DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2023 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 3 Ravens 28 Postgame thoughts

Why wouldn’t they load up to stop the run? Some dawgs wanted DTR. Well, they got him.

Baker has the Bucs 3-1 and alone in first place, btw. Just saying.

I felt the dread of numbness that I had felt too many times since 1999 ... it's a feeling that I was hoping was gone

We ran like 6 in a row in the mid 2nd. Most were quick easy short gain completions.("extended handoffs" almost.) One was an Njoku 1st down. One was a bad miss of an open receiver (Ford). The drive ender got batted down by Van Noy but there had been an open receiver (Moore.)

7:48 3rd qtr 1st down to Cooper (~16 yds.) Immediately following was a Wills false start to get us behind the chains.

A couple plays later on 2nd and 15 was a 13 yard completion out of empty to Moore where he got his helmet ripped off.

~4:35 3rd quarter went empty and Teller got beat quickly for the play where they ruled DTR's knee was down before he escaped and threw it away.

Not an empty play, but the Teller holding call at the end of the 3rd quarter was pretty weak and would go uncalled 9 times out of 10, but was about a 20 yard swing. Negating a nice scramble for what would have been a 1st down, instead were backed up inside the 10. Followed by a sack where DTR held the ball too long. Followed by empty, not sure I like that one in that situation, but he scrambled for 7 yards. Following that was an incomplete pass (not out of empty- 3rd and 11) where DTR got hit after releasing the ball with forcible contact to the head that wasn't flagged. (13:30 4th qtr) Then the Ravens had too many men on the field and we were lined up to go for it, but had the false start on everyone but the center play (called on Jones.)

9 yard completion to Njoku on 1st and 10 at 10:37 in the 4th. Followed by another throw to Njoku out of empty for the short 1st down.

Those were all the empty plays. It seems we used it "so much" because it was one of the few things that was working for the most part.

Jacoby Brissett and D'earnest Johnson may not have won today's game

But those were certainly 2 pieces that could have held the puzzle together and made this game much more competitive. 2 assets that you just can't replace easily.

Well, Brissett (he wasn't staying with the Browns anyways) is riding the bench in Washington and Johnson has a total of 8 yards this year for the Jags.

When you have one of the highest paid QBs in the league, it's hard to also have the highest paid backup QB. Brissett and Trubisky are tops at $8M. (link) DTR is making about 1/8 of what Brissett is. Unfortunately, sometimes you get what you pay for. But, we also have 3 more years of the cheap contract, and hopefully we won't have to see him again until he's ready. Lots of players have rough welcome to the NFL debuts before going on to be fine. We'll see. We're still at .500 and have the bye to get some things corrected. Negative plays and penalties put us in bad positions way too much.

I don't think there is any point in bringing up Baker. He wore out his welcome.
His fault or Stefanski's is a debate for another thread.

Our starting Qb yesterday should have been Josh Dobbs.
Do we win with Dobbs at Qb? Don't know.
But I would certainly have felt better about our chances.

I've said this before, DTR has a chance to develop into a pretty good Qb but he needs 3-4 years of bench time.
DTR should have been our 3rd Qb this season. When we traded Dobbs all I did was SMH

I think our coaching staff was shocked that Watson said he couldn't go either

Also: props to Hopkins, who continues to be steady. He made a really nice 52-54 yarder to save a drive

He's a rookie whatever-rounder QB that had 1 day of prep... 2 weeks after the main cog of the offense went down for the season. In hindsight, what we saw shouldn't be all that surprising. People losing their mind over DTR or Stefanski are just venting. There were zero options available.

IMO, if we are going to get mad it should be about having DTR as the only viable backup in this situation. This is NOT how playoff caliber teams operate.

Good summary of what I saw too. Our DB's don't wrap up a ball carrier, just throw a shoulder and hope for the best. Moore should never touch the ball in the backfield again. There is no way DTR is 205 lbs. He looks more like 190-195 and is going to get hurt if he can't get the ball out faster.

Our DBs have notoriously shoulder tackled, and Gus Edwards has preyed on that for years

For anyone clamoring earlier about DTR being a better option than Watson at this point, I think you now have your answer. It never fails how people equate to what they see in a preseason game as indicative to what can happen in a real NFL game. It's Groundhogs Day here at Dawgtalkers sometimes. DTR was terrible and perhaps one of the worst performances by a Browns QB in a long time....and that is saying something. And this is not to say he will end up being a bad backup QB...no, not at all. But there were so many bad things going on in his play that you knew the game was over after watching him a few series. He was chucking the ball for for a lucky catch or DPI and usually short by 10 yards. He locked on to his first read almost every time it seemed, and the defense read it like a book. He threw into double coverage a ton trying to force a completion and probably should have had 4 INTs on the day. Generally, poor decision-making across the board and just not ready, to say the least.

The comments blaming Stefanski are quite laughable to me. Anyone that saw DTR in the first few series of the game, and would be honest with themselves, new the game was essentially over by the end of the first quarter because he was starting. There was no way this offense was going to score any points in the running game as the Ravens D focused on stopping that aspect of the offense once Watson was ruled out. The fact we were down 14-3 with roughly 5 minutes to go in the first half, this team HAD to throw (even though it was to their detriment) with any chance to get back in this game because it wasn't going to happen with a steady amount of Ford and Hunt touches in the running game. Not with their DL and attention on the running game. Either our D needed to score on the offense's behalf or we had to get lucky with DTR throwing it. Neither happened.

I'm not giving the OL has much heat as others, though I will say they were inconsistent. I think there were times DTR had plenty of times to throw, other times not so much. I'm not sure if, what I assume will be, poor run blocking grades on the OL are a result of them or the backfield. I saw a lot of running lanes passed over for running outside that ultimately did not work.

I feel like I should give kudos to the Ravens coaches for having their team ready to play with so many injuries, but not sure I can do that with how poor DTR played and his terrible decision-making.

Lots of the players deemed busts by Berry around here have really begun to show themselves for the first quarter of the season- particularly Newsome, Delpit, and JOK. Maurice Hurst has been a FA steal so far. Myles is Myles. That said, I think our defense played nowhere near the intensity, speed, passion, and awareness like they did the first three weeks. Poor tackling, pursuit to the ball, etc just seemed second-rate to me. I think the Watson news deflated a bunch of players.

It always sucks much more losing to a AFC North rival and being 1-2 against them is not a good thing. I suppose the silver lining of the Steelers and Bengals losing helps a bit, but this team needs to heal up and regroup for what will be a very tough 49ers game.

What has Washington done to warrant him being a HC? He was the OC in KC, yes, but he never called plays there. Reid is the mastermind of the KC offense. So Bieniemy has called plays for a total of 4 games in his career.

The offense did just about as close to nothing as is possible in an NFL game. They just barely moved the ball enough to get a field goal. At what point during the game were they a threat to score?

Defense packed it in and I really can't blame them. Offense never showed any signs of life.

Never.

that play to Moore that went -20 was literally a Laurel and Hardy play HAHA

You should have started a new thread titled "the Stefanski excuse thread" and started with that post.

Basically, we should never expect our HC to rise above a challenging situation and deliver results. We scapegoat any and everything to turn attention away from the HC. He doesn't have the right QB, he doesn't have the right assistant coaches, the schedule is brutal, injuries, blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, the Ravens were decimated with injuries and you couldn't tell at all. It's not like we are trotting out a JV team here. We have an uber talented team.

But Kev is only expected to produce results when everything is perfect. Got it.

exactly ... Baltimore had tons of guys out too, and has a limited offense and just lost to Gardner Minshew ... yet they put it together and own us

Because Baltimore is a team that has won, knows how to win so they overcome a lot of adversity. They have a good coach that knows how to win and overcome problems. We are still not at that level. We have talent but have not won and honestly have never been able to overcome adversity. Case in point, yesterday's game. We went from such a high last week with a dominant win and DW playing his best game as a Brown to yesterday's fiasco. I didn't think we would win after hearing that DW was out, but we could have put up better production on O with a better game plan. Having DTR throw that many times in his first start, and down the field to boot, was not a prudent game plan. Running the ball, short to medium throws, screens and quick slants is what I would have done. JMO

Does this stuff really surprise you? There're people on this forum that have been making excuses every year for Stefanski. Two straight years with a losing record with each year's team sworn by posters here as being better than the previous year but ending with poorer results than the previous year. Yet year after year, we watch team after team deal with their injuries or missing players.

In 2021, it was all Mayfield's fault for getting injured and not Stefanski for playing an injured player who was clearly struggling. In 2022, all things went to hell because Watson was suspended for being a scumbag and the team could never win with a backup. Yet, when Stefanski made the QB change, the Browns saw little evidence of the player they furnished with a fully guaranteed $230 million. Buried under layers of rust, Watson initially disrupted a Cleveland offense that ranked fourth in DVOA through Week 12 before stumbling to 15th during Watson's six starts. The forum and Browns quickly switched their ire to focus on the poor defense making their defensive players and coach the scapegoat for all of 2022 problems. As for injuries, inexperienced QB's, or forced to use a backup - let's not forget, PIT finished ahead of the Browns with a rookie QB just last year. BAL finished ahead of the Browns with their starter missing 5 games and using a backup that performed worse than Brissett, just last year. SFO started a 7th round rookie QB only to win 5 straight games and lead the 49ers to an 13-4 record and play for the NFC Championship. Oh, let's not forget that Purdy is 4-0 in 2023 making him 9-0 as a regular season starter for the 49ers.

Right now, we have the worst or very close to the worst PFF Graded LT in the NFL, again. We have lost our star RB to injury with so what looks to be zero answers for that position. We have a sore shoulder QB (who IMHO has an injury compounded by all the negative press and social media he's receiving) that we have very little info as to the extent of the injury. We have zero answers for the backup QB nightmare. We continue to have a HC that has failed in every situation to meet a challenging situation every season since he''s been here. When the heck is this guy going to be expected to deliver results? If it has to be perfect, the Browns will never win the Super Bowl.

hindsight is 20/20, but if I'm KS my thought process would have been strictly all field position ... do anything possible to make Baltimore start inside of their own 25 yard line all day long. Don't even think about making big plays on offense. Let the game be 9-6

There are 230 million reasons they didn’t get extended.

Why is it that Stefanski always seems to go away from what works in an attempt to "outsmart" the other coach? We've seen this so many times before. We had a few things going, we got a couple first downs and moved the ball those first few series. Then he runs Moore backwards, forces the rookie to throw long and the ship sank. He needs to give up play calling. He's not good at it.

Well, we are seeing a pattern. Win one in style, lose one wildly. 8-8 should be attainable!

When you're missing your on field leader at every offensive position group except WR and that WR is more or less known for not being very vocal, it presents different challenges. (I did forget TE. At the same time Njoku was dealing with a health issue)

The Ravens have injuries, but they had their QB and leader. He's the one that made plays.

We had a rather massive on the field leadership void. Kev can't go out on the field with them during drives.

There's a reason "cutting the head off the snake" is a widespread tactic. We looked like a headless snake (or chicken) out there on Sunday.

and this is DEFINITELY a pattern ... happens almost every game in his tenure

I didn't read through this thread but I certainly did read enough to get the overall tone.

First I'll address the point of "the defense was gassed". The Ravens time of possession was a whopping 20 seconds longer than the Browns. That's right. No matter what the perception was when you watched the game, the TOP was almost exactly even. The two D's were on the field almost exactly the same amount of time.

Second I'll address the fact that DTR was the back-up QB. That decision was made by the FO in terms of letting Dobbs go, that's not the HC's decision. So if people wish to blame the team for being in that position, place the blame where it belongs.

Next I'll address the play calling. The only RB that had any production on a per carry basis was Strong. And all one needs to do is look at what point in the game that production came to figure out why. It was garbage time. And while I will say the run vs pass play calling could have been balanced better, my assertion is that it wouldn't have actually made any difference either way.

Baltimore has a great D and their coaches have long established systems. People would have to believe that Baltimore didn't realize that DTR was starting and didn't game plan for that to believe their D wasn't designed to stop the run and force DTR to beat them with his arm. So to me the argument people are making is that somehow Stefanski should have designed his game plan to make an attempt to run plays that Baltimore was designed to stop because of the box being stacked and playing up close to stop short passes.

The results of which would end up being six of one and one half of the other. It was a lose/lose proposition either way. The way I see it is that people are upset by which plays he called that would have produced equal results. That people would have preferred the Browns lost by trying to run in the face of an opposing D that was specifically designed to stop that run rather than by passing the ball. So it's more about how the browns lost rather than the fact they lost.

Chubb isn't playing.

As far as DTR being washed up or sucking? He is a fifth round draft pick with zero NFL game experience. It's a once in a generation find when you get a Tom Brady or Josh Purdy. I'm really not sure what more people expected. The kid has shown some tangibles that can be developed. He's not ready for prime time. The fact people expected more at this point in time is on them. It was their own unrealistic expectations that has lead to their own disappointment. The people who put this team into this position are sitting behind their desks in the FO while watching the fan base pointing their fingers elsewhere.

Mary Kay Cabot
@MaryKayCabot
#Browns Kevin Stefanski said Deshaun Watson was medically cleared to play and that it was his call. He said Watson knows his body best and felt like he couldn't go.

Tony Grossi
@TonyGrossi
·
11m
Ethan Pocic (knee, chest) & Myles Garrett (foot) are day to day, per coach.

This pretty much encapsulates the mindset of posters here within hours after a loss and the subsequent tone in their comments Sunday afternoon/night.

When we lost Chubb, we lost the season.

Stefanski's game plan was for Watson and he forced DTR to try and play it and failed miserably. To not fault Stefanski is laughable to me. This game reminded me of the our game against the Bears and Justin Fields' debut.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy."

We ran the ball the first play. A penalty brought it back (hold Cooper.) We had a successful scramble. A penalty brought it back. (Hold Teller) We lost two yards on multiple runs. We had false starts.

When you're in bad down and distance situations and the other team is still going hard after the run, it's hard to keep calling running plays.

I don't think what we saw "was the plan." Unfortunately, the other team makes plans, too. If their plan was to stop what your plan was to try to do, you have to adapt. If their plan was to make the QB beat them, and your QB plays poorly, it's going to be a rough day.

Agreed, and my frustration matches yours. Years of tanking, embarrassment, hopelessness, and a zero win season. And 8-9 or 9-8 is all we’ll have to show for it. Unreal. And again, kudos to the people who love this team enough to buy tickets. My buddy’s dad just added up what he’s spent on tickets alone since 1999. 3 in the uppers… Over 45,000 bucks. That’s not counting parking, beer, and food.

Unreal how tolerant this fan base has become for this crap.

Just wait until the 49ers drop us to 2-3.

Oh yeah and after yesterday, my buddy’s dad is through buying tickets. He’s ticked off because he could have bought a nice boat with the money that he’s spent on this garbage.

I don't think that. I think it was a 50/50 deal all week. Take each day at a time. It got to the morning of gameday and it as decided he couldn't go. No doubt I am sure everybody was hoping he could go.