DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Underestimated or Overestimated

If that's actually the case, then I'm doubling down on my opinion. With how our division loves to run the ball, wanting to run more of a dime D would be one of the more Brownsiest decisions we've made, recently.

From your link: Here is what they had to say about the Browns supporting cast.

A fair assessment IMO

I don't think it's Baker so much blamed his supporting cast as it was.... ah, never mind.

I didn't read it that way and I never heard Baker blame others. However, a lot of people have made a lot of excuses for his poor play last year. I think the comment was more about outside people rather than Baker or people who are w/the team.

Another thing............it was interesting to see they had the Browns ranked number 1 last year. I did, too. In fact, I even bet money that Baker would win the MVP last year.

It depends. No doubt you have to have a box safety in the mix.

Not to look back, but a guy like Peppers might have come in handy about now. The good news is that more and more of that type of player are hitting the draft every year. That is what made Simmons such a big deal. He can play well at multiple positions.

You must have been reading my mind...

I truly enjoyed most of the reads in this thread and it has inspired me to add my 2 cents.

I think the Browns this season will be the team we all hoped they would be last season. The one thing I wished we had done last season and this is hire an experienced head coach.

I think that when you have a team that has lost as much as the Browns have over the past 20+ years you need experience and discipline at the HC position. That is not to say that a rookie HC can't win it's the power of having a known commodity running your football operation on the field. When the bullets start flying how will the head man react?

I see this team doing a 180 from last season based on the offense that KS ran in Minn. We will become a team that goes thru Chubb & Hunt and not so much Bake. With the outside threats we have and the TE situation we become a very potent Run 1st, play action football team. The big big mistake that Freddie made was not using Chubb to be the center piece of the offense, that to me is the key. From there everything gets better.

With the improvement at RT and LT we should become a much better running team and with a TE that can actually block will be a ground and pound team, that can beat you on the outside at any moment. I used to love the old Raiders teams they would grind and grind away with the run and then out of nowhere they would beat you over the top. This is my vision of this years Browns.

This offense is as loaded and I think more loaded than any team in the league, don't make Bake carry the offense and they will be worlds better.

The KEY in my eyes is getting another edge rusher I believe the brass has it right we lack a rotation to apply pressure and hold the edges Clowney would be huge for us if we can manage to sign him. The Browns are said to have the best offer on the table I see a great rotational situation developing that will Allow Garret, Vernon, and Clowney?? to be all world.

The LB situation is of Concern we need someone in the middle that can lay the wood. I see no need for Clay Jr although there has been plenty of talk on these boards.

I think the Browns are being hugely under-estimated this is our year we can be a dominate football team if we are run based with Chubb and Hunt carrying the load, and of course when the focus shifts to Chubb and Hunt we go over the top.

We also signed Adrian Clayborn to rotate at DE.

I didn't think this deserved it's own thread - but an interesting piece from PFF on predicting floor / ceiling for each team.

As you can imagine - there's a lot of similar forecasting for best/worst case scenario .... but Cleveland's fate is somewhat predictably linked to how Baker performs.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-best-worse-case-scenarios-every-afc-team-2020-season

CLEVELAND BROWNS
10th percentile outcome: 6-10
How they get there: Baker Mayfield‘s struggles last season weren’t merely a product of poor coaching and dysfunction; they were an indicator of real issues. Those pocket presence woes aren’t fixed by the additions of Jack Conklin and Jedrick Wills on the offensive line, and Mayfield is still missing too many passes. PFF's Sam Monson laid out the reasons to expect Mayfield to bounce back in 2020 earlier this offseason, but if he doesn’t, another disappointing season could be in store for Cleveland.

90th percentile outcome: 11-5
How they get there: Mayfield looks more like the player we saw for three seasons at Oklahoma and as a rookie than the disappointing version we got last year, and the talent on Cleveland’s defense stays healthy and produces.

Obviously, Mayfield is the key in that equation, but the defense is an underrated component to Cleveland’s success. Denzel Ward has graded out as one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL in single coverage, and Cleveland adds several more high draft picks in Greedy Williams, Grant Delpit and Karl Joseph into the fold. The defensive line is loaded with talent too — particularly Myles Garrett, who was the highest-graded pass rusher off the edge in the entire league at the time of his suspension. That talent just needs to stay on the field.

Not unreasonable.... I mean, really, Baker is the only really significant question mark.

It's a fair bet that Stefanski and crew are solid. You can just feel the stability; they aren't hype and rah-rah. They're smart and calculated.

The LBers are the main question on defense, but they're really not such a big deal as they've been made at times on here recently. They will be masked GREATLY by the DLine and the secondary.


Barring a rash of injuries that completely deplete our talent in one of the major position groups, that leaves only Baker as the Great Unknown.

If we get the second-half 2018 Baker, this team will be making a run at the AFC Championship. If we get the 2019 Baker, we will be a perennial 7-9 to 9-7 team that needs a QB and always falls short.

Stefanski and crew is NOT a fair bet. He doesn't have HC experience, and we're fresh off the Freddie ride. We had Freddie in-house and saw "his offense" at work in 2018, and we still got 2019.

I absolutely 100% disagree with you. Freddie has absolutely nothing at all to do with Stefanski, except that it maybe makes you feel burnt by the experience.

Not having HC experience isn't an issue to me. The job is a managerial job and guys that are not good at self-organizing or are not meticulous will not do well. This fact alone could have actually predicted Freddie's failure, but this also supports that Stefanski will do alright. Additionally, the ability to manage personnel is a large factor. Again, a knock on Freddie, but by all appearances a notch in favor of Stefanski.

The job isn't as X's and O's as being a coordinator, as Freddie found out. It is setting schedules, managing people, and making sure things are ordered and in place, and then overseeing your X's and O's guys.


I have little doubts at all of Stefanski's ability to effectively run this team as he has CEO traits and personality to go with his football acumen. If you look at other successful coaches, that's the sort of mold they are cut from. When you look at the guys that fail, they're the X's & O's types that are maybe great rah-rah guys, but aren't great organizationally.

In terms of stages of development I can't think of Baker being in any better of a situation. With the amount play makers at his disposal? There's only 2 things I think Baker needs to do this year:

a) set the right tone
b) competently execute the scheme and get the ball in their hands

Their success will be his success. He has All Pro talent around him so he isn't burdened with having to elevate the play of some average guys. Don't get me wrong, I would love an MVP candidate type of season out of him, but the guy doesn't need to play hero ball.

After 20 plus years of watching people put their faith in potential rather than results, be that coaches, FO's or players, all I see here is history repeating itself in the faith of Stefanski. We haven't always been wrong with this approach. But more times than not we have.

I certainly agree with what you see in him. And I certainly hope that you are right. But that doesn't mean the math is sound.

It doesn't mean it is unsound, either... it just means we have to wait and see.

If you only look at possible predictors of success at the position, however, I think he has a better than average shot.

The amount of talent surrounding Baker is just absurd. It's like a Madden team.

If Tim Couch had this much around him, he'd be in Canton, lol!

I'll go with wait and see.

I'm in wait and see too - despite being extremely optimistic.

The only thing I will go out on a limb and state that I believe to be true no matter what happens - Stefanski is going to be a WAY better HC than Freddie Kitchens.

j/c:

I think that the three biggest factors/unknowns are the same as what I believed a year ago.

1. Baker: Did he put in the proper work during the off-season? Will he keep his mouth shut and focus on football? Will he be better at reading coverages? Will he make good decisions? Will he stop trying to throw every pass through a brick wall?

2. Coaching: Is Stefanski a leader of men or just another right coordinator? Will the staff mesh? Will they be able to overcome not having adequate time due to the virus?

3. Chemistry: I think #s 1 and 2 will have a lot to do w/that. I also think that it is pretty important for the team to have some success early on.

The team has enough talent to win a ton of games. Not sure if they will or not.

This is the only correct answer.

Well, that and Epstein didn't kill himself

That's not saying a lot.

A chicken randomly pecking at a playbook covered in corn would do better at HC than Kitchens.

That was sort of the point ... maybe "out on a limb" shoulda been purple

if he had a decent offensive line and coaching, he would be in canton or at least taken us to a Superbowl.

We absolutely destroyed a high-quality QB that has the potential to be a star.

a few years ago, I looked at his stats and all I could think was how bad we would have killed for that kind of QB play after him.

I completely disagree. Tim Couch was terrible. He held the ball longer than any qb in the league. He couldn't read coverages. He became gun-shy and would not step into throws. His arm was barely average. He had a 2-cent head. Dude was the worst draft choice we ever made in the modern era.

Hmmmm...........Manziel and Gilber might have been worse, but Couch was chosen first overall. Tough call.

100% agree.. this offense (on paper)is stacked. The only hole I see is LT... and that's only because we have an unknown there. Some will say our RG is also a weakness, Maybe but we have plenty of contenders there that have played well enough..

j/c mostly.

I'm still concerned about RG. Yes, we have options...but someone has to step up and be better than Kush. Teller looked better as the year went on last year and Callahan really likes the guy...so there is room for optimism.

We still have a rookie LT who is transitioning from RT and with 3/5th of the guys being new from 2019 TC, it could take some time to gel.

I think the 2018 version of Baker is the norm and 2019 was the exception and was a disaster in numerous, dead-horse-beaten ways.

If your only real concern on an OLine is RG and you have studs at RT & C, you don't actually have any concerns at RG.

lol, and you probably thought Holcomb was a QB.

if you go back and look at his stats, he was average and stayed average with the absolute worst line and horrid coaching.

He had was consistently averaging what would be about 3200 passing yards a year in a 16 game season 60% completion ratio 64 TD's with 67 ints in his career.

Believe it or not, he also had a lot of magic in him that went unnoticed too. Out of 62 games, he had 10 comebacks and 11 game-winning drives.

McNabb even talked a lot about how if he went to the Browns, we would have destroyed him and he thought Couch was a better QB than him. FWIW

It's hard to find fault with your comments.. I just seem to feel our options at RG might work out.

It's no doubt going to take our new LT time to get grounded. But if what the powers that be are right about him, he's a guy that can get it done. We'll see.