DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2023 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 27 Cardinals 0 Postgame Thoughts

The Browns did what they absolutely should have done to Arizona Cardinals. Great to see.

Nice to have a stress-free fourth quarter for a change.
The new PR looked quick and got us some yards on the return. Good sign.
D pitched a shutout, first time since 2007 I thought someone said. Yeah today’s Cardinals offence was expansion-like, but still good to get the blank, pad the sack stats.

Desean was solid, didn’t turn it over and that long pass to Cooper in the fourth was a beauty toss. He had a couple weird short throws that were off target but overall I’m satisfied with his play today.

Huge one next week at Baltimore. Statement game.

The season is next week. We cannot lose next week.

Glad to see we did what we’re supposed to do against a bad team; dominate. Good to see DW shake off some rust, and had some beautiful throws and scrambles, and more importantly finished the game healthy.

Defense….58 total yards. Period.

That was quite enjoyable to watch.

58 yds.

That's absurd.

Careful on the non-injured DW talk! The last injury didn’t show up until after the game.

I agree. We won that's all that matters and we dominated like we should have. DW looked pretty good for the first game back and made some nice throws. Can someone tell me if we had any drops.

I didn’t notice a single drop

19th best in NFL history and the best this year.
Our Sack yardage was the same as their Rushing Yardage.
We sacked them once for every 1st Down they got.

It was a pretty dang good defensive day.


Our offense was painful, though, and it did NOT look like it is something that will fair well next week. I *finally* saw a couple throws by Watson that lived up to his hype.
Too many injuries.

Wills is probably out for the season, big loss.

Thanks!

At least 2 (Njoku and Ford, I think) and I think there was one other but not sure. Also, a deep ball to Grissom where interference was missed. DW also had a few off target short throws when guys were open. [quote]

I didn’t consider either of those drops, but poor ball placement by Watson

- Defense Was completely dominant ... from the first play to the last
- Watson got more comfortable as the game progressed, which was good to see
- I'm glad that Hopkins miss came when it did
- Who wins: the 99 Browns or today's Cardinals?

D dominated.

DW did better than I thought he might.

Nice to see a PR actually do the R part of being a punt returner.

Cooper with a good game, due to some very good throws.


And bottom line, a W in the books.

This was the best "domination" game by the Browns that I have seen in years.

The 2 I mentioned were right there. I may watch the game again to be sure, and maybe I am not recalling correctly, but both of those to me should have been caught and didn't require a great deal of difficulty. He did have another Njoku and Ford miss, the 2 I recall were catchable.

I would say the season is the next 2 weeks.
Must find a way to beat both Baltimore and Pittsburgh

goo point about Proche ... best returner we've had in a while

We're in trouble on the O-line with the next 2 games against tough physical D's.

Couldn’t watch, a few questions.

Who filled in for Wills? Did they look shaky or were we in cruise mode at that point?

I know DW was rusty but could you tell by the end if he was still tender in the shoulder?

I understand DW got better as the game progressed but did he get creamed at all today? I know there were a few sacks but were they hard? I worry about his skittishness behind this line.

I suspect the difference in the next few games is going to hinge on our OL and our ability to game plan around it. DW is not good when he’s getting rocked. He’s not a guy that makes teams regret too much pressure and now that his wing is a question (and will be the rest of the way imo). I suspect we’re gonna see A LOT of pressure the next few weeks. Like I said, we had better game plan for it.

You could be right. I said I didn’t notice them, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen 😀

Hudson filled in for Wills

The Browns got a gift today. They played a team that
Looked worse than the expansion Browns.
The AFC North is so tight every 2 or 3 games will
Separate the 1st and last place team in the North
By years end
Watson looks really average. He can't come out
And play like this vs the Ravens and Steelers

Great win today for the Browns. Didn't get to watch it because I was at Lake Farmpark with my special needs son this afternoon. So I guess we are tied then at 5-3. Of course the Ravens won today unfortunately.

Looking to next week, the ravens Rb. Keaton Mitchell (who?) had 138 yards on 9 carries.
But if you take away his 60 yard runthen he only averaged about 9 yards a carry.

That’s a nearly meaningless stat. If you went .500 for a season but they all went L-W-L-W… all season you’d be 1.000 on that stat line. If it was coupled or used in a coefficient against overall record, that would mean something.

Edit:
Madden was 103-32 over 9yrs and never had a losing record in college or the pros.
Allen was 116-47 and also never had a losing record.
Ski- 31-27 so far. Two losing seasons out of 3

Yeah but it’s still an interesting stat

Akins had one right in the chest I think.

Okay, I remember that one.

Me too. I wasn't intending to call you out, and lord knows my memory is slipping as I age. If I find the ambition, I may watch again. I do know I was very surprised there was no PI when Grissom had his head forearmed (not hard BTW) on that deep ball from DW.

George Allen, the guy who never had a draft pick he liked. Was known for trading most of his picks. He teams we usually older. I saw a clip on NFL Films where they said he traded the same pick twice, IT wasn't his to trade the second time. Imagine the league missing that.

I forgot: Bojorquez had maybe the most perfect punt I've ever seen ... 73 yard punt that literally died at the 1

Good effort by the defense, offense did just enough. They are going to have to be a lot more efficient next week and defense is going to have to play like they did this week and not like they have when they aren’t playing bottom dwellers. I think next week is going to be weird, going to go one of two ways, decided in the last two minutes or a blowout for either side. Feels like we’re due one of those. Bal is getting stronger and stronger as the year goes on. I don’t think Pittsburgh can sustain. Question is can we

Haha, our kickers have been kicking the hell out of the football this year. Boroquez had a couple other boomers today, in addition to that one. I mean he’s mashing the pigskin.

We need Watson to really earn his money next week. If we lose we’re still in the wildcard hunt but the division likely out of reach

No it isn't.

Correct, it isn’t.

Very nice game. Exactly what we needed.

It was rocking at the stadium. No doubt this D feeds off the enery the fans bring. I already have a slightly gravel voice. By moring i suspect it will be full-fledged.

We ran the ball well early. It started to shut down late when we were running with the lead and the Cards were playing full run D. Both teams were pretty happy to keep the clock running.

A guy I have been meaning to mention....Mr. Elliott looks like a different player under Schwartz. He has been fairly disruptive all season.

Corey punted his butt off. He should get ST player of the week consideration. He kept kicking bombs all game long.

Watson looked pretty good. He had a few head scratching short throws, but he threw some beautiful deep balls and he had good velocity. One thing I really liked is he went to his checkdown fairly often. Something he didn't do earlier this season. Ford caught 4-5 of them for decent yardage. It was a nice "rehab" assignment. He isn't 100%, you saw some signs his shoulder was at least a bit stiff, but whatever percentage he is, that is better than 100% of whoever else we think of playing back there.

one thing I've noticed with Watson: he's a very emotional player ... meaning: if he has a good play, he seems to really build off of it. He can get it rolling (or vice versa) more than most QBs

I think a fully healthy DW with more live game reps will turn out OK for us. I'm not saying he'll be a top 5 QB but good enough. JMO

I liked the play with Kareem in wildcat, runs to the right fakes the end-around then started north. We ran that twice today, the other with Ford. Something to think about for down the road. Btw, anyone hear from eotab?

I agree with that lamp: sometimes the fake end arounds are more effective

With seven punts that 73 yarder didn't have a ton of statistical influence -- 58.6 average. I only remember one subpar (by his standards) punt.


BTW... I didn't even know this 'til last week, blew my mind...

Ryan Stonehouse went from undrafted to breaking a record more than 80 years old in his rookie season in the NFL. The Tennessee Titans punter broke the record for single-season punting average with a mark of 53.1 yards per kick. He shattered the previous record of 51.4 set by Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh in 1940.

I’m going to call him bojo from now on

I like it.

Oh yeah... most impressive to me as I kept begging our offense to pick up a couple first downs, afraid we would give up the 'under 100' on defense.

Browns went up 27-0 with 7:48 left. Cards had three possessions to produce some "garbage time" stats... 12 plays / -3 yards.

That's playing four quarters. That's pride. That's domination.

I agree with both of you.

A team than can't win in its division doesn't deserve the playoffs. Those teams that occasionally 'beat the odds' usually get exposed in the first round.

CLE needs to establish themselves, if they are to establish themselves as a legitimate playoff team.
These next 2 weeks will show Browns fans what kind of team they are following in 2023.

9 games left in the season. Now's the time that the contenders really start showing their faces. Odd flukey things from the beginning start to get refined out. No advantage of catching a team off guard. Already in the grind and adjustments start to get made. Team could easily be 5 - 5 in 2 weeks. Winning one of these games over the next 2 weeks puts less pressure on the season. Won't say the rest of the schedule is a cakewalk. But the toughest games on the schedule are all divisional games. As I don't think the division is going to be decided until week 18.

Jags look dangerous.
Houston has something in Stroud
Broncos could easily be 5-5 and ready to shift their season when the teams meet




If the playoffs started today. The entire division would get in the playoffs. Gonna be a Dawg fight

I think the game vs Pittsburgh is the most important game of the year ... and the last game at Cincy will probably be a win and in scenario for both

No. I was thinking about Eo the other day. I know he wasn't doing well, so this absence during the season isn't a good sign..

I hope I am wrong.

That is the deal with these places. When people stop posting, many times you can pretty much surmise they just got tired of the place and moved on. Other times, you just don't know, especially when it is a person who has been a regular poster for over 20 years.

Great win !

Watson looked good with the long ball

A little struggles with the short routes, I was glad they kept playing those plays

It was like a live practice for DW to work on his timing and rhythm and prepare for this weeks game

The Defense, Congrats on the egg ! Hope they can play the same against the Ravens

What worries me a little, is I hope they realize it will be a much better Offense

I shut my eyes when PJ Walker came in

Really is a big difference with DW as QB

How is that even possible. Y i k e s

I thought this was an important game for Watson to come back for to get his sea legs under him ahead of a tough two-game stretch. For the most part, I think we saw his arm strength come back as he wasn't shot-putting the ball and, although he was inconsistent early on, settled down and had himself a nice game. His two tosses to Cooper were beautiful (especially that last one was perfect placement) and hope the game was able to slow down for him after being out. He still has some work ahead of him to get back to normal, but I liked what I saw, overall, coming back.

- I think the OL has been inconsistent all year and the loss of Wills does us no favors. Not sure how the FO feels with Hudson starting back there. We'll see.
- Jerome Ford has grown a lot as an RB over the past few weeks, but overall, this running game doesn't really do much for me. At this point, I'd like to see more Strong over Hunt and that's not a good thing. Couple in injuries and inconsistency from the OL, next week is going to be tough for the running game, I'm guessing.
- DL was dominant all day long. Felt kinda bad for their QB after awhile.
- Proche added a bit more to the returns, which was nice.
- Great athletic play by Takitaki to get that INT. Also, part of the play was rookie Isaiah McGuire pushing his lineman back towards Clayton Tune. McGuire has been inactive for a bunch of games (maybe all up until this one?) so it was nice to see him getting into the DL pressure party.
- Emerson continues to look fantastic. Ward is having a Pro Bowl season, arguably.
- Start those Delpit contract extension talks (if they haven't already)
- Another great coaching performance all around to get the goose egg. I don't how bad a team might be perceived, that's not easy to do in the NFL.
- Really like the LB combo of JOK and Walker.
- TONS of injuries for the Browns yesterday. Hope they can manage as much as possible heading into Baltimore.

BAL -5.5
Over/Under 39.5

speaking of which ... has anyone heard from either Diam or cfrs ?

cfrs is not coming back apparently. The NYJ game of last year was the nail in the coffin for him. But I'm working on changing his mind.

that was a brutal loss for sure ... tell him we miss him

it was apparent pretty quickly yesterday that the Cardinals would not score a TD with their offense, and the only chance of a FG was if we gave them a short field

I'll confidently speak for others and say that's a big WE. His football knowledge is sorely missed around these parts.

no doubt .. he was a top tier guy here

1. I feel bad for Gannon, my fellow Wildcat alum. If any of you were members at Westwood Country Club back in 1997, there was a decent chance that either he or I caddied for you that year. I laughed when they showed the high school photos of him. Those were straight out of our yearbook. I went upstairs and brought it down and showed those same photos to my son after the game was over. Also showed him pics of Brian Hoyer from that year (freshman) and Anthony Gonzalez (sophomore). Then he asked me why they didn't have any game photos of me. I had to explain that not all of us possessed the type of play-making talent required to have those photos taken of us

2. Aside from feeling bad for Jon, I felt great for our defense. Man, they really dominated. I don't care who the other team is, if it's an NFL team and we hold them to 58 yards of offense, that's a hell of a job and noteworthy.

3. I was glad to see Watson shake off the rust. That pass to Cooper later in the game was a thing of beauty. I think what I am looking from him now is to do that when the stakes are high. He completed that play when he already knew his defense wasn't going to allow any points. The pressure was way off. Can he do that kind of thing when it's a close game against a good team in an important game (looking at you, Baltimore).

4. Was sorry to see Hopkins miss a kick. It wasn't a layup though and the guy has really shown up otherwise. He has dispelled that notion that Bojorquez is a problem holding the ball.

5. Speaking of Bojorquez, man, that guy is a hell of a punter.

6. We really miss Chubb in the run game. Ford frustrates me sometimes because he doesn't seem to get the idea that he should just run north and take what's there. I find that incredibly frustrating when watching RBs.

7. Good to see Tillman out there. Hope he can rise up the ranks. Otherwise, we need another good WR out there.

Jake Trotter
@Jake_Trotter
·
4m
#Browns left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. will go on injured reserve with an MCL injury in his right knee, coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed Monday. Not season-ending.

Ian Rapoport
@RapSheet
#Browns coach Kevin Stefanski tells reporters that OT Jedrick Wills has an MCL sprain and will be placed on IR. He's expected to be back.

I'm surprised by that. He had the look of someone who knew his season was over.

Got tickets at last minute. Me and my son went and had a blast.
Fans were into the game, especially when we were on defense and on third downs, it was really loud.

Jed was coming off the field right beside us, and I saw him and told my son that his year is over. Glad he will be back for the stretch run.

If the playoffs start today, all 4 AFC N would be in.
I have a feeling there is going to be lots of flex scheduling happening in the next several weeks.

you mentioned the DTs, and that is a good point ... Tomlinson and Harris particularly were really good yesterday

I think you included the biggest issue in all of this. Can they use the Zona game as a building block to compete against an upper level team ? I'm sure we all hope so. While i only saw the highlights as the game went progressed on NFL Red Zone, from what I've been reading from multiple posters and reports, the way KS managed watson's passing was a thing of beauty and gave hope as he got better the longer the game wore on is a very positive sign.

Huge game this week.

Next week will be a good measuring stick for DW as well as the defense. Also, does KS stay patient and not put everything on DW? Yesterday's game was an important one for KS to actually learn something. You don't need to throw it all over the yard right out of the gate. Containing Jackson has to be on the top of the list for Schwartz. I guess we're all going to see how important Wills really is since a lot of people on this board have been waiting to dump him. Hopefully Jones is up to the task AND he is given help if needed. A loss isn't the end of the season but a win would be HUGE.

question is what do we do in the meantime, because Hudson is god awful.. like makes cam erving look like orlando pace bad.. he's actually gotten worse this year. He cannot be the starting LT.. I'd move Bitonio over there. and find a guard unless they think they can find a PS LT somewhere. But BAL has to be licking their chops, Might see Harris in as additional blocker and we might have to run max protect all game

We will most likely go 6 OL more now with Harris ... and go run game/PA game if possible

j/c

I did not see the game. Comments are from what I have read and heard ....

We won convincingly against a very bad team.

DW looked meh early - looked good especially on some deep passes later.

Offense went back to some heavy sets and one comment I read was it was like being back to 2020 but with an elite D instead of a D that would lose games late.

Very much agree that the next 2 games are basically a determination of who we are - possibly who DW will be for the Browns. Tough games against good teams. Division rivals. 2 wins would be glorious ... a split would keep hopes alive. 0-2 would be disasterous for this season and any hopes of playoffs even if mathmatically we might remain alive.

Looking at the box score and reflecting on the Seattle game ... why did Strong only carry it 3 times? I thought he looked at least 'adequate' and comparable to Ford. Any insight welcome.

Peaking ahead after Baltimore and Pit - we've got 3 very very winnable games in Broncos, Rams and Jets ... a jekyl and hide team in the Bears who you feel we *should* beat - tougher games against Jags and Texans (who knew?) and then a season finalle vs Bengals. It'd be brilliant to have a win and you are in for the last game vs Bengals. but 1 week at a time I know.

Have to mention Elliot as well. I’ve been hard on him (in other places) for his play in the past. This year he is really picked it up and is making some splash plays as well.

Would totally be great if the Cincy game is a "play for seeding" game and all of the north gets in..

"knew it was going to be a dogfight, didn't know it was going to get extended into the playoffs"

[

Agreed, I miss his knowledge and even a bigger thing for me is I miss his sarcasm with the knowledge.

You can tell him if he comes back: I will back him in his previous quest of making sure everyone is aware that Mike White is best QB in the NFL.

Something else I have been noticing. This goes back to a bone of contention I have had for more than a few years. I have long said that fullbacks are pretty useless. My feeling is if you want a playmaker on the field, put a playmaker on the field. If blocking was what you wanted, put a back-up lineman in the game to get more blocking. I am seeing us do that. Big thumbs up from this guy.

Don't waste a darn roster spot on a useless fullback.