DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Question regarding fans' opinon of the defense

I have seen some comments regarding yesterday's game and the defense giving up 400+ yards. Some had written that it somehow confirms our D was a poser, unworthy of the praise they had been getting.

I'll phrase a question to you; If the Browns D had allowed 400+ yards, for the first 5 games this season, and then yesterday held the Colts to 200, would you say the D is now legit and dominating?

I would guess & hope that answer is no, so I don't see taking yesterday's game and suddenly determining our D phony. Now, if they continue to get gashed for the nest few games, that's a different story.

Just my thoughts.

I still think are D is very good. Yesterday's performance could have been a letdown from the 49'ers game not to mention whom we were facing yesterday. Our D may have been a little complacent. If we have another game against Seattle like yesterday, then maybe questions could be asked. Seattle's O is ranked 15th and their rushing average is only 106 a game. We should be able to handle them on D as long as our O does it's job and moves the ball. JMO

The Colts game is an outlier until it's not.

Quite honestly, I think our D is the real deal. What was perplexing was how poorly we did over the previous couple years with the roster we had... fast forward to now after fixing the coaching and beefing up the Dline... I think what we're seeing makes sense.

They'll have games/drives here and there... as our offense continues to flounder and rack up 3nOuts like it's cool it becomes more likely that our D gets worn down.

I was chatting with my wife yesterday telling her about the game. My big takeaway was that the offense is a mess. "But they scored 40 points!" Was her response.

I genuinely forgot (if that's the right word) that they put up that many points.

Yesterday was an anomaly, imo.

Over 100 yds was given up by Myles dumb plays.

I think they had a letdown after an emotional win over the 9ers. One of these games was bound to happen.

My gut is telling me this will not be a trend. Fingers crossed.

Here is my take on yesterday:

- we came in flying high with a lot of confidence, and probably were primed for a let down
- we scored SUPER early on a big play and probably let our guard down thinking "Okay, that's it"
- they have a QB who is super confident in the underdog spot
- they have a HC who knows how to scheme an offense
- their RB is just returning back to form (and he's a top 3 back in the NFL)
- the game kinda got into the swing of being a shoot out and back and forth ... and once that seal is broken, it's awfully tough to get the toothpaste back in the tube


Long story short, it's a good wake up call for our defense ... and it's always great to have wake up calls AND still win

Agree with all those points. They had us off-balance early and got some good yards on first downs. We also didn’t tackle as well as we have. Couple of screwups in the secondary led to long TDs. What we saw yesterday was not our usual defence -except for MG - . It was one of those wacky games. I imagine Schwartz will be on his players hard this week.

"Over 100 yds was given up by Myles dumb plays."

That is not accurate.

He was off sides. It happens. That does not mean that the plays made or not made behind him were his fault. Off sides is a free play and a five yard penalty.

Still have to cover your man. Still have to make a tackle. Myles did not give up 100 yards.

Sometimes the other team deserves credit. The Colts were at home playing to win. They had 3 wins including beating the Ravens.

As peen said last night, when you blatantly jump offside keep going to draw the unimpeded flag, don’t give them a free play

And Bone their O was ranked 11th out of 32 going into yesterday's game so they must know how to move the ball.

That's kind of how I felt also, but I realize it will take another 4-5 games of good performances to see a true trend.

Minshew most likely doesn't attempt either pass if Myles doesn't jump offsides AND quit on the plays.

I don't think he gets either pass off. The second one for sure he doesn't even attempt if Myles isn't offsides. He only threw it because it was a free play.

minshew did a nice job with snap counts and cadence to keep us off balance a bit ... something we should think about to get some cheap yards

Unfortunately, we'd likely get false starts instead.

Lol...sadly true

Let’s put it this way, 14 points were mistakes, Miles and the missed tackle plays.

I think the Colts had a good gamelan for the Browns who tend to play man to man.. lotta of bunch WR formations which rub routes to spring someone.

It’s a season of adjustments.

Before the game the knock on the D was only 2 turnovers. In this game there were 4.

no doubt they forced us to zone and we are the worst zone team in the NFL ... that's an issue we have to remedy

One swallow does not a summer make.

I agree.

Myles jumped offsides.
Myles quit on both plays.
The Colts got big yardage on both.

the hope is that it motivates us to come back and play a good game Sunday .. we SHOULD be let down by that defensive performance because a lesser team took it to us.

We need our run defense to continue to be stout and we can't have the sloppy tackling and mental mistakes that we had in the pass game

I am really confused about us fans calling the Colts a lesser team. They were a .500 team coming into the game and held a win over a team that beat us 28-3. How is that a lesser team? The Browns were on the road and got a win. This is not college football and Ohio State did not just beat Indiana. This is the NFL and the Browns beat the Colts. A road victory in the NFL does not come easy and I am glad the Browns got that road win.

I'm thinking because we were favored by 3.5, we just came off a big win, and we have massive defensive talent. I trend towards you in thinking that we have to bring it EVERY week obviously, but the narrative was that we are a better team than Indy.

Thus far the Indy game is an anomaly. A one game let down. For me that in no way determines who they are. Some people insist on looking at a single game under a microscope rather than looking at the big picture with a telescope. To each their own I suppose.

obviously teams will try to replicate what was working for Indy, so it's paramount that we correct the issues

The zone deficiencies are troubling because if we can't play zone, that eliminates a lot of variances ... but we have really struggled in that area

That's what she said.

It might have something to do with the fact that the Colts beat the Ravens with their starting QB while the Browns were facing their back-up QB. That does tend to change expectations.

Minshew is a hot or cold type of QB. He can unleash Minshew Mainia or be a catastrophe depending on the game. The prior week against the Jags he threw 3 int's in a loss where they only put up 20 points.

Indy reminds me of all those Browns teams pre Hue that started the season 2-2 or 3-3, then you look up at the end of the season and you're 6-10.

Yeah - except Indy beat the Ravens in Baltimore with Minshew as their starting QB in that game.

After looking again you are correct. He was 27-44 for 227 yards and one TD.

I’d take Minshew over our backup QBs all day long. Probably over DW at this point. At least he gives his all and plays to win.

I'd definitely take Minshew for the rest of the season too .. we'd be in much better shape

I feel like he's the new Fitzmagic.

I didn’t see this Sunday’s game (until the last 5 mins when the NY market switched over) so I can’t say much about it other than what the stats say and people here have said.

But generally speaking games are data points. They add up one way or another until a full picture emerges.

It occurred to me that our historic defensive run in the first 5 games was very likely to come back down to reality at some point. Just as Miami’s historic offense was likely to come back down at some point. Doesn’t mean we’re not still on the upper end of defenses and perhaps still elite. Maybe top 5… maybe the very best? Maybe more middle of the pack by the end. Almost certainly not bottom half unless we get decimated by injuries. But we don’t know yet what’s in range and what’s anomaly. We can’t throw out last Sundays data point until we see more.

If they go out and have a clunker against Seahawks, well then that’s a second data point in that trend line. It did seem like the colts did some things we weren’t able to correct for. Hopefully this week’s tape sessions make the necessary adjustments more clear. Because everyone is going to try to copy what the colts did against us. As always, we’ll see how it plays out. Go Browns!

That is not a true statement. Garner Minshew played the entire game vs the Ravens. Their starter was out that game with a concussion.

I already addressed that. Try reading the thread the next time.

On paper, our defense looks great. The totals are:

243.3 yards, 18 ppg

But if you break that down, it's:

Home (6 games, 5-1)
175.7 yards, 10.2 ppg

Away (4 games, 2-2)
344.8 yards, 29.8 ppg

I thought the old adage was that "defense travels".......