DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Watson: No Way Out

I get it ..she has to keep positive vibes and etc .
But I heard her last week Making excuses for DW.
I liked how Lima was trying to take her to task this AM.
Mary Kay is the ultimate Kool aid drinker

MKC is not a Kool-Aid drinker. She spins Browns news for the limited occasions the Browns throw her a bone and give her scoop (see Baker and Stefanski headed for divorce as exhibit 1).

She's also a female. Her defending Watson makes her a useful tool for the Browns in exchange for inside info as they see fit.

The Browns do this with Aditi Kinkhabwala as well. She's well liked. Has established credibility, but currently lacks a platform. Put her on the payroll and dictate the narrative to be spun in the media.

She was trotted out by the Browns to perform damage control after the OBJ dad video post, and they had her awkwardly interview Watson before his first preseason game vs. the Jags in '22.

So in summary she's a useful (Browns Organization) idiot? Willing to trot out their spin in exchange for occasional inside info or first look? I've never been a fan whether she was talking sense or stirring up schtick and using wild speculation.

I wonder if the Browns could restructure Watson's deal to give him MORE salary/upfront money this year while we have the excess cap space and then just cut him

Looks like we are working on the receivers. Here is a quote from Ken Dorsey

J/c

It makes no sense to cut him. I don't think we could if we wanted to. ~200M would hit the salary cap the second we did if I'm reading spotrac right.

There is no good answer. The only real hope is that he starts to play better. We're stuck with him. I don't think there's any chance the boos and calling for his job do anything to improve the likelihood of him playing better.

Try to lean on the running game and hope he can get his mojo back. Need to find a way to slow down the pass rush. Need to get defenders heading towards the line to open holes in coverage. I also think the OL, Bitonio and Teller especially, are better when they're the aggressors. I'd be going pistol. Ford needs to step up. Pass catchers need to lock in, too. Had some bad drops.

Interesting to me that Dorsey picked out the WRs as an emphasis of improvement

Has to pick something to work on. Apparently not DW. This looks like "lipstick on a pig" example. No mention of a particular QB rating. Bad juju this.

yeah that's what I mean. It looks like a deflection of the true elephant in the room

Do the WR's need to be better? Surely. But that wouldn't be my first gripe

We should all prepare ourselves. This looks like it’s going to be a long season.

"We’ve got to do a couple things right this week, mainly at the receiver room winning our one-on-one matchups and that’s what we’re looking to do.”

We need to get THAT ^ right THIS week!!!??? How about LAST week...or ALL pre-season.

Still a giant cluster.

Well he could have picked out Watson but we can all see that.
He could have picked the O-line as they sucked last week as well.
He could have blamed the receivers for dropping the ball.
He could have blamed the coaching staff for not having guys ready to go.

or he could have brought up the WR not getting open like I mentioned before.


All are true.

The only useful move with DW - aside from the NFL allowing us to void the contract and reclaim money - would be for him to get injured and just go back on IR where he fits best.
We're out the money no matter what, but at least we'd get the roster spot back. The money just needs to be kept in manageable annual chunks until/unless we can reclaim some of it.

Hey... maybe that's the plan with Conklin & Wills still sitting out?? Maybe we're hoping he goes to IR to give us the break we need?

I'm sure this is playing well in the locker room.

haha yeah, imagine Cooper hearing this after last season (and really his career)

I imagine Cooper watched the film and found himself agreeing. Watson was probably being hard enough on himself already. Same for the OL. Somebody in the WR room probably needed to be reminded to get back to work.

Yes, Watson needs to play better. If he's already doing everything he can to do that, what good does calling him out do? We need to rebuild his confidence, not bury him with more weight.

Yes, I need to be more careful how I word things. Sometimes I forget there's always someone in the bushes waiting to pounce. So permit me to clear that up....

"There's not much left for me to say in this thread about watson himself."

Hopefully you will be able to sleep better now.

That's what I'm like. That was a good post.

Personally, I like Mary Kay. Worked hard to get where she is. I didn't mind Grossi too much either. - No joke, saw him in a grocery store once and tried to say hi. Guy blew me off, he was like "Oh Hey... " - This was after the whole Lerner incident so I'm not sure if he just ticked at the world or what.

j/c...

Nice breakdown of Watson's performance in Game 1 by Kurt Warner. It's ugly.

Brilliant breakdown - shame it's with such negative situation. But Warner does a brilliant job of breaking it all down on every play.

These new allegations against Watson probably forces the Haslam family to gather their inner circle to discuss what’s best for themselves, how to protect the brand of the Cleveland Brown, especially against the local community, the Browns match going supporters, the local establishment, partners and sponsors.

They need to find a way how to navigate around all different agendas within the organization, also how to communicate with the team, with Watson and his lawyers and how to handle the media. Naturally all involved will look after their own interest when the legal process starts and the media storm is coming..

Stefanski has his own interest and needs the freedom to start with what he think is his best players. That includes a certain quarterback.

Andrew Berry will soon probably start to feel the ground shaking under his feet and has an agenda how to save his reputation.

I assume also that some of the better players in the team has some opinions what's best for the team and themselves.

The Haslam family definitely has both a financial and a personal interest in how this ends and they will probably search for a scapegoat or two if this escalates.
Not to mention the man himself Deshaun Watson who has at least 90+ million reasons that the organization publicly stand behind him and don’t search for legal ways to void his contract.

I don’t envy those involved and betting on the wrong horse and “guilty by association” can also cost in the end.
Only on this forum we have almost as many opinions as there are members.

great breakdown by Warner. Watson is basically toast and there's no easy way out for us

Great video. Kurt makes playing Qb seem simple.

1, Every play he showed, there was an open receiver.
Most had multiple open receivers.

2, I hope somebody sent this breakdown to Watson

That's kind of how I felt having been at the game and seeing it myself. 1 read, then tuck and hold or tuck and run.

Very informative video.

'Slick,' who doesn't post here often anymore has been saying for at least the last two (if not three) years that Watson can't read a defense. So far it certainly looks like he was correct (sighs).

According to Dorsey the receivers need to do a better job getting open.

I would love to see Warner do a game breakdown of when Watson was with Houston for comparisons sake.

I said when we got Watson that he wasn't a QB he was a thrower, He plays like a backyard QB where you draw the play up in the sand and you wait till that one guy gets open.

It's long overdue.

I have read that some people say they were born a Browns fan. Born in to it maybe.

The point is unless a person was born in maybe 1954 or before they have never experienced a championship team. Some may have memories of watching the game with parents, enjoying food and fellowship.

It is sad that many only have a few "almost" teams on which to cling.

Oh well, this season isn't over, you never know, but it isn't looking good out of the gate.

I'll start my response by saying I agree 100%.

I'll follow that up with my opinion that the team has been trying to do just that ^ for some time now. I think that is why Flacco isn't here right now. (Not that I think Flacco is "the answer" here.)

An organization that couldn't make it work with a young, immature, talented QB is now somehow going to make it work with a broken, unlimited-baggage, vet QB who already has more money than one can imagine.

I don't see how this ends well...for anyone other than the guy with a huge bag of money and no financial incentive to get it right.

You cannot jeopardize an entire season trying to fix something that’s not going to be fixed. If it were up to me he would already be done. But give him this week, then bench him and let’s move on. The organization doesn’t owe anything to Watson except money. The organization owes it to the team and fans to play to win. As Hammer would say, prioritize winning. If they don’t that’s a pretty big slap in the face to everyone not named Watson.

The trade failed. Own it and let’s move on. Myles, Ward, Bitonio ain’t getting any younger.

However, I fully expect the organization to keep catering to him and flush the season down the toilet. Kev and Berry will patronize the fans in pressers and round and round we go.

Meanwhile my 9ers will be plowing their way to another Super Bowl!

There may have been some difficulty reading the coverage on display, (they disguised well and ran mixed coverages; quarters on one side, cover-2 on the other, etc) but I think more so it was a lack of belief in his protection. Instead of anticipating throws, he was anticipating hits. Instead of being focused on reading coverage, he was understandably somewhat preoccupied with "reading" pressure. Getting pasted square in the chest by an exploding Parsons that was barely touched is quite an attention getter.

In his best year in Houston, he had Pro Bowl LT Laremy Tunsil protecting his blindside. Here he's had Jed Wills in year one, Geron Christian started the most games for us at LT in year 2 (9, not sure who started all of Watson's but Jed is the "best" possibility), and had Hudson last week. Not exactly the most confidence inspiring group. Coming off injury, I'm sure protecting himself was at least occupying a bit of his mind.

We've talked about young QBs getting broken. I think in a lot of ways, Watson coming back from a lot of time away is in a somewhat similar situation. To help a young QB, a strong running game is often seen as ideal. I think we need to try to provide the same.

On the plus side, Watson has shown he can play at a high level in the league. On the negative, it has been awhile.

Personally, it's somewhat understandable that his confidence isn't where it used to be. He's getting older, he doesn't have a young man's sense of invulnerability any more. He's coming off of injury. There's taking a hit, getting back up and knowing your body can take it. There's also getting obliterated and hurting like hell and not knowing if you're okay, but trying to keep playing anyways. I think the Cowboys may have provided the latter experience. Once that happened, He's missing his tackles. He was probably a bit in survival mode.

Yes, he played bad. Maybe it's fixable, maybe it isn't. But, I think there is a lot of context getting overlooked. Even when he made good throws his pass catchers let him down. Cooper had the big drop. Njoku had a bad drop. Jeudy (I think) ran a bad route drifting upfield to get pasted by Wilson when a sharp in route is the read. Any one of those could have started the confidence going in the right direction.

I literally have never heard anything but positive things from coaches/players about Watson in 3 years. His confidence (or lack of it) stems strictly from his own play.

Did you watch the Warner video?
Clearly they were getting open.
Dorsey is probably just trying to defend his Qb

I don't see how casting shade on your WR's as a way to defend your QB being very productive. Those WR's know they were open. Dorsey may wish to rethink that strategy. Pizzing off your WR's by stating they weren't doing their jobs when they were isn't going to lead to a productive outcome.