DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2022 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 10 Bengals 23 Post Game

A few big things that prohibited us from a chance to win:

- Penalties
- The decision/lack of execution on the 4th down play to DPJ
- Our OL
- Our lack of adjustments to the game: no Higgins or Boyd yet we still single cover Chase?!

It's amazing that agenda posting like this is never challenged. Stefanski has outcoached Taylor over and over and over. The difference was how the players on both teams played. But, we don't want to talk about actual football plays. We want to talk about subjective evaluations where we call for people to be fired. Then again, firing people has worked out well for this franchise.

Actually he hasn’t struggled with extra points. He is ninth in the league in XPA and tenth in XPM. His percentage seems to not be great but that is due to the fairly high number of attempts. His field goal percentage is fairly low vs other kickers but that is impacted by number of kick attempts as well as, more than likely, length of attempts.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/play...ble/kicking/sort/fieldGoalsMade/dir/desc

My buddy was at the game yesterday...he's one of those guys who gets there crazy-early to watch warmups. He texted immediately after the non-field-goal to state that York was drilling 65 yarders in warmups with ease. The TV camera showed York on the sideline lobbying to go in and kick. I'll bet 'ole Ski had no idea what York was making pre-game.

Why bother testing your FG distance when the HC is a clown who doesn't know what you are capable of that day?

This is the “what have you done for me lately” situation. Stefanski’s issues started with last year. He was dealt a bit of a crappy hand this year due to the suspension. That being said I would agree that he has made questionable decisions this year. Individual football plays are both irrelevant and relevant. If they work then Stefanski made a good call. If they do not work then Stefanski made a bad call. The players have to execute the plays that are called while their opponents are attempting to prevent success. The question becomes choice of plays in situations as well as sub-surface issues including whether or not Stefanski has “lost” the team. Personally, I do not think that there are more than an extremely small handful of players that “don’t try”. Football is too dangerous to take such a position. I do grant that some may not try as hard due to what they perceive as slights or as coaching issues.

The bottom line is Stefanski will not be fired, imo, this year. He will also likely be HC next year. Like all HCs he gets more credit than he should and more blame than he should. That being said it is entirely possible that HC is his level of incompetence. Not all coordinators should be head coaches.

And if York missed his kick, people would be whining about Stefanski making a dumb call to go for an almost 70-yard FG. You can bank on that.

The Hail Mary was a really good throw....it just didn't land.

The agenda post is coming from you. Your agenda retort is that Ski beat Taylor IN THE PAST. You are kidding, right? Did you even watch the game yesterday?

In the 13th game of the year...we blew through timeouts like a teenager driving through a stop sign. We had (9) penalties...that were accepted. The utter lack of discipline is astonishing. Two Bengal TD drives were kept alive by stupid penalties.

We had two plays that should have been challenged for the spot that were clear 1st downs...but the waitress was coming, so Ski's head was in his Waffle House menu...no challenge.

There's no steering wheel...no rudder...just a talented, beautiful ship floating in the water with no direction and no purpose.

And if York made the kick we'd have a new NFL record...and (3) points. As I stated, he was making 65 yarders in warmups with ease...did Ski even know that? Hell, I'm more interested in knowing whether Ski actually KNEW about the warmup distances than I am the decision that was made.

You need to add some Olinemen to that list.

I maintain that if you watch enough football and not just the Browns but really watch games across the league, you can have a reasonable pulse on what you are seeing. You also have to be able to remove emotional bias, something a lot of fans on this board struggle with. I think a lot of that is because they only watch the Browns.

I'm not sure where the agenda was in the post you quoted. We are watching a poorly coached, poorly prepared, poorly in-game adjusted team on a weekly basis. And when Stefanski calls good plays that his team doesn't execute instead of recognizing they aren't working, he keeps calling them hoping for a different result...then looks completely flabbergasted in his post game pressers about what went wrong. For an ivy league guy I'm not sure we've had a worse coach at in game adjustments than Stefanski. It's why when the Browns trail we can't comeback. He operates under the assumption that his plays will work and set something up for later that he's completely lost when it fails.

It's not working with him and the Browns wil regret giving him another year.

From The Athletic...

Defensive players I spoke with were annoyed at the lack of help Denzel Ward and the other corners received handling Chase. I already wrote a couple of weeks ago about how several defensive players are upset with defensive coordinator Joe Woods’ scheme. This showing isn’t going to help. 

After Tee Higgins tweaked his hamstring in pregame warmups and Tyler Boyd left early with a dislocated finger, Chase still managed 15 targets, 10 catches, 119 yards and a touchdown. Burrow didn’t target any other Cincinnati receiver more than twice and yet the Browns couldn’t bother to send safety help in his direction.

To add to the scheme concerns/issues, does anyone have data on the type of defense we run, namely zone vs. man %?

I feel like Ward and Newsome are at their best in the latter, yet, using the former far more. I know it's not that basic a breakdown, but I feel like we're suppressing strengths of our players.

Through week 12.

Great info!

Interesting numbers and it is what I suspected.

For anyone else wondering about week 6 and the 47% man coverage. That was VS the Patriots and a spanking giving up 38 points

Browns need to draft a DJ Reader

This.

Losing the Jets game (which was in-hand), the Chargers game (which was in our grasp), and the Baltimore game (which was winnable) is what sealed the season. As peen said, it is pretty much a given now, but we've been out of it for a while.

This season has gone the way a lot of our games have. Missteps early on put us in a position later where we cannot make any mistakes in order to be successful. Right now we are not good enough to overcome ourselves.

This is troubling.

The D has been troubling all year. We need a new DC. Case closed!! What more does anyone need to see or hear?

Fair enough.

And both points are valid (probably true).

But I seriously doubt any defensive player called out Ward by name. The players' frustration with the entire defensive showing and subsequent comments in regards to that frustration might, just might, be deflection. Not sure of your assignments or tackling?......blame Woods.

Woods will be gone after the season - as well he should be.

Maybe The Athletic has the true inside info? Could be.

Again the question reverts back to scheme or execution.

I don't know.

You'll excuse me if I don't get all excited and jump up and down about the improvement because we got a couple hundred yards of garbage time offense and a cheap TD after being down by 3 scores because in 3 full quarters we had mustered up just one FG.

You'll also excuse me if I don't get all sympathetic about dropped passes, ill-timed penalties, and highly questionable playcalling..... Baker had all of the same issues and got 0 sympathy.. so the $230 million solution will get the same amount of sympathy.

j/c

I did not see the game, but instead watched NFL Game Day on the NFL Network. It's nothing like watching the game itself but does give you all of the highlights and scoring drives. Then you have statistics to give you at least something to compare with what you saw. I had a feeling this game would go the way it did so I didn't bother going to BW-3's to watch it.

There is no doubt that watson certainly improved over last week. And no matter how much people claim otherwise, practice and studying film in NO WAY simulates playing an actual games. It just doesn't. So people can throw all of the tantrums they wish, I think everyone who has played the game knew that there would be rust and that getting back up to game speed would be a process. In week 2 he looked better than week 1 so that process is under way. After almost two years out of the game nobody can accurately predict if he will be what he was before in totality. The int. was a terrible read but once again, that is to be expected with all of the rust.

It was obvious the Bengals concentrated on stopping the run and trying to force watson to beat them. That would seem like the best strategy they could have employed until watson has proven he's knocked off the rust. The OL certainly wasn't able to overcome that. watson is holding the ball and is hesitant but that too is from the rust.

After three halves of the O not being able to find the end zone, they finally found it in the second half. Once again all people can do is hope that's something that can be built on. I was puzzled why Stefanski put Brissett in the game when the Browns got down to being on the edge of the red zone and called that pass play. I think he outsmarted himself on that one. It would seem as though if you're trying to acclimate watson this is certainly a point on the field you would want him in the game.

Once again one of the Bengals TD's came from a blown coverage and I did find it alarming how well Burrows was able to pass the ball with two backup WR's in the game. I think the results may have been much worse had T. Higgins and Tryler Boyd remained healthy for the entire game but that's something we will never know for sure.

The Bengals were able to run the ball pretty well but I think we all know why at this point.

Edit to add; The toss and run for the TD to Njoku gave me the impression that Njoku had the drive and will we want to see form all of the Browns players. My game ball to Njoku. He looked focused and hungry.

I agree 100% - and I believe that while there is accountability to go around (Berry, KS, Woods, Priefer)..... ultimately the biggest slice of accountability needs to land on Stefanski's shoulders: He is the damn Head Coach. If he aint responsible what is the freaking point of having "Head Coach" ...

Bottom line - instead of this season getting better as the season moved along and as Watson returned -- it has gotten worse, the cracks and fissures more apparent and the magma below is glowing and visible for all to see.

Did you forget to put that in purple? Every week, excuse after excuse would be trotted out about dropped passes, horrible OL play, scheme, WRs running wrong routes, receivers not getting separation.

Now, all of that talk has magically vanished.

You are killing it today. If Watson looked any better yesterday it was in comparison to how terrible he looked last week. So...he wasn't terrible yesterday...but he was light years away from being good...or even average.

McVay got a trash QB up-to-speed in 48 hours...Shanahan got Mr Irrelevant up to speed during a game...Goff is looking like a 1st Rd pick again...Hurts was 'meh' at best until he got a new/real HC...Tua looks like a real NFL QB after they hired a history teacher to run the show back in Feb. Different styles...same positive results. Why can't we do the same?

His post was deleted, but he was not suspended. Tells you all you need to know about the state of the board and at least one of the refs.

A 67 yard FG? Actually historically they are not. NFL kickers are 2-41 all time in FG attempts 65 yards or longer. Just less than 5% of the time.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...ld+goals+longer+than+65+yards+in+the+nfl

And actually, after looking at it, the odds of a Hail Mary working are better.

As of 2019 the Hail Mary pass has worked 9.7% of the time.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27951311/the-evolution-hail-mary-perfect-throw-how-defend-it

It would seem as though the Hail Mary has nearly twice the odds of success. I found that quite surprising myself.

The Browns were 4-7 when watson began starting. Claiming the Browns gave up on the season with a QB who had culminated a 4-7 record makes no sense at all... to anyone.... but you it seems.

Since watson started the Browns are 1-1. .500. A better winning percentage than before watson took over.

Maybe you should build your own sandbox instead of trying to tell others how to run theirs.

Rish, I think you know that I watch a ton of games. I post about multiple games each and every week in the Other Games threads. I have said that I have 3 TVs going on both Saturdays [NCAA games] and Sundays.

I also can remove the emotional bias. I have been very critical of many Browns since 2000 or 2001 when I first joined the Browns board. I prefer talking about players and scheme. I think all the coaching/GM talk is pretty lame. None of us are more intelligent about the game of football than those guys are. I also was a coach and I feel that I know what I am looking at far more than many others on here. You did not see me defending the likes of Freddie, Chud, Romeo, etc on here at the end. I didn't go after those guys, but their teams either quit playing for them [Chud and Romeo or were a complete mess w/terrible decisions [Freddie.]

I really don't want to argue w/you. I feel you are dead wrong about Stefanski. I think he is a very good coach and it's similar to when board members turned on Shanny in favor of freaking Ray Farmer. However, I respect your opinion. You don't resort to constant insults and telling outright lies daily. I just feel that we disagree. No big deal and opposing opinions are a good thing. I'm just replying to tell you that your argument isn't going to convince me that Stefanski is a bad coach. I will change my mind when he changes my mind. That's all.

Comparing Shanahan to Stefanski should be illegal when in a discussion comparing NFL coaching.

We definitely need a Reader type DT

yea and that's always been the biggest issue i have with berry. it's almost as if he's ignored the defensive interior completely. we need a real disrupter atleast eats double teams and forces the QB into the arms of garrett or clowney. but we are pathetically soft in the middle, not to mention our LB's aren't big enough to make up the difference.

Reader was in the QB camera angle more than DW was.

And a coach or coordinator who will make damn sure you nullify the opposing Team's Pro Bowl WR, especially when they are playing 2nd and 3rd string WRs. Chase should have been doubled almost every passing play. Inexcusable.

5 wins with leshaun qb teams.
Stefanski should be fired for going from a 12 win team to 5 wins
With leshaun.
A blind mouse could average more than that with 7 probowlers
Plus the coach of the year.

Just curious - was this in reply to my post asking a question about your sobriety? I mean, you called ME a Baker fan boy, and NOT a Browns fan. The TRUTH of the matter is exactly the OPPOSITE of what you stated. Period.

Here are all the PFF grades from yesterday's effort.

Offense: Number of snaps in parentheses

Deshaun Watson: 56.8 (71)
Nick Chubb: 56.9 (45)
Kareem Hunt: 56.6 (28)
Donovan Peoples-Jones: 63.0 (72)
Demetric Felton: 55.6 (9)
Michael Woods II: 54.5 (15)
Amari Cooper: 54.4 (62)
David Bell: 52.8 (49)
David Njoku: 63.1 (69)
Pharaoh Brown: 57.0 (2)
Harrison Bryant: 56.1 (8)
Jack Conklin: 64.8 (72)
Jedrick Wills Jr.: 60.5 (72)
James Hudson: 60.0 (1)
Joel Bitonio: 58.0 (72)
Wyatt Teller: 57.0 (72)
Hjalte Froholdt: 43.7 (72)

Defense: Number of snaps in parentheses

Myles Garrett: 92.3 (51)
Jadeveon Clowney: 90.1 (47)
Alex Wright: 49.9 (32)
Isaiah Thomas: 29.7 (18)
Taven Bryan: 78.5 (33)
Perrion Winfrey: 71.9 (35)
Jordan Elliott: 60.2 (41)
Ben Stille: 50.3 (8)
Deion Jones: 78.7 (59)
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah: 64.3 (54)
Tony Fields II: 62.0 (11)
Jordan Kunaszyk: 45.5 (12)
A.J. Green: 62.7 (3)
Greg Newsome II: 58.7 (65)
Martin Emerson: 55.2 (56)
Denzel Ward: 41.3 (65)
John Johnson III: 45.7 (61)
Ronnie Harrison: 42.6 (19)
Grant Delpit: 42.3 (67)