DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Are we tanking?

I posed this in the game thoughts thread.

We seem SO poorly coached and play calls seem SO bad right now. Or... are we playing for data?

I read a few things in the last couple weeks about how the OL was shifting around players during games and guys felt like they weren't allowed to gel in any one spot. And about how special teams is particularly (and unusually) loaded with young unproven players atm. And many of the play calls are true gadget head-scratchers. All the rooks are in. They're mostly playing well which justifies it, especially on a bad team but it's slightly unusual all the same. Tanking usually doesn't happen with the players, it happens with coaching and the choices the coaches make. And it can be subtle but there can be tells.

I don't mean to attribute 4D chess to what should just be credited to simple incompetence but they seem almost TOO keystone cops out there. As the season continues, the urge to tank only increases. Especially if they think Mendoza or Simpson or one of the other QB's is the guy and there'll be a land rush because several of the bad teams are unlikely to draft a QB and will be tempted to trade out. This is ONLY IF coaching believes they are safe. If they do have some back-end assurance, why wouldn't they just play out the string and treat the games like its preseason. Which... is kinda what it looks like?

I don't know of course but we've done it before to good end. We may still win a few games because the defense is good enough and like I said, the players aren't usually in on it. But it'll be interesting to see how we play the worst team in the league next week.

No. The team is just garbage. Believing the team is tanking is just a way for fans to cope with the situation.

Hell, the postgame locker room speeches and celebrations after a rare win should be enough to tell any reasonable person the coaches and players are not intentionally losing.

Just accept that this is a truly terrible team/organization.

I think that depends on what you mean by "tanking". If you mean purposefully playing to lose games I think the answer is no.

Now on the other hand it was certainly determined that there wasn't any strategy in place to win much this season. The OL is putrid and nothing was done to really address that. The same could be said for our WR's. While I suppose one could suggest that the signing of Flacco was at least some attempt to give the O a better chance it was quickly diagnosed that with this OL and WR's that wasn't going to work.

At that point I suppose a person could argue that the plan was to tank in some form. All one really needs to do is look at the success rate of 3rd and 5th round QB picks to see neither of these rookies had much of a statistical chance of being the answer at the QB position. Say what you will the numbers speak volumes in that regard. In the draft they did address the RB position and Fannin, while a third rounder has paid pretty good dividends considering the draft investment. But as I mentioned, rational thinking people didn't believe they were seriously addressing the QB position. They took a couple of shots at it but they knew what the odds were. Just finding a competent backup QB with so little invested would be a win.

Once they let Flacco go and made it known they were going to take a good look at the rookie QB's for the rest of the season the die was cast in regards of the team winning many games. Yes, there was a very long shot chance that one of the two QB's would make it, those odds were rather putrid.

So IMO if you're talking about trying to lose games on purpose my answer would be no. If on the other hand you're suggesting the table was set early not to win many games this year my answer would be yes. But I think that is part of the plan as well. If they plan to address the QB position in this upcoming draft you don't want to be drafting mid round or later.

IMO the finishing touches were put on the D. It was by far the easiest side of the ball to finish up on. A part of the O, RB and TE were addressed this season. That leaves the door open to heavily invest in the O this off season in both the draft and the FA market to greatly increase the talent pool on that side of the ball.

I don't think anyone looking at things big picture thought this would all be fixed in one off season after losing out on three first round draft picks and a second rounder over the past three seasons.

The front office may not be tanking , but going off the teams
Draft and off season player moves , they weren't trying to win either
Anytime you construct a QB room of back ups ...Flacco, Pickett
SANDERS and Gabriel , that's not trying to win right away .
The WR room wasn't upgraded . The oline was hardly addressed .
Haslam was more concerned about a new palace in Brookpark rather than
A winning product on the field

No, I don't think we're tanking as long as we have the same definition of tanking.

Along the lines of what others are saying... we don't have to try to lose a good chunk of games this year... we are just that bad.

I do think we came into this season knowing we would struggle mightily on D. We probably hoped we could get the running game back to what it was... but otherwise we are team that pushed all its chips to the middle (Watson trade and contract) and lost big. Now we are paying the piper for that gigantic swing and miss. Aside from a Tom Brady-esque draft pick, only time can help in digging ourselves out of this hole (we have first round picks again to help restock an aging roster and soon we'll be able to be major players in FA).

So yeah... I don't think we are trying to lose games but I also don't think we are surprised at how this season is going.

We had a good draft in "25. We have some good young core players even on O. We couldn't upgrade every group position in one year. We did try to upgrade WR with Bond who I feel will be a productive part of our future WR room. This offseason we will draft and use FA to improve the O-line and WR's. We all know the Watson trade killed us. We would be a better team with those picks and more cap space to sign players. I feel that if we have another good offseason of FA and drafting, we can contend for the division next year.

Rather than define tanking as trying to lose, I mean it more in the sense of not really doing everything you can to position yourself to win. Other priorities start to leapfrog winning. Such as seeing more of the bottom of the roster on the field, moving certain players in and out of other positions, trying some different looks. I agree that we don't have to try to lose, we're bad enough. But we also don't have to try very hard to win. Similar to preseason... if you win, great. But there's other priorities.

I'm not saying we absolutely are tanking. It's just something to watch. I know it's it's loser mentality but it's also practical reality to be half hoping for the L's at this point. The franchise QB is not on the roster. Period. As it is we're at 6, we're going to have to move up to get the candy next year. Unless...

I agree with you that "Changes are coming."

I totally disagree with you that guys are playing with little experience. Let's take a look at what the Browns have been doing: Guard, Teller (31) and Bitonio (36) have taken 756 and 785 snaps on offense this season thus far - Jenkins (28) has taken 78 snaps and Zinter (25) 0 snaps. No youth playing here with Bitonio surely to retire and Teller a FA - why isn't Jenkins and Zinter getting more playing time? Outlook - poor at this point.

Tackles: Robinson (31) 459 snaps (FA), Conklin (31) 383 snaps (FA), Leveston (26) 357 snaps (under contract in 26'), Lucas (34) 289 snaps (under contract in 26'), and Jones (25) 143 snaps (under contract in 26'). PFF has graded 80 positions at OT. Browns tackle grading is currently 63rd Conklin @ 57.4, 76th Leveston @ 47.9,
77th Robinson @ 46.2, 79th Lucas @ 42.9, 80th Jones @ 32.8. Not a single tackle in the top 78% of the rated NFL tackles in the league. Outlook of poor is an understatement.

Center: Pocic is a FA at seasons end. Pocic (31) has taken 781 of the snaps. Wypler (25) has taken 37 snaps. Pocic's PFF grade is 65.9 and ranks him 18th which is below more than 50% of centers graded. Again, where are these young guys playing when the Browns have such a critical area of need?

Bottomline, The Browns have taken approximately 800 snaps on offense. To date, the Browns have 5 OL players under 30. Leveston (26) has taken 44.6% of the snaps at OT. Jones (25) has taken 17.9% of the snaps at OT. Jenkins (28) has taken 9.7% of the snaps at OG. Zinter (25) has taken O% of the offensive snaps. Finally, Wypler (25) has taken 4.6% of the snaps at Center.

IMHO, the youth on the o-line is not playing. At this pace, the Browns will have little to no knowledge from game experience as to whether any of their under 30 players on the o-line are ready to take over those positions in 26'.

You focused on one unit of the team, the OL, and tried to use that one unit to show we aren't using young players. Try doing that with the QB's or the RB's. Good Lord man.

Who in this organization has any past experience or knowledge of how to build a successful organization?

define "sucecssful"

If it's playing in the playoffs... all of them

if it's playing in the Super Bowl...


Here is the very short list of coaches in the last 10 years who have been to the Super Bowl

Andy Reid (never leaving KC)
Dan Quinn (commanders coach)
Doug Pederson (was ran out of philly)
Gary Kubiak (Broncos HC)
Kyle Shanahan (Manziel ran he out of Cleveland)
Nick Sirianni (philly HC)
Pete Carroll (coaching the Raiders poorly)
Sean McVay (probably not leaving the Rams anytime soon)
Zac Taylor (Cincy)


Not coaching
Bill Belichick (out of football)
Bruce Arians (retired from coaching)
Ron Rivera (he sucked in Washington and was fired)

Manziel ran out of Cleveland?