DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2021 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 14 Cardinals 37 Postgame Thoughts

Refs are terrible and their job is hard?

Browns are not making the playoffs. That's a pipe dream.

Stefanski and Baker are proving they cannot perform under expectations.

Everything is fine when you're playing with house money.

They're not winners. They're not Harbaugh and Jackson. They were decimated with injuries and their defense is a shell of what it used to be. 5-1

The thing that confuses me about some of his performance against pressure is he seems to be clueless when pressure is coming and having a plan to beat it.

They were injured at 1 position rb (the easiest position to plug abd play) we had about 50% our starters out on offense.

I did. Witty and pithy.

84 points given up in the past 2 games. Offense cannot convert 4th downs and continously leave points on the board. Defense had not earning their bloated paychecks and cannot stop anyone on 3rd and especially 4th downs. Woods schemes are some of the worst in the NFL and continue to exposed by good teams.

OBJ's body language, when he is not in pain from being injured, seem to indicate he isn't interested anymore. Hudson makes me miss Cam Erving.

They lost their #2 corner which is pretty important when you play man every down.

He doesn’t have the problem solving gene as of right now. He has to be put in situations to succeed. Guys like Mahomes, Lamar, Herbert, Allen, Kyler etc make plays out of structure which allows their offenses to have a higher ceiling. On top of that they don’t miss often when they do what they are supposed to do.

I'm not talking about out of structure. I'm talking about just demonstrating he knows when he's going to get pressure and makes a call to combat it or executes quickly to combat it. He just holds the ball and usually takes a sack.

At any rate he couldn't beat good teams in years 1, 2, and 3. That trend has continued in year 4. He just can't raise his level of play.

Anyone else notice that Ward isn't performing as he should? It seems to be a trend that teams are beginning to target him more than Newsome.

At his best he can. But defenses are playing against like ours a lot more often (the Cardinals play offenses like ours four times a year in their division). They can better disguise defenses and take away things we do well. That means the coaches have to adjust and make things easier to raise Baker’s floor.

I think Ward will be fine eventually.

The biggest problem is still the defense. Baker… whatever. The offense didn’t produce today and was just clumsy and off but it probably would have been a very different game if the defense could get their offense off the field. The bears and Vikings games were the aberrations. The main problem was and is and remains the defense. Im always cautious about blaming Joe Woods but it’s becoming clear to me that management of the defense is failing. The scheme and game plan are poor, the adjustments aren’t there. Continued communication issues, at the end of the day, are a management issue. If the defense is even mediocre the last two games we’re 5-1 or 4-2 with some continued debate about Baker.

- Embarrassing game at home.

- Another 4th down play in the red zone that results in a sack. Take the points. It's not working.

- The secondary is porous. WRs consistently catch passes with defender 2-3 yards of separation.

- Another blown coverage by the secondary resulting in a wide open TD.

- The NFL officiating is inexcusable. Put an eye in the sky to get the calls right. Too much at stake and money involved for incompetency.

- Baker with the three turnovers. Quit running with the ball out in your hand. Unacceptable.

- The Browns puke on themselves inside the red zone.

- Defense can never get off the field when it's really has to regardless of yards needed for 1st down.

- OBJ drops crucial 4th down...again.

- I'm starting to accept that Baker is average to above average QB capable of having an elite game here and there with a clunker or two mixed in.

- Austin Hooper offers little value.

- Hope Kareem Hunt is ok, but I have a feeling he'll be out awhile.

- Browns are lucky to have a bad Denver team coming in on Thursday to turn this around.

- Good game DPJ.

- Jamie Gillan appeared to punt better.

- We'll see how this team and Stefanski handle this adversity.

- I saw a Jabaal Sheard jersey at the game. That was fun to see.

We paid a heck of a lot of money for John Johnson. He was supposed to be the QB of the secondary? His name is rarely called and doesn't appear to be an impact player. Him and Hill have been very underwhelming after 6 games for the money they spent.

If I'm the opposing team's coach/play caller, I'm purposely running plays for loss on downs 1 and 2.

Why?

Because "3rd and long" v. CLE is a guaranteed first down.
This is the "Groundhog Day" stuff that sucks my enthusiasm right out of me. Doesn't matter who we have on the field or who we have in a coach's headset- results have been the same since 1999.


Browns D's can never get off the field.

_________


That said, we pretty much Hoovered it up in every other phase of the game today.

One last thought: it's tough enough to win a game playing against 11 other professionals. It's impossible if one team is playing against 16-18 others on the field (and I'm historically NOT a 'refs screwed us' kind of guy-).

There are too many names on the D to not believe Woods is an issue.

1. I saw no energy other than after DPJ hail mary.

2. Was this team over rated this year?

3. The honey moon with Kev might be over

4. Bakers success is related to the effectiveness of the run game

5. OBJ offers nothing.trade him.to Detriot

6. Funny after the Bears game the homers were giddy with the defense
And Woods. Now its run him out of Berea

7. Harrison Bryant has been a zero this year

My main thought is that this was a weak effort. We had an emotional, high-charged game with the Chargers and must have left it all there. We did not come into this game with any energy. If you want to be considered a contender you need to be ready to play every week. The team was not prepared, and not motivated. No heart. I don't want to hear about injuries, or referees, or how close we came to beating to KC and LAC. At the end of the day, none of that is reflected in the standings. Winners overcome and persevere.

Other thoughts:

- Nothing really looked good. Maybe 2/2 on XPs? Are we hanging our hat on that? Or the Hail Mary? Whatever.
- Halfway through the 2nd quarter I told my buddies that there were two positives. One is that we wouldn't embarrass ourselves trying to close out this game. Two was that the Thanksgiving edition of "At Home with Baker Mayfield" commercial was probably going to be great.
- We did have some drops. Njoku towards the end of the 1st half, which we did manage to overcome by getting a first down afterwards (and also overcame a hold of his, too. Come on, Chief), Hooper on our first play. OBJ on 4th down, again.
- It seemed to me that Hooper has had some drops for us. I checked - he led all NFL TEs in drops last year, and has a couple more this year. Sigh.
- The pick was a bad throw. The fumbles hurt us.
- Another completely blown coverage. That simply does not work in the NFL.
- Right now, we are a middle team. We can beat the bad teams and cannot beat the good ones. Something needs to change if we want to make the playoffs.

Someone needs to tell Stefanski that right now, take the early 3 pts. You can be aggressive later. Second, the D coord and he entire staff wakes up early and goes over that game film because the D needs to be totally revamped. (* probably not even go to bed tonight *). Our Safeties and blowing coverage every game. 5th game of the year and they are looking at each other after blown assignments. ON the offense, Stefanski has to help those tackles. The rookie on the right side is struggling the most. I think he will have to go 2 TE for alot of sets. If they do go 4 wide with WRs, the back will have to chip going out OR keep the TE on the line to help.

Hudson is a rookie. He is a project they want to develop, perhaps into our next starting right tackle. He is overmatched at this point. I am certain they did it intend for him to see this much action.

Back at the hotel after going to the game.

That was like games several years ago. We simply got outplayed, coached, whatever.

The special teams had a decent day. The O and D simply sucked.

Now i get to stay up here to watch the game Thursday night against the Broncos, a team we rarely beat. I hope we figure out a few things before then.

Agreed. He was very poor today. Looked lost many times. But, it is what it is. SOMEONE had to play that position.

Tend to agree if we didn't have so many injuries.... we need an off week.... desperately...

Trotting our 3rd stringers at BOTH tackle spots is definitely not helping. Despite that, it hasn't been as bad as you'd expect for that scenario.... but, it's still pretty bad. I'm annoyed we haven't brought anyone else in or traded for an OT equal to Hubbard. I guess the gamble is that Conklin or Wills will be back soon, but the gamble is failing.

this loss has a much different feel for me than some of our other ones … this one felt like the “old” browns. We seemed hapless and not competitive. That sucks.

I liked it when DPJ lobotomized that DB.

I'm a pretty positive person. I'm finding it really hard to be positive about anything I saw.

Was just thinking about the last 3 seasons the Browns had expectations...2008, 2019, and 2021.

The season is trending that way. Same vibes.

We do not get a lot of consistent pressure with our front 4. When we don't get pressure QBs pick our sieve of a secondary apart. I guess some will say we are "still gelling" after 6 weeks. If this continues, we will be out of any playoff contention when we finally "gel". 84 points in 2 games is pretty sad.

Was one of those we had like 5 Prime time games and completely stunk it up?

The thought of us making the playoffs is nearing “joke” territory IMO. We have so many issues with injuries, a terrible defense, and a tough division (where ALL of the teams except us are getting better). We seem to regressing big time.

That was 2008.

This is awful and awful starts at the top.

No help for a RT who has proven he isn't very good and a QB that is playing from to many empty backfields and is being made into a pocket passer. This is ugly football. Did Hopper have a catch and Njoku has been underutilized for years now. We keep doing the same things and teams are ready for it, perhaps it's time to try something else. Oh and Baker isn't a pocket passer stop trying to get a square peg in a round hole. Oh and he has NO business running as much as he has been, all of these things are adding up to one of the if not they most talented teams in the league looking like they suck. Adjustments aren't being made when someone is hurt and out that is obvious what's worse is the lack of in game adjustments.

The defense is non aggressive and ugly and disappointing to watch. I would rather lose being aggressive then sit back and watch us get picked apart.

And the penalties some are really penalties and still others are made up crap from the ref. Roughing the passer was enough. Someone needs to have a long talk with the league this can't continue and it's unfair to the fans and the team. We deserve and should expect fairness and we aren't getting it by any measure. No excuses for some of these calls we have seen.

This team SB 6-0 and we sit at 3-3 and it's getting worse not better time for some changes if this doesn't get on track and NOW.

Leave it up to the best analytics team in the league to prove analytics wrong. We're horrible on 4th down and the team doesn't seem to notice. How many times now has Baker been sacked on 4th down - 3 or 4?

I know we were missing 2 tackles, but I didn't expect the dropoff in quality to be that significant.

Penalties killed us - both the real ones and the ones the ref made up.

I backed off of the getting rid of Woods for 2 weeks, but am back on that train after the last two defensive debacles. Especially this one - it what world is leaving receivers wide open over and over.

Baker was running for his life and showed a ton of grit. We'll see how he feels this Thursday. It'll be interesting if we're missing him, OBJ (hopefully the shoulder is ok), both tackles, Chubb, Hunt, Janovich, and Jarvis.

Kudos to JJ Watt - immediately saw Baker was injured and called over the Browns staff and clearly seemed concerned. Its sad that may have been the highlight outside of the hail mary.

If Baker can't pass from the pocket, you've already lost.

The reason we are horrible on 4th down is because Baker holds the ball too long and really doesn't understand how to counter pressure.

I have exactly zero respect for you and your crap not in the mood so stuff a rag in your pie hole.

So is that a like or dislike on my post?