DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum DEFENSE still wins championships...

You could hear the chant on the TV with the offense on the field.

I have never seen that before.

He was enjoying himself today. It will be a game that he will always remember.

GC. Can the Browns win even ONE of their next 4 games! ( A bunch of Browns years have started 2-5)

It takes defense to win on the road and the Browns back 7, Dbs have been historically as bad as the front 4 has been good.
The Browns have 9 new players, 9 players from the 2020 defense that did not return.
Everyone From BJ Goodson, to Taviere Thomas and all the others in between.

In the 2021 draft 5 months ago, the Browns made a 1st round pick usage on Cornerback, and that Greg Newsome.
That was a statement.
A statement on, the teams feelings on the other cornerbacks' abilities to play on their roster, beyond former top ten pick Denzel Ward.

The decision to select Newsome became a clear signal that the plethora of other DB's the team has been/had been suiting up, which all had a similar skillset, was a skill set that didn't meet a top standard.

To put it simply, if they were all good enough, then the Browns didn't need to go after need and draft a cornerback in the first round with their first pick in the draft.

If the Browns chose to use their top pick on a cornerback, then, all of the similar cornerbacks weren't good enough, and the Browns didn't need 1 cornerback, they needed at least 3.

if the Db's on the team, (the Brian Allens, and Robert Jacksons', and Greedy Williams' ) were good enough,
then there was no need to go select
via NEED! a cornerback, Greg Newsome with the top pick.

But! If they go after the NEED of a cornerback with their very TOP pick, #1 26th, which they did,
then it shows, the team really lacked confidence in the abilities to return, or abilities to play of the Db's on the team already at that time.

In Road Games, Especially Road Games with crowds in the stands, Defense has always been of vital importance.
You have to have Defense that travels to win road games in the NFL period!

Late in today's game 1st year top draft pick Greg Newsome left the game with a calf injury and will get an MRI on Monday.
If he is out for the year, the Browns,
Sans- Robert Jackson who didn't make the initial 53, neither Brian Allen, Cb's,

Will be having to rely on, others such as MJ Stewart, (Safety this year, CB last).

And some of the decisions to keep, 10 DL, on the 53, inability to make a decision on Elliott or Togiai?
Could have been holding out any possible Cornerbacks, contiuity to bring one in prior to tomorrow.

Again, the decision to Draft Newsome in the first, is sort of a referendum that they didn't need just 1 cornerback,
because if they needed Even One Cornerback, then they ALL of similar sorts, needed help,
so if they needed even one, they needed at least 3.

Well they still haven't added 3 since that day. Except for UDFA's Kiondre Thomas and Emmanuel Rugumba who were long shots if even to be considered.

Bottom line, if Greg Newsome is out long term, they have a Huge need at cornerback,
if he's out just a short time, they still had/have need at cornerback.
Because they still haven't added that 2nd and 3rd options, reliable options, since that team decision of the first round pick to be used on a corner in April 2021.

( There is an international combine in London on October 12th, unrelated.)

That's regrettable. I can't speak for them. As for the rest of your post, it sounded like it was aimed at that group, so I'll let them respond.

But if your post was aimed at the 'lay criticism where it's due' crowd as well, then I'll just say that the offense didn't go without criticism early last year either... and it was earned. Baker did NOT look good at the beginning of last year. He was downright bad vs Steelers in that round1 game.

wut?

You take a lot of stuff on here way too personally.

I agree with you. I definitely think last game is a step in the right direction after some concerning signs in the two weeks prior (more so in week 2 than week 1). I don't think the game plan was one dimensional, and I thought Woods called a good balance between pressure and coverage. That was good to see. Hope the trend continues.

Now we're going to be up against a more experienced QB with a good running game. I'll be interested to see how he schemes for this one.

Honestly I feel our D did more than anyone expected against the Bears. Yes we were playing a rookie QB with a bad O-line and we had a dominant performance just like we were supposed to. A good sign!!

They went WAY beyond my expectations. They literally hit a level you only think possible when daydreaming.

You expect an athletic QB to be able to run and escape a little, you expect any QB to make a few completions and drives here and there, you expect to give up a couple hundred total yards in the course of a game because it's the NFL and that's just the way things are skewed for offenses.... and, generally speaking, none of that happened to any appreciable degree. Our defense spanked them.

That same offense passed for 200+ against the Rams and ran for 130+ against both the Rams and the Bengals. This doesn't crown us anything, but it does show that our D did something pretty damn special, even if it was against a bad offense.

Agreed and we're not 100% healthy with Walker and Phillips out 2 players that I feel would make a very positive impact when playing.

Could you please explain this part of your reply?????

I find people are pretty thoughtless in their thinking and sometimes they rush to judge things that in this instance show they would best be served by keeping their mouth shut.

At some point they should be called out so hopefully they don't trip themselves up and so that everyone see's their true ability when it comes to evaluating anything related to football. Let that be a lesson to them I say.

This team is my team you bet your ass it is I have been waiting for a long long long time for what we have and I am tired from decades of the Press followed closely by the (fans some of them) creating a hostel environment for the team without understand very much in the ways of football and this was a great lesson in that truth, isn't it?

I knew this was coming this team is super talented and it's not going to be like this week in and week out but between our offense and defense we got a great hold on this thing and nobody should promote discourse for the sake of conversation. Fans are horrible coaches and even worse at telling it like is is........................ I think fans should be supportive and yes have discussion on the team and the players I have no issue with any of it, fans get to do it, it becomes harmful when it turns fans into a lynch mob calling for someone to lose their job when in this case the person had hardly had much of a chance to get his plan worked into place.

And this was after we saw the nearly exact same process play out with our offense a year ago. You would think that just good common sense would kick in but it doesn't, does it? But I truly trust the people we have in charge and I know they will get the most out of every single player we have, and I know it doesn't happen like a light switch where you walk over to the wall and turn on the lights.

But if you all will refrain from calling for heads I will allow you don't know much and do what I do do most of the time and simply ignore you..

Read my reply above, and to repeat its offensive to me to listen to a bunch of no nothings calling for someone to lose their job. I have no issue with criticism it comes with the job but when it turns to calling for heads and in such a short time span it's time to point out to everyone you included BTW and what you don't know when it comes to football or life as well I expect which is nothing.

But like I said go on with yourself keep talking being critical as you like calling for peoples job, crosses the line and like it or NOT I will point out how wrong you are and were especially on this topic, cause that is what happened.

Most of the time I simply ignore this crap but not this time, and not with people calling for people to lose their jobs. Which I suppose now you will tell me you NEVER did, ya right.

You are like the ying to ThrowLong's yang here, complete with barely readable grammar/sentence structure. Any type of criticism is equal to 'the sky is falling'.

I never once called for anyone's job. You are correct (?). I even said that to fire anyone right now would be ridiculous. No need to let that get in the way of a perfectly good message board meltdown, right?

If you have a problem with people calling for Joe Woods' head, go ahead and call them out. Not being able to separate that from criticizing our D not being able to stop a Tyrod Taylor offense is a 'you' problem, though.

....and for pete's sake, if you're going to call names like 'know-nothing', at least spell it correctly.

This post certainly isn't aging well.

So are you done now?

I think it was a perfect storm. Our D, both scheme and players all stepped up and were firing on all cylinders. JOK was an absolute animal. Coverage was outstanding. The D line obviously speaks for itself.

On the other side of the equation, I don't think Nagy could have called a worse game.

I saw that he said something after the game along the lines of "we didn't call too many rollouts because that's what the Browns were expecting" ... that's the definition of outsmarting yourself. We've all seen that too many times from our own coaches in previous regimes.

It appears you're already suffering a severe sprain.

I don't really know what else there is to explain, but to try and delve deeper, I think that he did a good job of not sticking to one strategy at the detriment of the other.

In the two previous games, he did not call for pressure packages. It made sense in the first game. It did not make sense in the second. This game, I thought he did a good job of dialing up some plays designed to pressure the QB, while not teeing off on every play, in order to support the secondary. I thought this was on display because our pass rush was obviously getting home, and our secondary was defending a lot of passes, as well. We didn't see any gaps in coverage that we had seen in previous weeks. That PI call on JJ3 by the way was pure BS.

So in essence you're saying that last year it took time for the O to gel as a unit and those people should have learned from their mistake?

If so we totally agree.

I'm not sure whose head I was calling for, but I will say that, yes, we are all just fans. Calling people out, getting mad, and taking things personally isn't going to change anything...in addition to the fact that me thinking that I'm right and others are always wrong is pretty presumptuous.

I've also come to accept the fact I don't always know best (probably less often than not, actually), but I know that I'm on a message board with people who all want the same thing in the end, and none of us really has any control.

I think there are too many people getting lumped into extreme elements (not unlike politics), and I'm not saying that you're the one doing this.

But looking at the part of oober's quote that is in there, I think what has happened is that there are probably a couple posters who were reactionary and of the mindset that Woods needed to be fired, whereas there were others (myself and oober included) who identified concerns on the defensive side of the ball that needed to be corrected. Nobody was calling for anyone's head or trying to do anything drastic beyond saying "there's an issue here, and it needs to be overcome moving forward" and good lord the reactions...

You would be a richer man today if you had offered up to take the bet that the Browns would give up fewer than 50 total yards of offense, have 9 sacks, and give up no more than 2 FGs... damn near everybody would have taken a piece of that action.

I assumed, no matter how good we were playing, that late in the game when we had a more comfortable lead that we would back off and give them a bunch of garbage yards and probably some garbage points... but we never did.

I simply used Oobers post as the perfect example of what many have been saying all along. It will take some time for them to gel.

We saw fans react exactly the same way last season in regards to the offense and saw how that turned out. It seemed quite appropriate to point out the eerie similarity. I understand why some people have had concerns and may still have some. It wasn't to call out Oober.

In regards to Rish, Frank Z and mac it most certainly was.

There are people here who need to temper their talk when it comes to firing folks if you felt the finger pointed at you perhaps its cause you were one of them. Try not to take it so personal next time ok.

I tried to disclaim that I didn't think you were the one guilty of what I was accusing, but I didn't do the best job, probably.

Haha, I don't take anything personally around here, buddy. Life is too short. Lighten up, my friend.

Excellent post
We have the best defense in the Afc north
Should you not post about what other
DC is going to get fired first.

I was just clarifying my intent.

Yes*





*if you ignore the part about "criticism where it's due", which was kinda my whole point. I do see your winky-face, but apparently on here you can't leave any inference to chance.

I think you accomplished making both points. Maybe not even realizing you were making the second one.

How so?

2 data points you don't agree with aren't enough but 1 you do agree with is. Thats called confirmation bias.

I'm not patting my own back. And I still have concerns about this defense.

I want this to work. I had concerns when our defense had trouble getting off the field. Most of last they did and it was starting to look like an issue this year.

The did prove yesterday they could dominate a rookie with a bad line and no game plan. Good. I sure hope they keep it up and it was just gelling issues.

As a side note they had 0 take aways yesterday. I find that interesting but not alarming.

That's called progress. It just seems it will take some longer to figure it out than others.

They did not suddenly "Gel" yesterday even though some posters will proclaim that they did. If one does need to "Gel", the difference isn't something that's noticeable between one week and the next...it's over a period of time.

Woods dialed up a different/better/more-aggressive D than he did in games 1-2...something the critics (like myself) had/have been clamoring-for. He "blitzed" at least 300% more than in week two. His backfield was much more aggressive. Both "changes" allowed the LBs to make plays for the first time since who-knows-when. The results were nothing short of terrific. Kudos to him...I hope he keeps it up.

He shouldn't be.
The Chicago Bears game defensive performance by the Browns w/ 9 sacks did not prove/show that the Browns DB's are any fixed on the ability to stop a precision quarterbacks passing attack, espec. if they are adept at releasing the ball quickly, and on repeated plays quickly.
The Front 4 or 7 showed up. JOK showed up. But the Dbs' didn't show anything to disprove the alarming areas on display in chiefs game, and once vs. the Texans.
the Bears' Justin Fields' didn't throw the ball so, to be fair, they didn't get the opportunity.

In the Texans game the Texans attempted a pass 40 yards through the air and the wr, was bracketed by two dbs giving a 4 yard cushion each and let the ball either drop or get caught. That issue didn't get displayed as fixed in the Bears game.
What we got out of the Bears game, about the Db's is a wait on the MRI results of Greg Newsome.

Fields didn't have time to throw. Joe Burrow would, Derek Carr would, Mahommes did, Rogers would, etc. (and not by O Line but by quick release.)
VS. the Bears, the Browns Db's, didn't have to play much, which is different, from displaying that they played well?.

If you weren't a part of it then why say anything? Some of them have had the good sense to take my advise and shut up.........

I still think you're a no nothing too BTW..........hahaha thought that was funny and I did it da....................

https://www.brownsnation.com/greg-newsome-gives-encouraging-injury-update/?nowprocket=1

Newsome gives encouraging injury update is the headline.
Seems a social media post similar to 'I'm good' is the meat of the message.

People tend to get defensive when the name calling starts. Maybe you should have named names. Actually you shouldn't have been name calling.

I, like Frank have had reservations about this defense and that led to some questions about Woods. I don't see anything wrong with talking about it. Now I'm not calling for his job so I don't consider myself being a no nothing full. Was I happy with what I saw on Sunday? Absolutely! Do I still have worries? Yes. I will wait and see what kind of schemes we run the next few weeks to decide on how I feel about Woods.