j/c

I think the post I'm about to make would probably fit better in the other thread I just don't think it would be well received there.....

This game was not something I can blame on either side of the ball. From the standpoint of the defense some may be able to claim that the two int's were partially responsible for the loss and while there may be some truth to that, the Steelers have been putrid at best on the O side of the ball and that's putting it mildly. They are ranked 26th in scoring in the NFL. 28 points is the most points that the Steelers O has scored since Nov. 20th. In their last two games they have scored 13 and 16 points respectively. Pickett, passed for completion rate of 44.8% yesterday. There is no excuse for giving up 28 points to the Steelers.

After last weeks second half performance by watson, what Browns fans saw yesterday is not what they should have expected to see. There had been a gradual progression but yesterday we certainly saw a step back. It's great to have such a high completion percentage but when 2 of the 10 passes you missed were int's. that certainly makes the completion percentage less impressive. Addressing the 2 int's... One was either an obvious bad read or an overthrow. There were 2 WR's underneath that were pretty much open and then the one who the ball seemed to be his intended target. I would like to believe he simply overthrew the ball rather than to think he threw directly into triple coverage. The other int. he simply locked his eyes on the intended target and made it easy to read where the ball was going to be delivered. As such the defender jumped the route for an easy int. Neither of those were something one would expect to see form an accomplished QB. His persistent tendency to hold and pat the ball isn't a positive either.

I won't get into the fact that while the Browns averaged a full two yards more per carry on rushing downs that the Steelers actually rushed the ball 15 more times than the Browns. I think those numbers alone speak for themselves.

At this point in time I think people who are being realistic would have to ask themselves how much longer will the process of "watson getting back to normal" take? How many more games? Don't fool yourselves into believing that practice simulates game speed. Hopefully it won't take many more games for watson to get back to his old self. These are things we are all seeing. These are the realities of where we are now.

Everyone can blame everything from the coaching, to the players to the FO. And some may even blame a combination of all those things. I tend to dismiss blaming the players overall more than the others. We've seen where the defense has played lights out. It's hard for me to fathom that some weeks they know how to play football and some weeks they forget how. We've also seen the O being productive both with Brissett at QB when we had a top 10 O in production, to the one game with watson last week. So I'm not buying what some people are trying to sell that the players on the roster know how to play the game at a high level sometimes then forget how to play at a high level other times. There are causes that may get that perception to manifest itself but I won't get into that either.

Hopefully next season brings a brighter future. Because at some point fans have to start asking themselves when enough is enough?