DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns News & Notes (Continued)

KS: "Challenge accepted!"

Harrison has the high ankle sprain is assumed (?) out.

The Browns might be putting Harrison on the DL, and Carlson is on the covid list as well.

We might see a traditional Wing-T for the next couple weeks ...

j/c...

Browns elevated TE Miller Forristall to the active roster. Also, Johnny Stanton is a former TE. Come hell or high water Stefanski will play his 3 TE sets (half joking)!

If they can't even field a team that will have players with any hope that they are going to play well.
Then why should anybody watch the game.

I know your probably joking but I’ll answer this, Because there are only 17 of them, and when there done, they are done til August. Wouldnt miss one, havent missed one in many years. I dont care if they are terrible, average, really good!

Sometimes the overall message on this board can be somewhat confusing. On one hand posters claim our WR's suck and in the next breathe claim lining up 3 TE's is the issue.

If the WR's suck and "can't get separation" as some have claimed, what difference does it make if we line up WR's or TE's?

My counter to that would be at least by spreading out into WR sets it keeps opposing teams from having everyone in the box. Creating less space for Chubb and Hunt to work.

I don't see how they load up the box with 3 of 4 starting secondary guys out for the season.

The defense still has to cover anyone that runs a route out of any formation. When a defense stacks seven or eight men in the box, that's the amount of players that are not in coverage.

The Browns TEs will not stretch the defense and allow the running game to be more productive....the only way to get the defense to back off of the LOS is to put more WRs in game, creating the threat of deeper pass patterns...and that only works if the offense completes some deeper pass patterns. Another option would be to use a RB or TE to run a deep pass pattern.

You don't need to "stretch" a defense to successfully run the ball. Getting the defense to move out of the box makes the run game succeed. Even moving defenders eight to twelve yards down the field means you can keep moving the chains.

I can't believe I actually have to explain this but it appears I do....

The running play is designed to go in a certain direction. With the zone blocking scheme the OL blocks in ways to create certain holes in certain places. If the play is designed to go up the middle, you have your TE's run routes that will take their defenders to the outside which clears the middle. If the run goes to the right, those same TE's run routes that take the defenders to iddle and left the left side to have the same effect. The same example applies if you wish to run to the left. Those TE's run routes that take their defenders to the middle and right side. It's very basic football.

The issue is when they stack so many players in the box that the OL can't account for them all where the problem arises. If you have four receiving targets, be them WR's or TE's, they can direct their defenders away for where the play is going. The only variance I see is that if you throw a couple of long passes during a game, which we still often do, it creates a situation where they may keep another safety deep.

But as we've seen, even throwing the ball over 35 times has not made them respect Baker's arm. They are selling out to stop the run and forcing Baker to try and beat him with his arm. No matter the number of WR's on a given route, they are using one on one coverage. Until we make them pay for that don't expect anything to change.

I have mentioned a few times about your over negative connotation regards everything 'Baker' - and your response is that you are open and neutral and anything might be in play regards Baker's ability etc.

And yet here you are with a gross manipulation of the topic - clearly deliberate - to try and make this all about Baker and Baker's (in)ability.

I believe a neutral interested in a real discussion and observation about the run game and how the Brown's did or didn't perform would have written "But as we've seen, even throwing the ball over 35 times has not made them respect the Browns passing attack." .... I mean go ahead and try to debate that what you wrote wasn't a 100% swipe at Baker but I think the picture at this point is crystal clear with regards to what you are posting and why.

And of course you can't do it without your snark and condescension.

Nice Catch LOL

[
Got it thanks...that sucks as soon as I deem the kid as our best TE...he gets a high ankle sprain in our bye week? Football? or basketball???

Tight ends running routes to clear space is absolutely true if you run delays or draws. If your line and TE's instantly start run blocking all you've done is bring more men into the box to defend the run and clog up running lane. Also it's about match ups. 3 TE's and the defense can remove a DB. Sooner or later any big run is gonna be your RB one on one with a defender. If you run more WR's that means more DB's and that makes it more likely that that one on one is Chubb or Hunt on a corner which is better than one on one with a linebacker.

It doesn't have to happen that way, you can just isolate that defender on the opposite side of the field from the running side, and run by 4 others with angles and speed, it happens all the time. (So it ends up one on zero) But Baltimore has always pursued so it's best to run right at them. The one thing the Browns have almost never done since Stefanski arrived, run right at teams.

That's just about all we tried against them last game. We tried to get outside, we tried to go right at them. They snuffed pretty much every attempt we made at running; they shut us down, and more than a few times they did so behind the LoS.
Fifteen times we tried to run it and they were right there to shut it down. Every. Single. Time. Those fifteen runs netted us 36 yards.

The problem was NOT that we magically didn't call the right type of run play.

I love how you try and make this about me when you can't dispute a single point I just made.

In the Baltimore game Mayfield threw 37 times. He was 18-37. Baltimore turned the ball over four times and we scored 10 points.

Nothing Baker did caused Baltimore's defense to respect our passing game. They kept playing man coverage and stacking the box to stop the run in order to force Baker to try and beat them with his arm.

Those things are all true. Who you wish to blame for that and why that happened is for each of us to decide. But no matter how much you keep pointing the finger at me, I'm not on the roster and had no part in it. When your QB is throwing for around 50% and the team can't put points on the board after getting four turnovers, no team is going to respect your passing game or believe your offense is going to put enough points on the board to beat you if you can stop their run game. Even our own fans know that it's our running game that's our strong suit. If we can't run our odds of winning go WAY the hell down. If we know it, NFL teams know it.

For future reference keep in mind that's not my fault. I don't make the news. I just report it.

FWIW, this is also what I saw. It was practically a hand-delivered invitation for the passing game to beat them.

The Cody Kessler game plan.

That's one of the strong suits of my charming personality!

Yup.
The thing I keep getting hung up on, because I *hate* the idea that we should be giving up on Baker and I think that it isn't warranted and refuse to believe that it is, is WHY did this work so well? Why were they able to go Man Coverage on us so successfully?
Is it as simple as the combination of our OLine and TE/WRs don't threaten anyone once you shut down our Run and kill the threat of play action? I think that there is a good bit to that notion.

Just thinking this through (not advocating one way or another for anything, just trying to put thoughts on the screen): our O is built on running & passing from the same looks. For starters, if you take away our ability to run, the so-called great advantages of our stellar OLine are greatly diminished, and if a team takes away the threat of the run, all they have left to defend is a very vanilla O, no matter what the formation or personnel group. Once Play action goes away our Bread & Butter is gone. We're left with half an OLine to pass block and usually just two TE and one WR to go out into routes.... and if those guys don't scare anyone enough for them to draw a double.... we get really easy to defend really quickly. It seems that Baltimore frequently did a "Run Blitz on the way to the QB" thing, so they were killing our runs, often before they got started, while at the same time bringing pressure if it wasn't a run. The situation at RT exasperates this and makes it easier for them, and if you add in that Wills hasn't been spectacular, either, things are definitely hampered. The QB has to step up or move off of his drop sooner than you'd want, but that also moves him off that drop often before a window comes open, which means he misses a designed read opportunity. Timing is ruined. It kind of compresses the field, now, too, because we no longer have the time and they are crashing gaps, so they can gamble on single-covering deep. The box is crowded, so drags & slants to quick-hit over the middle in front of the QB are frequently taken away, so the QB only has things on the outside to look to (in general). Basically, it REALLY simplifies their life when they can be successful with that approach.


Other than Landry, and maybe DPJ, I don't think we have any WR that an opposing team needs to give extra attention to, and even Landry is probably a guy that teams are willing to try to single-cover, especially a hobbled Landry.
Hooper and Njoku are both really good, but again, I don't know that they are anyone that a team has to fear.

Schematically, I'm not sure how you beat it. The NFL is all about matchups, and I think this works because that approach works well because of how they match up against our current lineup. That right side DOES hamper things for us, and DEs CAN rush up past Wills and loop back (I wonder how that ankle *really* is), and do so frequently. All that's left is for the guys in the box to close gaps because they've got the edges. In general, whichever way Teller goes is where the ball is going.... so, watch him and then crash gaps and you've got us. I think that tendency, obviously, needs to be broken. I think the overloads we've tried need to continue - where we bunch a lot of receivers to one side... the goal being to flood/empty an area. This needs to be done from a run look to keep the middle of the field honest, and it needs to happen to get them out of what they're doing and to create a favorable situation for us, but - in the end - Guys Need to Make Plays, and I think that is where we are failing all-around. Our guys just are NOT winning their plays. Sometimes its the OL, sometimes its the TEs or WRs, sometimes its the QB, sometimes its the coaches and the calls. The number of balls that are thrown away because of pressure, the number of procedural brain-farts that cost us yardage, the number of balls that are dropped - be it bad hands or bad passes, the number of times our guys just fail to give the QB a decent target.... when guys aren't winning their play in the passing game despite the opponent having enough respect for our run game to shut it down, that's a major problem.

I dunno... just some over-caffeinated mental rambling, trying to guesswork it out on a theoretical level without the benefits of All-22 film to see the Who, What, and When of things.

Just a thought. Is there a chance we could pick up a WR with potential off of someone's practice squad? Andrew Berry is pretty sharp so I'm sure he's already looked into this but again something I thought about.

and... our 3rd and 4th player is out this week with Covid.

Well, Walker is a smart player, but he isn't an elite talent... JJ3 can make his calls for him.
Gillan.... well, we just have to not punt on Sunday and it won't matter.

Great post, Prp!

Depo and Berry have been huge negatives since the beginning.
I've always felt this, but hoped somehow it wouldn't hurt, or I was completely wrong, or something, but !
---- the problem now is, (as the wheels are about to fall off this bus again probably), --- the Haslems'
the right thing to do at this point, at seasons' end, would be to keep everything in tact, as much as you can, going forward, and not make huge sweeping changes, and
the problem with that is, --- it would take the Haslems' to take a deep breath and show the guts to stay the course,
and that, would be an evolution from what they have shown in the past.
I think the Haslms will try anything to fix this except the toughest decision of all, the decision to not fix it because it ain't broken.
When the right move is to stay the course and not jump at flashing lights.

They didn't even wait 3 days to gut the Qb. room when they bought the team, if I recall correctly, and that was some years ago. There is a lot of history of the NFL to study, the answer is in there.

You obviously have no idea that TE's can work their defenders to parts of the filed that take them out of the running play. Not my problem. The problem is when your opponents have no reason to play their safeties deep and keep them up on the LOS to put more defenders in the box which is what our opponents are doing all day. That's how football works. I've never seen ANYONE but you claim there were 9 or 10 defenders in the box. On some occasions there were eight. That was when we had 3 receiving options going out on routes. With one on one protection that leaves eight defenders in the box. When we had 4 receiving targets it left seven men in the box.

When you have three receiving targets it leaves eight defenders in the box when you don't respect your opponents passing game.

8+3=11

When you have four receiving targets it leaves seven men in the box. If you never feel the need to drop your safeties, they play the run.

7+4=11

You seem to think that if you take your coverage man to the right when you run to the left that doesn't take him out of the play even if he's only 8 to 10 yards downfield.

I think having 3 TE's in the game forces the defense to stack the box. If it is a run play and the TE stays in to block then there is a stacked box. If the TE's release inmto a route then it become dependent on the defenders ability to recognize pass vs run.

"The best receiving threat the Browns could put on the field was 3 TEs, 2 wrs and a RB."
5 yard penalty,illegal formation,too many men in the backfield.

pit...click the link below and count...

pit, tell everyone what you see...

pit, you might do better if you review the video of the game rather than try to recall or remember.

You might have to back the video up a few seconds to see the Rats defensive alignment ....



The Browns run game was shut down because the Ravens stacked the box with 5 rushing most of the time and anywhere from 1 to 4 DBs and/or LBs backing up their front 5 rushers. Much of the time, this second line of the Ravens D lined up only 5 yds or so behind the 5 DLine rushers. The Ravens with 8 to 10 defenders within approx 5 yds of the LOS felt they could limit the Browns run and the Browns short passing game...and they pretty much did just that. How many the Ravens rushed depended on the number of WRs or TEs the Browns lined up as potential receivers.

link

Great post. 2 things jump out. [1] Baker is bad under pressure. So stacking the box and run blitzing on the way to the QB creates a double whammy of issues, especially with a liability at RT. [2] We absolutely don't have the receivers who can beat one on one coverage consistently ... we don't have receivers who can get open so an aggressive team does not need 2 deep safeties.

If anyone watched the Vikings game last night - you saw at least one of the Vikings Receivers with acres of separation on virtually every play. Justin Jefferson is a top WR in the NFL for sure. He was "open on every play". Osborn I have never heard of - and was open on many plays. We don't seem to have a scheme that allows the WR to get open like that - and we don't have the personnel either. Like Collingsworth said - Njoku is our deep threat. While he can occasionally stud out - he ain't no Justin Jefferson.

I would say that EVERY QB is worse "under pressure" than without. When your RT is a backup OG and your LT is struggling with the pass rush...pressure is a certainty. But here's the difference that never gets talked about...the underlined portion above. When you are under pressure and your pass-catchers cannot get open...what are you supposed to do?

When was the last time the Browns executed in the scramble drill? We simply don't. That's half of Lamar's effectiveness and a big part of Mahommes success...same with Murray. Josh Allen benefits from not getting smoked with the number of 50/50 balls he throws when things break down. As 888 said, last night the Vikings had receivers open with regularity...and they were without Theilin.

If you want to see how Keenum performs with our lack of weapons, just envision Kurt Cousins last night with a backup OG at RT and no one to throw to.

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
Browns are signing veteran punter Dustin Colquitt, whom Atlanta released this week, to their 53-man roster.