DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2019 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 15 Ravens 31 Post game

What exactly is that, anyway?

A cursory look gave me this:

Flicking fingers under chin
The chin flick.
Brushing the back of your hand underneath your chin in a flicking motion means “get lost” in Belgium, northern Italy, and Tunisia. In France, this gesture is known as la barbe (”the beard”) and is the hand-sign equivalent of macho grandstanding.

I'm assuming he's using the French version, la barbe.

Otherwise I had no clue and could have meant he had fleas.

What’s mindless is calling passing plays at the 1 yard line on 1st and goal.

JC...I always thought OBJ was doing that thing off of little rascals lol

Also forgot to mention anyone else see Larry Ogunjobi huddled up near the offense on the sideline during a break or timeout...I was wondering if they were going to put him in at FB for a play, however they obviously changed the play as he never went out there...I'm pretty sure we at a goal line situation.

Just some random thoughts,,

I still believe that Mayfield can be "The Guy"

The D isn't very good without Vernon and Garrett.

Kitchens isn't the answer, sorry to say, like the guy,

Wilks had these guys playing pretty well for what he had to work with.

Not sure what Monkin does.

Some of the receptions by Landry and OBJ show me that they are for real.

What the heck is up with Njoku. Injured? Dog House? What?

What the heck is up with Higgens? Dog House? What?

I don't understand what Kitchens is doing. Such innovation last season, and this year, falls flat on his face. I don't get it.

I have no problem with giving a 1st year HC a little slack, the problem is, FK has not shown ONE OUNCE of improvement, ONE single iota of understanding game management, and his game time decision making has actually been getting worse.

I mean, honestly, you take a timeout just to punt? Let the clock wind down, take the delay - and then punt. Save the time out and give your punter an extra 5 yards. HE IS AN IDIOT.

The only person the staff that has not had success is Freddie. You see, Monken has had success in the league as an OC. Heck, even Wilkes. Freddie? He had 8 games of success. And that is arguably under someone else's playbook mind you. This is not a normal situation. Freddie had no experience to lean on. Freddie has no success in the past to look at and say "this is why we will stick with him". And Freddie is not learning at all.

Do you realize with a MEDIOCRE HC we are in the playoffs, right? Like not even a good one, a half decent one. Freddie and his gameday decisions, and management of the clock etc has cost us games. He has not won us a single game. The team's talent has won us games in spite of FK.

They cannot fire FK fast enough.

Let's mail it in next week. Bunglers will appreciate a win and still get their QB. Doesn't mean much to us., so it can be another baffling "game day decision" by FK. Then next season we can start the season "1-0" all season long. After they showed the fire in their belly and went to overtime yesterday, we may have a MAJOR trap game song.

Exactly what will Monken do this week?

I was only able to watch first half. I was so disgusted I lost all appetite for the second half. FK and the Dreamers didn't disappoint. They met ally expectations, sad to say.

We have the same record as the Jets. That's disheartening.

They way we finished out the half and let Baltimore score twice is beyong any reasoning or logic.

That alone deserves firing. FC has no concept of game management, and is not learning after 15 weeks.

Yes - because no team ever does Play Action at the goal line and hits the wide open Receiver as the D goes all out to stop the run.

Unfortunately, this team passes at the goal line without the illusion of running the ball (ie. empty backfield).

Here's a thought FK, go 3 TE look with Chubb in the backfield. Take the snap under center, fake the handoff to Chubb and throw to an open and reliable catching TE not named Demetrius Harris (ie. Carlson).

Ouch.

And, their starting QB was out a month with the cooties.

This season cannot end fast enough.

J/C

Has anyone asked Freddie why he took a time out to punt? #askingforafriend

I plan to bitch about the game.

What happened at the end of the first half can't happen. Most teams, with the ball and 3-4 minutes on the clock are thinking about scoring... our team needs to think about how to give them the ball back without enough time for them to score... and we failed at that, not only did we give it back to them with time to score, we gave it back to them with time to score again.

Defense played great for 28 minutes.. the last 2 minutes of the first half and the entire second half, they were barely a speed bump. Got manhandled and pushed around up front, secondary was confused and out of position a lot, guys running wide open. Little dump offs into the flats and the guy is 8 yards downfield before a Browns defender comes into the screen... They were the definition of "on their heels"..

The offense... I don't know what to think other than it has to be the coaching and playcalling. It just seems like we have to work 10x harder than other teams to get the same results. I know that NFL QBs are expected to make NFL throws but every single one of Baker's throws seems like it needs to be near perfect.. while Lamar has guys running all alone down the field.. I think the biggest difference in Baker and Lamar in throwing the ball is that Lamar throws with more touch, Baker seems to try to throw everything 100 mph, generally because the coverage is always right there.

I get the cries that we should have used Chubb more but he wasn't getting big yardage and if you can't convert first downs, you can't just keep running the ball. This was another game where their defense appeared to know what play was coming.. Chubb was regularly running to a side that had more defenders that blockers.

I believe Freddie was elevated up the ladder much too fast. I like the guy, he needs to take a step back, be and OC somewhere for a while, or maybe go be a college coach, his temperament seems like it might fit college football better.. If he's here next year I'll be rooting for him but with each passing week, I'm hoping more and more that he's not.

I find that I don't make good decisions without all the correct facts in front of me . Can't for the life of me figure out what happened to the Kitchens play caller from the second half of last year ?? Can't be the same guy we saw on the sidelines this season ..

you know, perfect, someone else was complaining Freddie ran two running plays into a stacked defense at the goal line. You are complaining he threw a pass on first down at the goal line. A week ago someone else was complaining that Freddie called a pass play. He/she didn’t mind a pass but Freddie called the “wrong pass play”. When you have so many smart play callers on a message board it is dang near impossible to please them all.

On the bright side, if we decide to fire Freddie, and I hope we don’t, we will have a tremendous number of play callers to choose from without leaving dawg talkers.i

Maybe we can petition the NFL to allow us to call plays by poll in the K-9 forum.

I'd support that

I get it.. when the play works, play callers look like geniuses.. the balance between play call vs execution... yep, I get it.

We have a horribly low success rate in a lot of these situations, so are you saying it's all about execution?

I'm not an NFL recognized play caller, heck I'm not even one of the board expert play callers... I stopped playing football in the 6th grade.. but based on watching it a lot, if I, from the comfort of my couch, can sit and watch the Browns and.. taking into consideration game situation, down and distance, and formation... tell you what play is coming and be right more than half the time... then I'm damn sure defensive specialists who actually study such things can be right far more often than me.

Whatever we are doing, we are tipping our hand, we are predictable... 3 or 4 different defenses said after playing us that they knew what was coming before we ran it and if they knew, odds are that other teams knew as well... I don't care how talented you are or how well you execute, you aren't going to be very successful trying to run plays against a defense that knows what you are going to do. It is that lack of deception and creativity that really scare me about bringing Freddie back... because I'm not sure it's something you can just "learn" but rather it's something you have...

Another thing: Seibert has been decent, but his XPs still concern me

Zane Gonzo has been excellent this year.

Yes, Siebert has been ok - but he still shows issues. I have believe he will though.

Yeah zane’s been good

He was 28-32 in PATs this year. He missed his very first one ever and there was a 15 yard penalty on one that made it nearly 50 yards...

And he missed zero FGs from insider 40 yards.. was 8-11 from 40-49 and 1-2 from over 50.. I remember 2 of the misses from 40-49, well struck balls that the wind blew 25 feet offline.. he will just have to learn that over time.

Overall I'd say he had a very good year for a rookie kicker who plays in one of the tougher stadiums to kick.

The saddest part is that he only kicked 32 PATs... that's sad.. Justin Tucker kicked 57 PATs...

I think that he did well in the stadium that is probably in the top 3 hardest for a kicker to kick in.

I would sum up my feelings this way... Austin Seibert was not the problem.

Hes not, but lets be honest, we didn't know who the kicker was going into week one until the final cut day IIRC. That was an issue that shouldn't have been if you ask me. We are lucky, very lucky - he has so far panned out. I look forward to a long career with him.

But lets be honest, its not like the kid was a lock coming into this season.

You cannot miss as many xtra points like Seibert has.

How many has he missed 4 or 5??

He must go along with Freddie.

That's just a bad take IMO.

He can get better, surely. But the difference with Siebert vs. Freddie - Siebert has shown he has talent and can get better. Freddie has not.

Statistically he was probably the best rookie kicker in the NFL this year... his numbers are also better than Phil Dawson when he was a rookie in 1999... so there is that.

I'm sure we will bring in some people to challenge him in camp, if one of them beats him out it's not like I'm going to lose any sleep over it... but if we go into the season with Seibert again next year it's also not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

Dc, I was going to comment on your earlier post but you have had three good ones in a row.i do appreciate your stats on siebart. We already gave up on Gonzalez too early, I hope we don’t repeat the mistake with siebart.

Your comment earlier about the “problem with the offense must be coaching and playcalling” seems to presume a lot. Bill Walsh could call the plays and if lineman don’t block, receivers don’t run the proper routes and qb does not throw accurate passes then the playcalling is for naught.

Dc, a few weeks ago Freddie was an idiot because on our 5 he had a pass play called and an empty backfield. Baker had not even turned around when two defenders sacked him. But the play did not fail because of the formation of play all, it failed because two lineme failed miserably at doing their job.

Yesterday Freddie called a terrible play because he called that little pitch to Kareem, I think, and he was gonna throw a short pass to an open receiver. The played failed, not because it was a bad playcall, but because somebody did not block the linebacker and he was all over Kareem before he could do anything.

I listen to about every press conference Freddie gives after the game. I have yet to hear him call out a player for failing to perform. He says he has to call better plays and do a better job getting them in position to succeed. He never throws anyone under the bus, except himself.

I think it is easy to blame playcalling and not look at where the breakdowns really occur. But continuing to play musical chairs with our coaches will continue to give us the same results.

Ok, what about the litany of other issues with Freddie? The lack of discipline, the penalties, the idiotic game time decisions, the depth cart questions, inexcusabile use of timeouts or lack thereof, throwing 3 pass yesterday to allow Balt 2 scores before the half? Players not being able to get lined up correct, former players saying that a 3 and whatever team is more organized then they are.....the list goes on and on.

Yes, you make a good point and kickers are a dime a dozen.

Yes, I agree with you also.

Freddie is the most important one to go out the door.

I disagree with that. Most games in the NFL are within a few points. A good Kicker can make all the difference in a playoff push, or winning a championship. Ask Pittsburgh last year. If Boswell didn't struggle for them, they run away with the division - he did, and they missed the playoffs.

How many SB would NE have if they had a bad kicker? How many playoff games did Manning lose in Indy because of his Kicker?

I would actually contend that K is one of the top 5 most important positions on the team.

It did fail because it was an empty backfield....Most coaches would have known our line was suspect and left a blocker/dumpoff option/perceived running threat back there. Freddie always seems to go against what common sense tells him.



It was a bad play call. Another in a multitude of failed gimmick plays. We can't even line up correctly for traditional plays, let alone that crap. We need to get the basics down before trying to be cute. The blocking schemes were probably technically very difficult for that play to be successful. This is one of my biggest beefs with Freddie. Trying to be too cute, too smart while ignoring the obvious. I was waiting for our weekly failed shovel pass yesterday.



He's been saying that since week 1 but week after week he fails to deliver.



Even by your own admission, Freddie blames his playcalling. Yet he continues to do the same thing week after week. He hasn't changed since opening day, and other teams even tell us they can tell what he's calling. So yes, it is easy to blame the playcalling.

geez will, you are makin my point. There was over a minute left when we got the ball. Maybe 1 min and 25 secs. If we had run three runs into the line to run out the clock some other Freddie critics would have called him a lousy coach for not trying to put points on the board. For some reason you walked right past the main point. Our execution stunk!! We could not even complete one lousy pass.

Some of the things you mention are part of growing into your first head coaching job. A lot to learn and get better at. We did not hire a polished Tom Landry. But our coach will improve if given time. Or we bring in another rookie head coach who will exhibit some of the same growing pains.?or we bring in one of the several experienced hc’s who have had some success mixed in with much less success.

Will you seem to place little or no importance to execution. Truth is if the packers ran Jim Taylor on a sweep right and Jerry Kramer and Forrest Gregg failed to block their men the play would have been blown up. I guess from your perspective that would make Vince Lombardi a terrible play caller. We had too many players who failed to perform their tasks satisfactorily. I admire Freddie taking for claiming responsibility when he knows the breakdowns were on the field.

Sorry, but I can not give him a pass on the final two minutes of the first half.
(He knows this today too, but...)

Football 101 ... you run the ball in that situation, if you happen to get a first down, great, if not, you have left them no time and in this particular case they had no timeouts.

He reminds me of Jerry Glanville always going against the grain.

A good Coach calls the game with timing in mind, because he knows the heart beat of his team at a given time. It is not all about execution, though it is a prerequisite to success.

We call it rythm, but we have seen no such animal this year imo.

It's intuitive, like with Shanahan calling playes.

Worse yet, he repeats the same mistakes from week one hitherto.

And I know that he talks about fixing the teams mistakes continually, but when it comes to his own ... not so much.

Sorry Fl , but I do not agree. I have seen, and I would bet you have too, teams move the length of the field in 60-80 seconds and put points on the board. Seen it too many times done against us. A coach counts on his players making plays and we failed to do that. That said, our defense was embarrassingly bad to allow them to score like that. We may as well not been on the field the way they walked thru us. Honestly as disappointing as our o has been, I think our d has been even more disappointing.

Hail special teams. Bright spot of the season.

He's a rookie kicker. Theoretically he should improve.

Im not trying to be rude, but are you kidding me??? You honestly think calling 3 pass plays in that situation was the right thing to do? If you runt he ball ONCE, just ONCE!!!!! you bleed 35 seconds AT LEAST off the clock. You dont give the best team in the damn league a chance to score AGAIN on you. Its literally football 101. Im sorry, but there is NO, 0, notta, not a single iota of an argument to make about that series.


Name one area, or thing Freddie has grown to learn from this year?

Go ahead, ill wait.

It does presume a lot. Primarily it presumes that with our offensive talent, we should be better than the 22nd scoring offense. If linemen don't block and/or receivers don't run the proper routes, then one of two things are to blame.. either they physically aren't good enough to do their job, or they aren't being properly coached in how to do their job. I think it is primarily the latter.


Fundamentally, you have the NFLs leading rusher in the backfield, a second great runner standing beside him.. it's 3rd and 1 at an important moment in the game.. your offense has been struggling to sustain drives.. you call a play to get the first down. That's it, it's pretty much that simple. If your 6'2" guard steals the ball in basketball and is going to the hoop as time expires to win the game, he shouldn't try a 360 windmill dunk that he has never actually executed before.. just make the play. Freddie has been outthinking himself all year on plays where the simplest answer is the one he should have chosen.

As for the play itself, it's not that nobody blocked the guy, there was nobody on that side of the field to attempt to block the guy. That's poor play design. Not only that, let's say the guy does get blocked, Jarvis Landry had moved exactly zero yards downfield as the primary receiver you say was open. The defender was literally standing 2 yards in front of him. Even if the play "works" it's a 2 yard gain at best.

What is our success rate on "trick plays" this year? 1 in 5?


I agree. I think it's bigger than just playcalling in any given situation. I think it goes back to play design and overall scheme. 3 or 4 times this year opponents have said after the game they knew what play was coming before we ran it.

The lack of rhythm, the lack of discipline, the lack of imagination and creativity, the lack of execution... this has been a constant theme for our offense and it all comes back to coaching. And it's not just the offense, how many coverage busts did we have on Sunday? I know they capitalized on a few of them but replays showed several others we got away with...

I'm also worried about how much faith our players have in our coach. I've said before and will say again, if Freddie is our coach next year, I won't be mad, I'm going to root like heck for the guy to succeed.. but the learning curve he has to overcome to get this on track where it should be seems fairly steep with a LOT of things to correct.