but I don't know what's going on behind closed doors.

Looks like he will be 0 for 4.

Heard an interview with Paul Finebaum on the radio today - man he could not have been more brutal about Freddie if he tried. Basically said he was the worst HC in the NFL this year ... it was funny because he wasn't mean, he was certainly brutal and it was impossible to say he was being unfair. Take that for what it's worth. Whenever I have heard PF talk football he normally seems uber well informed.

Tony Rizzo and Erin Goldhammer listener, eh?

All I know is what I see and we have one of the ELITE recievers in the game today, and a franchise Q.B. and FK made them mediocre players ...he should have been gone yesterday before he ruins the rest of the team for another 10 yrs. Its not personel just business.
J\C

Never Goldhammer who is a tool - but either 850AM or 97.5FM - depends on the day. Both via internet as I am down south. Did you hear that interview?

I really hope Bake ends up being our QB for the next decade or more but I think the jury is still out on Bake being a franchise QB.Kitchens isn't to blame for Bake not being accurate and making some poor decisions with his throws.

I did. Finebaum was on with Rizzo and Goldhammer on 850.

I can't stand either of them so much I can't help myself from listening at times!