DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2014 NFL Season Looking Back: Lions 13 - Browns 12 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

That one wasnt a design, the blocking just opened up a wide hole up the middle and he took off, Gabriel was coming free crossing the middle was looking at johny like why the hell didnt u throw it. Wilcots said this was a designed QB draw, which it was in no way a designed draw.

I think you'll get your wish to see Manziel with the starting OL. It really wouldn't be a competition otherwise.

We'll have to watch the game in 8 days to find out though.

Personally, I think Hoyer did a better job. Maybe it was the starting OL. They did a fantastic job against the Lions D.

What I took from last nights performance by the backup or substitute OL for the Browns is that they were worse than the backup or substitute D of the Lions. The Browns lack some depth on the OL. As of right now, I think Gilkey might be the only one worth keeping from that group, and that includes the veteran McQuistan.

When we drafted JF I wasn't crazy about it but once we draft someone I will support him.

I thought he looked decent. I saw him plenty in college but his speed surprised me last night. My biggest disappointment was the late throw on the sidelines that looked like he had plenty of time to release sooner for a completion.

I hope the amped up calls on DBs go away once the RS starts like other "focused on rule enforcement" years ago.

Robertson surprised me a bit with his play.

I am willing to wait a little longer for a guy like Desir to develop as he likely had less quality coaching on college and he is a relative newcomer to the sport. I had heard good reviews from him in training camp media reviews.

I agree with an earlier poster that Lewis' fumble may have hurt his chances.

Thought Hoyer was ok too but concerned about his high throws.

I was happy with Tate although the fumble worries me w bit & West seemed to dance a bit like typical rookies.

Man, all i got to say is thanks to all you dawgs here great knowledge, insights,info just all around great post thanks again for being the DAWGS that you all are

back at you bro

I think the first thing that has to be taken into consideration when evaluating the players/team in the first preseason game is that this was the first live action these guys have faced in 8 months.

That means they were shaking off the rust while getting re-introduced to the speed and the live, to the ground tackling on both sides of the ball. Although you expect the veterans to get back to form more quickly than the rookies still, it's the first live action they've experienced in 8 months so one should expect that they would be in less than regular season form.

For the rookies it's their very first introduction to the competition professional football. The speed of the game, even in the first preseason game is kicked up a notch from anything they've been involved with in their careers. There also has to be some nerves/jitters going into the game with so much on the line for them.

My point is, I don't feel I can place too much emphasis on evaluation of individual or even team play due to the inherent circumstances of the first game action after all that time off.

In addition, we all know that there is no game planning. That the team, on both sides of the ball, call plays in an effort to study the film and evaluate them and see where they need to get better. That makes it difficult to evaluate since some plays are just not going to work as well as they would in a game situation where plays are called taking down and distance as well as the defense in consideration. Play calling in the first preseason game is to be taken with a grain of salt.

I couldn't post last night. Part of me was watching as though it was surreal to actually see a Browns game on TV. It was almost like I couldn't believe it was happening. Part of me was focused on my stomach grumbling over the BBQ pork sandwich I ate before the game and part of me wanted to fall asleep. Still, I watched to the end. I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak only to find the game being replayed on STO. So I stayed awake and re-watched the second half.

With all that said, there are some things to take away from the game and I'll attempt to address what I saw from my limited perspective of the TV broadcast and my own limited football knowledge.


The GOOD:

I'll start with everybody's favorite competition which is the QB position.

• Hoyer did well for his first action in a year. Regardless what he says publicly some portion of his mind has to be on his knee, especially going against another team in a live tackling game. I think he did well. To me, he showed no reluctance or ill effect because of his leg. He moved with ease. He displayed the same quick decision-making and quick release that we remember from last season in his limited starts.

Although he had those two errant throws over the head of receivers, to me that's one of the things to be expected after not being in a live game for a whole year. He did settle down and make at least one long throw after that with ease and accuracy. His pass to Gordon at the back of the end zone was an example of that. It was in a perfect placement for Josh. Unfortunately the DB made and excellent play disrupting Gordon's ability to secure the catch. I don't blame Gordon for that. I just wanted to point out that the throw was encouraging as were most of this passes.

• Manzel did nothing to disappoint. Which is rare for a rookie at any position let along the most important one on the team. I'm sure many expected him to murder Detroit's second team defense but it didn't happen for obvious reasons. He is a rookie who just doesn't have much experience in the offense.

He has a very limited amount of time practicing with a professional team. There's a lot to the QB position that one cannot learn it all in two weeks of practice. In his pressers he says so much himself. In contrast, Hoyer has been in the league for 6 years. Three of them studying film with Tom Brady. So it's much easier and comes together quicker for him than for a rookie who's never been introduced to a professional offense.

Still, he displayed the reason we drafted him in the first. He was not nervous. Instead he showed confidence. He knew when he only had 11 in the huddle, knew when the clock should have been reset (which it never was) and didn't waste a timeout for that, (imagine wasting a timeout so the refs can get their crap together!).

He made good decisions and good throws. Other than the one over the head of Gabriel on the sideline most of his passes were very accurate. He throws were crisp and on target for the most part. If not for a couple of drops he'd have moved the chains more than they did.

He finds ways to make a play as he did in his pass in the flat with a defender in his face as well as on his busting out in a run which gained 27 yards on 3 runs with a 1st down among them. He also did well in getting down rather than taking on contact as he did in college. I do think he tweaked his neck on his second run as he came up messaging it. It didn't seem to bother him any more than that.

Something the announcers said that I didn't notice in the game was that when Manzel was in all the players were off the bench and watching the game. What that said to me is that Manzel showed enough in practice to really get everyone's attention. That spoke volumes to me. Plus, a lot of reports were that Manzel was exciting. I'm not really sure if his play was exciting or if it was just the fact that he's Johnny Football and that made it exciting because the whole world was excited to see what he would do.

Some have said too that the offenses were totally different with the two different QBs. I didn't see that. They both played undercenter and in the shotgun. Manzel had more in the pistol and he had those read-option plays that Hoyer didn't but it looked like the same approach to me.

I was encouraged that Shanahan did change it up enough to take advantage of the skill set of both QBs rather than stubbornly force them to fit his offense.

All-in-all I feel he had a good outing for a rookie in his first game experience and displayed the talents that will make him a viable starter at some point.



• Man, it was good to hear Jim Donovan's voice calling the game. You know it's Browns football when you hear that unmistakable voice.

• Hawkins played as advertised. I think he's going to be a big asset for this offense.

• I thought the 1st string OL did a good job in the run game and in protection. It was encouraging to me considering a rookie LG and Grecco at RG.

• Tate hits the cut-back with authority. No indecision at all. He only had 6 carries but averaged 4.1 per carry. I think once he can get going with more carries in a game he'll be fine. I think with him at RB our play action will be effective and Shanahan is going to run a lot of play action.

• West had one good run that really showed what he could do. (more on him later)

• Gabriel made catches. I was impressed the way he fielded punts as well as one of his catches from Manzel that came in pretty dang hot and on target.

• Gordon is Gordon. What a beast!

• Charles Johnson showed some vision on one of his catches weaving through the defense for some good YAC (15) He has not played in over a year. I expect some more/better from him as the season rolls on.

• I tried, and gave up, to focus on Bitonio. but it seemed he did well for a rookie in his first game action. I don't remember him being responsible for anything bad so I'll call him good.

• Grecco did well. Better than I expected. Maybe his weight loss helped him be even more athletic to fit the ZBS.

• Marquise Gray may be a real play maker for us from the FB position. He seems to be rare breed of versatility.

• I didn't see Obi except for one special teams play in which he saved a TD by unending the runner. I can see him on the roster for special teams if not with the RBs. I can also see him in the FB role primarily as a blocker on pass plays. He's probably the best blocker we have. Tate should be very good at that as well.

• Baker still looked tough. I hope he's part of the RB corp.





• "Donte Whitner leveled Theo Riddick on a pass over the middle, injuring the running back’s abdominal." That was a quote from the Browns Official Website. What a hit. I was glad "Hitner" came right out of the gate making that statement.

• Dansby is fast for an older player. Hell, he's fast for a player at any age. I'm really glad we signed him. I think he's going to be one of our biggest play makers as well as the leader of the defense.

• Unlike some others I like having Rubin at NT. I really think he'll excel there.

• Robertson played very well. It was a preseason game but nonetheless he was making plays. It was very encouraging.

• Kirksey played very well. He really didn't look like a rookie as Pettine has said. The competition between he and Robertson is a good thing. One of them is going to start and the other will be right behind him. If they both play as well as they did last night then we'll actually have depth at that position which after last season a lot of us felt we might not have had anyone there.

• Poyer was in on a lot of plays but I really couldn't evaluate how well he actually did. I'm going to call him a positive.

• Mingo had a sack. But in his presser he chuckled as he said he got though and the QB didn't want to get hit so he just kinda fell down. But he did seem a shade better than most of last season. I think the light is coming on for him. First he came in last year from college where he played with his hand on the ground and now they're using him for coverage duty more. That, plus the second defense in his second year has to be quite a task. But he seems up to the task.

• Kruger was Kruger and I like him as a player. I think this staff will have him rushing the passer more than the last one. He is already a good all-round LB but he is also a pass rush specialist and I think this staff will take advantage of that.

• Staples made some plays including a fumble recovery.

• Kitchen and Huges are both excellent depth. They'll be in the rotation as will Winn when he returns. It looks like we'll be able to keep our DL fresh throughout the game.





The BAD:

• Tate's fumble, (grrrr). People make a big deal out of Lewis fumbling and say he needs cut because of it mostly because Detroit recovered. But Lewis' fumble was no worse than Tate's fumble. They were both fumbles. It's just that we recovered Tate's fumble making it seem less of an issue. Fact is a fumble is a fumble and and any fumble is an issue. With Tate it's something we're going to have to deal with as he does fumble too much.

• Poor Desir. They played him a lot for a guy who needs so much work. Heck, at one point, before a play, he made a signal that he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. I think they played him a lot so they would have film on him to better enable the staff as to just what he needs to work on. I really don't look for him to play a more than a couple of plays until the end of the third game and again in last preseason game just to check his progress.

• West had one good run and the rest of his carries he danced too much. I think a lot of rookie RBs do that because it worked for them in college. It doesn't work in the pros unless your name is Barry Sanders. I've also noticed that it takes some time to work that out of a young RB. It took William Green 8 games to overcome it. Richardson never did. I hope with some help from the staff and Tate they can shorten that learning curve so he can just run North/South with confidence because dude is a load.

• Willie Snead was definitely playing with the jitters. He caught everything thrown his way in camp but dropped them in the game. Hopefully now that he has that first game behind him he'll improve. I really had some high hopes for him but at this point now he looks like a practice hero who can't get it together in a game. We've had far too many of those in years past.

• I was really disappointed that Austin dropped that pass along the sideline. I expect a two time Pro Bowler to make that catch. We're depending on him big time and he has to come through with the tough catches.

• I was disappointed in the WRs as a whole but I'm not sure if it's warranted. I just hate the dropped passes. I really wish the NFL would include targets as well as receptions in their stats. I don't have time to be the record keeper during a game but I think I've seen too many drops. Maybe I'm wrong here.

• The second string OL is showing us that we don't have much depth on the OL. I expect the opponent's second string defense to be ahead of them but there was really no competition. Our OL depth is still awful. It looks like we'll need another couple of years to build on that.

• On the other hand their second string OL was quite a match for our second string defense. They gashed us for some productive running plays that we seemed to have no answer for. Once or twice I can see but they did it seemingly at will. I understand that Pettine's defenses will give up some runs but too many times the defense got sealed off up the middle allowing big gains to the outside.

• Our special teams kick coverages were poor. But I think that's to be expected. Each regime change brings in new players and they have to be worked into the coverages teams and then need time to gel. We've enjoyed some great coverage teams but those were after we had the same regime in place for a couple of years so that they have time to know their roles. I expect ours to get better as the year goes on but not to be good until next season. By the third season they should be good again.

• I think Joe Haden was shaking off rust. That's the only explanation I have for his lackluster play last night. He'll be fine.




The UGLY:

• I didn't see any ugly in the teams play. Mostly because of what I said earlier about that being the first game action after 8 months off. Some ugly is to be expected. I totally expect the next game to be a big leap.

• The officials BS call on the fumble Badamosi recovered. I you could look at that replay and not tell that he recovered the ball you were just being stubborn in your desire to be right on your initial call. That happened to us once last season too IIRC.

• What some are calling a "new rule" in so far as the no contact beyond 5 yards. That is not a new rule at all. It's been the rule for years. The exception this season is that the league wants the refs to call it more diligently. So that's what they are doing. It really sucks. I think one of the reasons a DB will place his hand on a WR is so that he can look back at the QB and still know exactly where the WR is. It doesn't always involve grabbing or jersey pulling. But now that the refs are required to call that contact there are going to be a lot of penalty calls just for touching.

The good thing about that that is it will be called to our advantage too. We just need to coach our DBs to follow the new calls.

• We lost the game. Any time they're keeping score you want to win. What was particularly ugly about the loss is the timing of it and the way it happened. Very late in the game, a TD pass that wasn't defended well. It reminded me of the Jacksonville game last year when Joe gave up that last minute TD to mister nobody.

Last year we gave too many away at the very end. I don't want a repeat of that this year.

while U pointed out a lot on things I saw, I hated the early tackling..one arm grabs, Lion ball carriers spinning out of lame attempts..
The Browns were getting hammered on those end seal runs and did not compensate that at all.
I like Armonty Bryant, that kid is always in the backfield or pressuring the QB.
As far as Manziel goes, he made some plays and showed some of his skill but some of the attention for me is because of his size.
The Lions were schemed to attack the pistol and read option but some of the recievers dropped some good throws.
Hoyer looked like he did last year but with rust..which is expected..I didn't expect a clean game.
The enforcing of the contact rules in the pass coverage is going to annoy me..if I were playing , I'd probably be flagged every series..Might watch the game again..
The Browns do have a lot to work on..
I think what I need to see is the backup players on offense play with the first unit OL.
I still like the DL rotation.

I got to watch Browns Football..

So I'm content...

Just got done reviewing the first three Defensice series:


Our front seven pretty mush had their way for these series. Except for a moissed tackle by Poyer we held their running game in check.

Some complained about Taylor, he was in for every nsnap except a fgew when they subsituted their pass rushing DL ( bryant manily), In fact he played more snaps than Rubin. PT played all three spots on the DL, Rubin and Bryant two.

The scheme had the DL crashing down for the most part and there were a few zone blites where they took one pucnh and went to a read and react stance.

THe LB play was decent, OLB's ( Sheard) did get lost on some ball fakes and got caught up inside. Dansby had a couple nice fills, one where he caused the RB to bounce to next hole where Poyer missd him... ops.

Hard to get good read on secondary though Haden seemed disinterested.

DE's: need to stop crashing corners and start playing containment lines or teams will exploit that all season.

Quote:

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Poor Desir. They played him a lot for a guy who needs so much work.

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Maybe that's why they played him so much? Nothing like taking live fire in a meaningless game.

That's basically what I said.

J/C.

The Good: QB's looked alright, Josh Aubrey putting his helmet on the ball. Staples being in the right spot. Run game looked to be a good bit more stout.

The Bad: Josh not getting any props for causing the fumble Staples picked up, Kruger running himself out of plays like last year.

The Ugly. Desir, Special teams, Poor tackling, Dropped passes, Late game implosion,Too many FG's, as usual the refs.

Who is keeping tabs on biased officiating in the league?
I know it was the Lions house. But sheesh!
It sure does not seem to even out for the Browns EVER!

Hope this does not happen when it counts.
GO BROWNS!

agreed.

RG3 will have a field day aganist that scheme

mingo was getting too far upfiled last year and allowing RB to cut underneath,

Kruger did that at least twice last night

Yeah that's one of the more annoying things in our defenses. It seems like that happened a lot, as did our ILBs sucking in coverage, as did our DBs giving too much space on 3rd and long ... and just like we never hit home when we blitz

Quote:

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• Poyer was in on a lot of plays but I really couldn't evaluate how well he actually did. I'm going to call him a positive

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with all the hate Tashaun Gipson gets on the board I cant believe no one said a word about him.

j/c:

A few comments on the various posts:

--There were some very astute football observations from many of you. ddub, Mourgh, tex, Attack, and more. Nice job.

--Mourg, loved your sarcastic reply to anarchy about JM.

--West. Some seem a bit upset I mentioned that he didn't look all that great. I know he is a rookie. I know the second string OL was bad. I was just commenting that I saw a lot of posts saying how good he was--not just on this thread, but the other game day thread too---and I simply didn't see it. I am saying he sucks and he was a bad pick. No need to get upset and defend him. He was just not very good last night. He is going to have to be a lot more decisive to make it in this league.

--I don't get why people are criticizing Manziel. The guy was 7 for 11 and two were dropped. It looked like [I think it was Snead broke off his route on another incompletion, he ran effectively, he moved the team, he didn't turn it over, he bailed out the coaches when they didn't have the right personnel in. Sheesh guys.........you praise West for 10 carries for 22 yards and dog Manziel?

--Other than that.............some really good football points.

I think a lot are confusing a running QB for a QB that will run. When Manziel feels pressure he will take off and he is terrific at it but he will also hang back there for 2 mins waiting on a receiver to get open if there isnt any pressure. I think the later is what just really demoralizes defenses.

I love the fact that he can run for first downs and to gain positive yards on plays that seem doomed. It's deflating when other QBs do it to us. It will be nice that we have that kind of guy for once.

that little dump to the RB when everybody thought he was taking off ( me included) sold me on JM.

That showed me he is thinking out there and does have tunnel vision in his decision making process.

Nice tough too, floated over DE and right in stride.

That throw stood out to me last night as well.

I thought Johnny looked really good last night. He had a couple throws that really showed off his arm strength as well.

Someone mentioned they'd like to see him throw the deep ball Monday night, but I'm not concerned about that -- Johnny threw the deep ball very well in college. What I wanted to see was those throws where he's gotta really drive off his back foot and get zip on it to fit in a tight window, and we saw that a couple times last night on a couple slant route and that comeback route to Snead (The one that was ruled incomplete that should have been caught)

His pocket awareness really impressed me, too. When the pocket collapsed, he was moving up in the pocket and keeping his eyes down the field.

I'm not anti-Hoyer by any means -- I think Hoyer is a nice Quaterback and I think he's a good asset to this team, but Johnny is the guy. The kid has a chance to be really special.

I'm excited to see how he looks with the 1's.

I watched a lot of Redskins football due to our involvement in the RG3 disaster. It created huge throwing lanes and windows, but it was essentially a one read offense. Very little need to go through progressions.


Yet, that was the first thing I thought of when I saw Manziel....locking in on guys, one read QB. We'll see what he does with the 1's, but I think it's going to be hard to keep him from starting game 1 as I've said all along. He's not at a point where he goes through his progressions very well at all, but with his mobility, he doesn't really need to be a polished passer yet.

And that was the only real concern I noticed as well. I pretty much expected that though. I mean he's a rookie in his first NFL action. He has built in tendencies that will take time to adjust.

Otherwise I was more impressed than I expected to be. He seemed quite accurate and poised. The game didn't seem too big for him. I feel he's far from a finished product but at this point I don't expect him to be. He's much further ahead of the curve than anything that I had imagined and we may have a long term answer at the QB position here.

Too early to say but early impressions are promising.

Evidently, from Twitter reports today, MarQuis Gray suffered a concussion in the Lions game.

From the start of this process I've been in the Manziel corner. If he were even 6'1 teams would have been falling all over themselves trying to get him. Even in a game with (let's face it, our second string players on offense are well below league average) the second team, you could see his instincts kick in. He is going to be one heck of an exciting football player if he can stay healthy.

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He is going to be one heck of an exciting football player if he can stay healthy.

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agreed.

+1


I hope he gets a bit smarter when it comes to "tucking & running." That will help him to stay healthier- because LB's will be looking to crucify him at the 2nd level.

I thought he did well the other night.. other than the short yardage where he stuck his head in to try to get the first down, every other run he either got out of bounds or slid.. though once he did slide head first which wasn't very bright... Kids been playing the same way for years, you aren't going to change those habits in a couple weeks. Just hope it doesn't take a big injury for him to finally "get it"..

I try not to be overly influenced by a single pre season game. I'm happy with what I saw no doubt. But if you recall, we've seen positive signs in pre season only to see far different results once the season started.

So I look for positive signs and things to give me some inkling of potential. Like I stated, I saw many reasons to be positive. I also saw rookie moves like not going through his progressions, running head first into defenders on short yardage.

So to me there was no slam dunk. There is still a learning curve. Very positive signs, but still a work in progress.

Of course as a Browns fan I am in the corner of all of our players. No less or no more for any of them. No more for Manziel than Hoyer. I'm for the best QB who gives us the best chance to win to be the starter.

There's still a lot to see before I can even begin to say who I want that to be. For the long haul, I believe from what little evidence I have to go on, that Manziel has a good chance of being that guy. But for the moment, to me the jury is still out.

I think the biggest bump Manziel is getting is because a lot of people had said that they expected some brilliance and they expected some head scratchers... and we really didn't get either. We got relatively clean, decent football for a rookie taking the field for the first time. He showed good awareness, he showed some of the athleticism, but no real bonehead plays... No balls thrown up for grabs after running around for 7 seconds, no trying to dive over defenders 8 yards down field, none of that... (not saying it won't happen in the future, just that it didn't happen Saturday night)..

The simple fact that there were no "OMG what were you thinking?" moments is what has Manziel trending so positive right now.

I totally agree.

And there dang well should have been a flag thrown on that play !

yeah that's what I thought, it looked like he launched himself at Gray which ion today's game is a penalty.

I agree about Bridgewater. He looked very quick and athletic. He had some impressive bootlegs and rollouts, which I never thought were his strengths.

j/c

I liked what I saw out of Manziel.

Arm strength looked good, eyes down the field.

Still stuck in bad habits, but that's not going away overnight.

Like I've said all along, it comes down to how he adjusts and processes information at the next level.

The guy's kind of a dunce, so there's some hesitation on that front, but as long as we bring him along slowly (which it looked like we were doing), there's a lot of time and room for improvement.