DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns News and Notes Continued…

Hunt is done and Strong is not a every down back.

JMHO: I think Taylor could still get 100 yards a game.

j/c…

Seriously just shut him down this week against SF. It's not like this team is going to do anything against that machine anyway. But PLEASE do not send out DTR. If Stefanski does that, he should be FIRED immediately after the game ends. Period.

Uh... then who is he sending out? DTR is the backup.

not good

Bitonio, Piocic, ans Njoku as well.

just imagine DTR against San Francisco HAHAHA

If the defense that played the Ravens shows up, it won't matter which QB we trot out there. I don't think either QB is good enough to put up 28 on the 49ers.

no doubt. It would be a 42-0 game

That would be PJ Walker
Currently on our practice squad

What I'm saying is....

So a guy that (IIRC) was available for anyone to sign all off-season and just recently signed to our PS is going to fare so much better than our guy who won the backup job in camp?

That may sound snarkier than I want. I'm just saying that if that's the case then it doesn't reflect too well on a number of things.

Better? Probably not a ton. But we probably don't need to worry as much about potentially "breaking him." Or, at least we don't have as much invested in him if it so happens that he does get broken by the 49ers. Plus, I think PJ Walker is "Temple Tough." (little bit /purple on that last bit)

In his first start, DTR did much more sinking than swimming. Maybe he figured out how to better stay afloat, maybe not. Hard to tell from the outside. If he still isn't ready to swim on his own, we probably shouldn't throw him into the deep end. Probably not the best analogy. Maybe more you have to teach a SERE swimmer (Search and Rescue--already a good swimmer) how to survive in a storm before you can expect them to save other people, too. DTR might still be in that middle phase. Maybe he's figured it out now. Walker might not be as naturally talented, but at least he's been in the league long enough to complete "SERE school."

For the record , I have not weighed in my opinion on the matter of DTR vs Walker.
I was just providing information to answer your question.

Lovely. I don't think that will help the line play better.

Then again, maybe the injury was why it wasn't playing so well in the first place.

my vote would be for Walker

Walker has to be better than DTR right?...Lol!

you would think

Bitonio related is my guess.

Our OL has quickly gone from a strength to a concern. Maybe having a better LT fixes the issues of our interior play, but I don't know

Not good news when you’re retooling the OLine during the season. We knew Wills wasn’t playing well last season. We knew Conklin is injury prone yet we didn’t try to get any veteran players to back them up. We didn’t pay as much attention to the OLine this season the way we didn’t address the DLine the previous offseason. Same mistake but at a different position group. Not good!!!

The problem last year was that our starters on the (interior) DL were bad. On the other hand, this season we have about the most expensive OL in the league, and on paper it was good. Unlike DL, who rotate players through, you want your OL to be the same 5 guys the whole season through.

Doesn't really seem like the same mistake to me.

Unfortunately, there aren't Pro Bowl linemen sitting around wanting to be underpaid Browns backups. We drafted 2 OL and brought in a former 1st rounder as a project on the PS. We kept last year's projected starting center as a backup. Injuries happen, and there aren't enough good OLinemen for some teams to even have decent starters. There's only so much teams can do. Good OL are hard to find. Frankly, the job kind of sucks. Put at a disadvantage on most plays, and mostly only get your name called when something goes wrong.

as we see around the NFL, you have no team if your lines are bad ... last year our DL was bad, and this year our OL is bad

I don't think they are bad but I don't think they are healthy.

We lost Conklin.
Bitonio is on crutches and who knows if its been something beyond just a week that he has been dealing with it.
Piocic has been battling an injury and left a game (more than once?)
Who knows....maybe Teller is still dealing with something from his injury last year??

If Bitonio doesn't go Sunday, would Nick Harris go in? Michael Dunn?

I would prefer Dunn to Harris .. but, obviously neither is good against SF lol

LOL, surely you jest! The biggest glaring weakness on the o-line is Wills and has been Wills for the last 3 seasons (current included). Bitonio, in his defense, spends half his time covering for Wills so Watson doesn't get broke in two.

There are clearly other issues with the offense besides just the line. First and foremost, the Browns continue to award contracts to players underserving. Secondly, after 4-games and nearly 25% of the season gone, the Browns have players performing at the bottom of the league for their position.

Just a snapshot of how some are playing thru 5 weeks of the season:

LT Wills, 45.4 PFF Grade, Rank of 66th out of 72 tackles ranked - just given his 5th year option fully guaranteed of 14.124M.
TE Njoku, 56.2 PFF Grade, Rank of 40th out of 68 TE's ranked - given a new contract that pays him a APY of $13,687,500
TE Bryant, 61.1 PFF Grade, Rank of 31st out of 68 TE's ranked - final year of contract 1.010M (outperforming Njoku and making 12.6M less)
WR Moore, 59.1 PFF Grade, Rank of 75th out of 110 WR's ranked
WR DPJ, 52.8 PFF Grade, Rank of 97th out of 110 WR's ranked - final year of contract
QB Watson, 68.7 PFF Grade, Rank of 18th out of 33 QB's ranked - 46M per season
RB Ford, 64.8 PFF Grade, Rank of 33rd out of 53 RB's ranked 

None of the above players are playing close to the level of expectation. Some of these players have multiple seasons of underperformance like the above.

Add in the fact that Bitonio, Teller, Cooper have slipped some from their normal grades - we have a rookie RT trying to fill some pretty big shoes on the OL - the Browns have an offense that is grossly underachieving. There's more wrong with the offense than some will admit and let's not forget that Stefanski has a whole lot to do with this underachievement and the old "Kubiak Offense" he continues to deploy.

well I think he's insinuating that Bitonio is injured

I was just going to let him run with it. He put a lot of time into that post!

Yea, I missed that and it certainly is very bad news if Bitonio is out. My bad, but it still doesn't change anything with Wills. I wonder if these o-line issues have anything to do with Watson not practicing, hmmmm.

It's more about looking to trade FOR a lineman. Not trade one.

j/c...

was the bruised rotator cuff reported last week? it seems like the phrase "rotator cuff" has suddenly been included

I don't believe so. Seems like some strange injury reports this year around the league.

The specifics as to what his injury was didn't seem to be reported last week as far as I know. Now it has been. Not everything is a conspiracy theory. Well I guess these days it is. But not every conspiracy theory has merit.

Last week they reported fluid around the rotator cuff.

During the CBS broadcast of the game, Evan Washburn reported that Watson told him he had fluid buildup around his rotator cuff making it painful to drive the ball.

The Browns organization never mentioned rotator cuff, they only said shoulder bruise/contusion.

Okay thanks guys ... I didn't remember

j/c...

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