DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2024 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 15 Giants 21 Postgame Rants

On the bright side we only committed 5 penalties!

Dog I have to agree with you. DW is still somewhat culpable, but he got sacked 8 times (way too many for any QB). Lord knows how many other times he was hit and hurried AND he had no running game not to mention that dropped pass at the end AND I'd like to add the Ford fumble at a crucial time AND the dumb play calling on 3rd and 4th down on one of the final drives. We had plenty of chances to pull this game out. Maybe we're just not good enough. If we couldn't beat the Giants at home we're in trouble!! JMO

Pass happy Stefanski at it again. How many predictable 1st down passes were there today? How many were actually completed and resulted in positive yardage vs incomplete or a sack taken?

Only positive think I saw was Cooper with an excellent redemption game.

something that's gotten lost for me: the Ford fumble was such a devastating play IMO. We had all the momentum and you could tell we were finally ahead of the Giant D

I agree. The fumble and the dropped pass at the most crucial times. Typical Browns. Never gave ourselves a chance. Oh, and for those who care DW had a better QB rating than Baker today

Cowboys got destroyed by the Saints and getting destroyed by the Ravens and the Cowboys destroyed us. Each team had put up over 190 rushing yards. We refused to run the ball. We are a very bad coached team.

and another thing: going into the game, my assumption would be that Nabors is the #1 threat to beat us. Not having Ward on him until so late really cost us IMO

Total team fail. No units could execute. That falls on the coach. HC needs to re-evaluate his approach. Although I will say, it's ridiculously difficult to run an O with turn style OL.

Stefanski was an asset for a team that desperately needed maturity and stability.

Mission accomplished.

Now that that is solved, he’s a liability.

Five years in and hasn’t improved in any area. He’s an average guy with an average approach and a losers mentality.

The Browns will never win anything with him as head coach.

How about not throwing a screen until the fourth quarter.

The list of grievances are long.

This team has a culture and heart issue and the coach doesn’t help.

I think I could tell within 10 plays what the Giants plan of attack was on defense ... and it seemed like our coaches didn't adjust for 3 quarters

So poorly coached.

It’s pretty bad actually.

the losses by the Cowboys the past two weeks surely makes our coaches look even worse

Wheres all the Homer's at ?. I remember years ago Diam Dawg
Was proudly proclaiming the Browns were entering a new era

There’s not many posters left on this board.

It’s a fairly inactive board at this point, at least in regards to football talk.

I would guess the reasons in some order are 1) Watson coming/Baker leaving, 2) other posters driving people away and one poster in particular, and 3) probably just wanting to get off the rollercoaster that is this team.

I love the Browns, but dislike the current version of it. The whole thing with Watson is a dark cloud ... couple that with his actual play on the field and it's hard to watch

This is game is a culmination that identifies TONS of gaps we currently have. Lets look at this:

1. Coaching, once again we look unprepared, we had the wrong gameplan, the situational playcalling was some of the worst I've ever seen. I give Schwartz a semi pass here, he messed up trusting Bust emerson as much as he did, Unless he was trying to match speed on the outside with Ward or something, but for the most part the Defense adapted as the game went on and made some big stops down the stretch. Thats a sign of a good coach, he def. adapted a bit and we started getting stops. Stefanski on the other hand, deer in headlight for 3 quarters and gets gifted a TD drive by watson and the very next drive after the defense got another stop, decides on 3rd and short to take watson(who had been finally in rhythm) and bring in Winston(who comes in cold) for a gimmick play. Then not showing how dumb he was at that time, decided to remove any doubt for those still on the fence. The 4th and 1, and he decides to go for it but put watson in shotgun. Yeah that was a great call. Stefanski is holding this team back from a playcalling and preparation standpoint. The not playing any starters in preseason, along with the camp cupcake, its all showing. Stefanski did nothing to try to establish the run early and get the oline playing in rhythm, oline usually only get that when run blocking because they are playing downhill and hitting people, pass blocking theres too much variable. He also didn't do anything to slow down the rush, nothing, no screens, no quick hitters, didn't even try to go deep until after the half. One of the craziest things I saw was on an obvious screen, ford blocks his guy, Watson is backpedaling, ford I am almost certain was supposed to turn upfield and turn around for a pass, so what's butterfingers do instead, he turns and chases the defender as they sack Watson, watson had nowhere to go with the ball because it was an obvious screen.

2. Talent evaluation: I know its blasphemous to talk bad about Berry, but I would ask, what exactly has he done? Squandered draft picks, yep. not fix the oline depth problem we had even last year, check, not able to draft to save his life and not draft a single impact player his entire tenure.. yep. So yeah I ask, what has he done? You look at the players he's drafted in his career and compare that to who Dorsey has drafted and see if we kept the wrong guy.. FYI, quite a few of his players have won a few super bowls and MVP's.

3. Strength and conditioning. We seem slower, weaker and more fragile than other teams. We let a fat slob like Jones to show up to camp being 30lbs heavier than last year. He simply cannot play either tackle positions right now.. If he can't play guard, then he needs benched and some remedial S&C to get him down to a better composition. He was known for it in college, so you would think you'd have an offseason program in place to keep an eye on it.

4. Assistant coaches, its not common to point to glaring issues with positional coaches but I think we've downgraded in almost every replacement. SVP to Dorsey, Mitchell to Staley, the biggest one of all, Callahan to Dickerson. Not sure who all we swapped out on the defensive side, but the offensive side has been horrible.

5. Overall. What is this team, what do we do well? what is our identity on the offensive side? Defensive side? What things do we do better than anyone else that we build around that. I don't see that, on the defensive side I'd say we are an aggressive defense and like to rush the QB, but outside of that.. meh, and we don't even do that well. I think we want to, but we aren't that good at it. So thats a problem, reminds me of the whole "play like a brown" BS. Yeah they did that today. You look at the good teams, its very easy to say what their identity is.

conclusion, We have a HC who rode the coattails of others to get where his is, but he believes he's deserving of everything, he isn't. His ego won't allow anyone to tell him anything, and thats a problem. We have a FO who do not know how to build a team, they are constantly in reactive mode instead of being able to make sure we are prepared. Last year was a perfect storm. We were relatively healthy all year on defense and they balled out, hiding our putrid offense and QB play (qb's barely, if they did at all, pass 200 yards.) It wasn't until they got all those QB's killed they find a 20 year vet on his couch that caught lightning in a bottle and he was forced to dial back the playbook and just let Flacco go and play. He was a much better QB that KS was a coach. We have a FO that somehow gets shielding from the horrible job they've done getting us to the next level in talent. It all comes down to they did it better than when Hue was here and that seems to be enough for most. The question is, when is it not and people want more. I think we are there

you bring up a good point (and a word that stands out to me): IDENTITY

Stefanski's offense currently has no identity. We used to be a ground and pound team who took PA shots when we had the advantage

The current offense is out there wallowing and praying for a miracle

Watson is definitely not part of the solution. At worst he’s awful and at best he’s average to below average.

I think the team has bigger issues though that aren’t recoverable -

—HC
—Poor drafts
—No development of young talent except Emerson (and he might not recover after today; he was emasculated and started playing scared); there’s literally nothing in the pipeline on this team
—Just a general heart and culture issue; the Browns have yet to sustain any type of identity or sustained success under any regime including this one. The black cloud has been there for a long time.

I think the absence of Njoku and Chubb and Hunt really hurt this team's chemistry and attitude. Just from my observation, the offense has no togetherness or fight

It was hot. My wife went in to the club after the 1st QTR. I went in a few minutes before the half, but stayed there until I saw the first 2 Browns drives of the 3rd Qtr and decided to just head back to the hotel. My desire to get a seat and not stand on the train back to Brookpark station was greater than staying to watch what I had seen up to that point.

As I have gotten older I don't let it bother me all that much anymore. My wife and I just got back from a nice meal....I refuse to allow the Browns to impact my attitude to the negative.

Yep, I think there's also a trust issue at play here, multi-level at that.. I don't think KS trusts the offense to execute, I don't think DW trusts KS to maximize the things he does better, I don't think DW trusts the Oline and his receivers to catch, and I don't think KS trusts his running backs currently.

I agree. The deficiencies are all very well known by all parties

Yeah thats another huge thing missing we had with Baker (for all his faults) but the team had a swagger and it could play off of that and really get rolling.. This team doesn't seem to have anyone with that magnetic personality that can get the team pumped up

Flacco had a little of that last season

yep.. that X factor that guys can rally around.. we don't have a single player on either side like that.

I haven't gone for two years now. I love not paying to see a crap show plus to pay to park for it.


I miss the tailgate friends, nothing else.

Sat out in the sun listening to it on the radio.

I still love the Browns. They are no longer my Sunday top of the list of things to do.

I hope everything comes out alright.

Yep. Plus we have a weak offensive line, a blah run game and a 'rust or bust' QB.

I am not sure how the owner can keep accepting crappy play, crappy drafting, and crappy coaching.

This team is so far from a team like KC, perennial contenders, that it is basically impossible to get our hopes up.

Right, and at the end of the day we aren't going to beat a team like KC, BUF, PIT when it counts ...

And even when it doesn't count.

He can accept it because the Browns make him lots of money regardless if they win or lose.

Our issues started with the selection of Mayfield. Just think: we could/should have had Josh Allen and also kept our three 1st rd picks given up in the DW trade. I didn't like it then, and I sure hate it now. I believe we have drafted OK considering what we had to work with.....

The Watson trade has been a disaster!

Most certainly, but it started before then as I mentioned above....

No point in looking back at the 18 draft. We are where we are. We have the QB that we have.

We’re 1-2 in a tough league, with 14 games to go. A banged up OL doesn’t help, the lack of a difference/making good RB doesn’t help - until Chubb returns - and who knows how he will produce?

The Browns were heading in the right direction with Baker. Then he gets injured and the Browns drop him like a stone. They make the awful Watson trade and things started going south from there.

Do they want to win? Of course they do, but don't seem to have the leadership or motivation to.

But my point is, it’s too early to throw in the towel. Show some guts, and as fans of the Browns, act like you have some fight.

Maybe the team should show some fight

Leading the league in most penalties and dropped passes

How as a fan am I supposed to show guts ?