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Cleveland Browns (2013 Season)

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exhawg said:
It really depends where they pick. I don't think Weeden is the problem. He isn't the answer, but he was running for his life today and was really only responsible for the first INT that ended up being better than the punt they would have had if he threw the ball away. I can't even remember how many drops they had today, but I know it was more than 5.

They need a #1 WR, a couple guards, and a #2 CB before they worry about QB IMO. I think they need to scheme the blocking better if Schwartz is getting owned by a DE like Wake today.

If they pick high and there is a top of the line WR I'd go there. If they are in the middle of the draft I'd go OG or CB. They'll probably end up a little too late for a #1 WR, but not low enough for the best OG.

They'll probably end up taking a mobile QB that will take a few years to develop. :smash:
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Yeah, in all honesty, Weeden didn't play horribly today. Considering the pocket was collapsing around him almost immediately after the snap all day, I think he did about as well as you could expect from him. The OL needs help. Schwartz was abused all day. Now, Wake is one of the premier pass rushers in the league, but he looked REALLY bad. So, he may very well be an issue. And the need for help at guard is well documented. We'll see how much Gordon helps the receiving corp when he returns, but I suspect more help is needed there. Little looks to have regressed. At least Bess will help, and Cameron looks like he could be a real find at TE. The DL is set. I think the Lbs are passable. But they also need another safety to play with Ward, and Skrine didn't look so hot today either after a nice preseason.

I'm not sure Weeden is the answer at QB, but there are a lot of needs greater than QB right now.
 
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OG has to be priority. #1. Did you see Cousins?!? We want a between the tackles run game - but can't create the holes to do it.
Interior pass protection is quickly becoming an issue as well. I counted 6 handoffs where Trent had either his own guard blown into the backfield or a Dlineman in his face.

#2 CB closely follows. The front 7 did pretty damn good today considering our offense couldn't sustain drives. Secondary, outside of Haden and Ward - is nonexistent.

FS and WR would follow. Our WR's will look better with Gordon back. Little might need to go. He just can't break that ceiling. If he has one or two decent games - shop him with a hopefully better value.

Bess is a good #3. We need a reliable #2 WR.
 
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Bucklion said:
So how's that optimism treating everyone? :lol: #diduforgetitisstillcleveland
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I certainly haven't expressed any. I know better after 14 years of ineptitude. I EXPECT them to suck until I see different. They could reanimate the corpses Vince Lombardi, Johnny Unitas, Walter Payton, clone Jerry Rice, Cris Carter, and the '85 Bears 46 D in their primes, and I'd still expect them to suck balls. :lol:
 
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Buckeneye said:
OG has to be priority. #1. Did you see Cousins?!? We want a between the tackles run game - but can't create the holes to do it.
Interior pass protection is quickly becoming an issue as well. I counted 6 handoffs where Trent had either his own guard blown into the backfield or a Dlineman in his face.

#2 CB closely follows. The front 7 did pretty damn good today considering our offense couldn't sustain drives. Secondary, outside of Haden and Ward - is nonexistent.

FS and WR would follow. Our WR's will look better with Gordon back. Little might need to go. He just can't break that ceiling. If he has one or two decent games - shop him with a hopefully better value.

Bess is a good #3. We need a reliable #2 WR.
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in reality, gipson probably played a better overall game than Ward. but skrine needs to be a slot corner, not a #2.

o'neill cousins played what may have been the worst game ever by an offensive lineman, ever. ever. the fact that schwartz was decent last year lets me give him a one game mulligan. but the fact that they couldn't use a back to chip him or anything because they had to try and protect the collapsing from between the tackles was a killer.

overall i will say this. i watched a lot of nfl yesterday. there were teams like jacksonville, pitt, and tampa that just looked inept. cleveland was inept, no denying that. but it wasn't the rudderless ship ineptness that those teams displayed. hell, cleveland was one benjamin dropped slant pass from having the lead late in the 2nd half. when kosar kept railing on the wr's outside of gordon not getting any separation in the preseason, nobody really paid any mind to it. well, he was spot on. davon bess is the closest thing to a true nfl wr on that roster right now.
 
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I was pleasantly surprised with the performance Gipson turned in. He wasn't a glarring weakness and didn't make any bone-head mistakes.

Outside of Gordon and Bess, there isn't a good WR on this roster. I am willing to see what happens with Gordon #1, Bess #2 and Cooper#3. That
kid always seems to find the right spots in the zone and sits in them. You can tell Weeden trusts him. Its just that Little is far to inconsistent.
He's Braylon Edwards. We need to trade him while there is still some value/interest to be had. Otherwise its just goingor to be a broken record.
One good game followed up by 2 horrific games. If you can nab a 5th/6th rounder for him... take it.

You know our interior is bad when I'm hoping Lavaou gets back to health quickly. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line - and there
is no worse pressure than interior pressure. You can't step away from it. Mack is getting no help inside.

Not sure WTF happened with Mitchell. He had a promising rookie year. Wake is a premier pass rusher... but god damn. I'm hoping Schwartz doesn't
struggle with the rush ends/LB's. The counter is to run the ball at them but our guards can't pull or stretch block so it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Weeden isn't the answer, but he isn't the problem. Same goes for Trent. I can't blame the guy dancing and trying to find a hole. We simply can't make one.
 
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Buckeneye said:
Not sure WTF happened with Mitchell. He had a promising rookie year. Wake is a premier pass rusher... but god damn. I'm hoping Schwartz doesn't
struggle with the rush ends/LB's. The counter is to run the ball at them but our guards can't pull or stretch block so it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
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I posted this in the game thread:
Schwartz was the only guy that I watched for technique since Wake seemed to be running circles around him. He was getting beat on his first step most of the time. It seemed like Wake was just speed rushing around the outside, but Schwartz was setting like he thought Wake was going to give him an inside move. I don't know if Wake is strictly a speed rusher or if he has a good inside move as well, but Schwartz needed to get a bigger first step to try to stay in front of Wake better. The goal should have been to make him take the speed rush deep enough that Weeden could step up in the pocket and get crushed by the guy Cousins missed the block on.

Hopefully this is something they can watch on film and fix before next week.
 
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I think Schwartz suffered partly because Cousins was so God-awful bad. They just swept the pressure to that side and crushed us. If he had even serviceable guard play next to him, I don't think he would have been as bad...don't get me wrong, he didn't play well at all, but I don't think it was all his fault. Gipson was decent, so maybe...just maybe...they are one DB away from a serviceable secondary. That said, Skrine is an awful CB2, maybe one of the worst in the league. As a slot/nickel guy I'm sure he would be OK, but we need real play at the second position.

I agree Weeden isn't the problem per se, but his career is summed up in the fact that he forces some balls early and then at the end of the game on 4th down with 3-4 seconds to find someone, he heaves it out of bounds. This team will not win with Weeden. They went away from Trent too early after a decent start so he gets an INC for this game, but he needs to be more involved. They actually had a discussion on "Browns Tonight" last night that basically said we could have had Tannehill and Doug Martin instead of Trent and Weeden...they guy was arguing he would still prefer Weeden and Trent, but Trent needs to get a lot more work.

All in all the defense is better, the front 7 is pretty good and they are one corner away from really competing in the top third of defenses I think. But the offense looked as rudderless as ever. If Norv gets pass-happy, this team is dead against everyone but Jacksonville.
 
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Buckeneye said:
I was pleasantly surprised with the performance Gipson turned in. He wasn't a glarring weakness and didn't make any bone-head mistakes.

Outside of Gordon and Bess, there isn't a good WR on this roster. I am willing to see what happens with Gordon #1, Bess #2 and Cooper#3. That
kid always seems to find the right spots in the zone and sits in them. You can tell Weeden trusts him. Its just that Little is far to inconsistent.
He's Braylon Edwards. We need to trade him while there is still some value/interest to be had. Otherwise its just goingor to be a broken record.
One good game followed up by 2 horrific games. If you can nab a 5th/6th rounder for him... take it.

You know our interior is bad when I'm hoping Lavaou gets back to health quickly. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line - and there
is no worse pressure than interior pressure. You can't step away from it. Mack is getting no help inside.

Not sure WTF happened with Mitchell. He had a promising rookie year. Wake is a premier pass rusher... but god damn. I'm hoping Schwartz doesn't
struggle with the rush ends/LB's. The counter is to run the ball at them but our guards can't pull or stretch block so it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Weeden isn't the answer, but he isn't the problem. Same goes for Trent. I can't blame the guy dancing and trying to find a hole. We simply can't make one.
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alex mack has his own issues to resolve. he gets zero push up the middle. if you're going to be known as a technician at a position, then you better be like healthy eric steinbach and execute almost 100% of the time. i really think the front office will let him walk in the offseason if he's expecting an eric wood type deal. and they would be right to do so.

the fact that cleveland had to make the backs stay in and help with all the pressure up the middle instead of letting them chip wake and help schwartz was a killer.

but despite all the ineptness, cleveland still was their own worst enemy. they were down 3 when benji drops that slant that would have probably been a TD, if not gotten them into easy FG range. they punt instead, and then promptly drop an easy INT which ends up with miami scoring a TD. That's on top of the gift 3 points they handed miami in the 1st quarter on the little drop.

those are just 3 plays. three simple plays that should be made almost all the time by just average NFL players. they are the type of plays that if made in week 4 of the preseason, get a marginal guy cut. you can bitch about RG, safety and QB play all you want. but until those kind of rudimentary plays are made by guys that should make them, the losing simply won't stop.
 
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Positives - the defense.

Honestly, a good corner and eventually an ILB to replace Jackson in a year or so would make this a top 5 unit.

I love this front 7. Especially the depth. We didn't have Rubin yesterday and still did work. Especially against the run. It was nice seeing our free agent pickups so active. In the past its usually just a giant regret spending the money. Bryant had 2 sacks and good interior pressure. Kruger had 1.5. So far the results are encouraging. Minus the fact we can't run block or pass protect.
 
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exhawg said:
It really depends where they pick. I don't think Weeden is the problem. He isn't the answer, but he was running for his life today and was really only responsible for the first INT that ended up being better than the punt they would have had if he threw the ball away. I can't even remember how many drops they had today, but I know it was more than 5.

They need a #1 WR, a couple guards, and a #2 CB before they worry about QB IMO. I think they need to scheme the blocking better if Schwartz is getting owned by a DE like Wake today.

If they pick high and there is a top of the line WR I'd go there. If they are in the middle of the draft I'd go OG or CB. They'll probably end up a little too late for a #1 WR, but not low enough for the best OG.

They'll probably end up taking a mobile QB that will take a few years to develop. :smash:
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In reality, the Browns need a 2 wide receivers, 2 guards, 2 safeties, 2 cornerbacks (another starter opposite Haden plus a nickel back), a fullback, and a blocking tight end. That's not even considering the problem at quarterback.

If you review last year's draft, Richardson doesn't look like the second coming of Adrian Peterson, much less Jim Brown. Weeden looks like an average at best NFL quarterback. Josh Gordon is a stud whose off-the-field issues might sink his promising career. Mitchell Schwartz had a rough day yesterday, but appears to be adequate overall. In summary, four high picks, four question marks - wait and see.

But at least the last regime entered the 2012 draft with four identified areas of weakness - QB, RB, WR, OT - and tried to address them. Whether the guys they picked pan out remains to be seen. But last year's effort beats the Hell of the 2013 draft, when Banner and Lombardi, in all their arrogance, decided to waste the sixth pick on an undersized back-up linebacker (or a pass rush specialist, if you buy into their BS). With glaring holes ate guard and cornerback, the new "brain trust" passed on Chance Warmack (starting for the Tennessee Titans) and Dee Milliner (starting for the New York Jets) in order draft Barkevious Mingo.

It's simply amazing that this team still has so many holes. The Browns need two good drafts and franchise quarterback - what are the odds of that happening?
 
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