Browns Play Inferior Foe and Dominate

Bet everyone was nervous after the first play of today’s Browns game?

In a game the Browns were supposed to win, their fans and players received a cold slap in the face when Kansas City RB Jamaal Charles ran 80 yards for a touchdown on the game’s first snap.

Whatever momentum the Chiefs had ended on their second possession when Ryan Succop hit the upright on a 26-yard field goal attempt.

From there on, it was a Cleveland rout as the Browns won their third straight, beating Kansas City 30-7 at Cleveland Browns’ Stadium. It was a game against an inferior opponent, and Pat Shurmur’s team did what they were supposed to do. They won.

After the Charles’ run, Dick Jauron’s defense allowed just 230 total yards, 100 of them rushing, sacked Brady Quinn five times and held Kansas City scoreless in what turned into a blowout victory.

It gave Shurmur the rare opportunity to take QB Brandon Weeden and RB Trent Richardson off the field in the team’s last series.

After the missed field goal, the Browns moved the football down the field until they got to the Chiefs’ 20, when they went into conservative mode once again and settled for the Phil Dawson field goal, the 300th of his illustrious career.

After another defensive stop, Cleveland took the lead for good when they shifted punt returns from Josh Cribbs to Travis Benjamin taking the latter off the KC gunner. The resulting confusion resulted in a club record 93 yard return by Benjamin, which undoubtedly will start debate as to who should return punts from now on.

Such is life as a Browns’ fan. Even in victory, there will be second guessing.

Of course, we are no exception.

It was curious that Shurmur and his coaching staff used so many gimmick plays against the Chiefs, arguably one of the NFL’s worst teams. Perhaps he was giving the last three opponents something to think about.

Besides the punt return, the Browns dusted off the “wildcat” portion of their playbook, running Josh Cribbs twice for 15 yards, using a double reverse to Benjamin for 15 more yards, and running WR Greg Little out of the backfield for 17 yards.

Isn’t the purpose of these plays to trick your opponents? And if so, why the need to fool a poor football team.

Why didn’t Shurmur use these types of plays against the Ravens, Cowboys, or Giants? Wouldn’t they have served more of the purpose in those games?

Anyway, enough nit-picking.

Here are some other thoughts from a victory that gave Cleveland more wins than they had all of last season.

RB Montario Hardesty led the Browns in rushing with 52 yards in 10 attempts. However, he showed fans why he is best used as a change of pace back, as we dropped another wide open pass (after a nice run), and fumbled near the goal line.

Those are the problems, besides injuries, that have plagued Hardesty throughout his time with the Browns.

Josh Gordon continues to look more and more like a legitimate #1 receiver with eight catches for 86 yards. Gordon and Little, who continues to impress, were unstoppable on slants all day long. The Browns looked for a lot of deep routes in the first half for some reason, because the slant at anytime.

And Weeden is developing a chemistry with both. He completed 17 passes on the day, but to only five different receivers. You can tell that the quarterback wants to get the ball to Gordon whenever possible.

Another positive about this football team is its growing depth, particularly on defense. The five sacks on the day were by six different players. Rookie free agent S Tashaun Gipson had his first interception.

This is big because in the past, the Browns season ended as soon as injuries took a toll on the roster. Granted, Cleveland is relatively healthy, but they also have some talent in reserve.

Next week is the last home game of the season with Robert Griffin III and the Redskins coming in (although Griffin left today’s game with an injured knee). A win would give the Browns a 5-3 home record, four wins in a row, a 6-3 mark after losing their first five contests, and two victories more than in 2011.

At last, it is progress that shows in the win column.

Browns Dominated 1st Half Except for Scoreboard.

Another game, another loss today for the Cleveland Browns who fell to 2-8 with a 23-20 loss in overtime to the Dallas Cowboys in Jerry Jones’ football palace.

Yes, the Browns played well once again. Heck, they dominated the first half leading 13-0 going into the intermission.

Actually, that’s where the game was lost, because Cleveland should have led 21-0 at that point in the game, but they missed opportunities once again.

Defensively, the Cowboys offensive line couldn’t handle the Browns front seven, and they forced Tony Romo into bad throw after bad throw.

In the second half, the Dallas QB got into a rhythm, and the Cleveland secondary, minus starting cornerback Joe Haden couldn’t stop the Cowboy passing attack.

Still, after a Josh Cribbs punt return and a resulting horse collar tackle penalty, the Browns took the lead 20-17 with a little over a minute to play on Benjamin Watson’s second TD of the day, a 17 yard strike from Brandon Weeden.

But Romo drove the Cowboys right down the field, aided by two big penalties, an unsportsmanlike conduct call on S T.J. Ward and a pass interference call on CB Sheldon Brown for 35 yards.

One change the NFL needs to make is making pass interference a 15 yard maximum call. There shouldn’t be any penalty, especially a judgment call that results in that much yardage.

Dallas had the ball inside the Browns’ 10, but had to settle for a game tying field goal by Dan Bailey.

In overtime, Dallas ran 14 plays with just three runs, as they obviously decided they couldn’t run the ball against Dick Jauron’s defense. The Browns ran three play too…total.

That was kind of the story of the game, especially in the second half.

After the Browns first drive after halftime in which they ran 11 plays, moving 41 yards, their next two drives were three and outs, the one following that lasted just four snaps after a Weeden fumble. Dallas had the football pretty much all the time from 10 minutes left in the third quarter until five minutes remaining in the game.

The offense didn’t do its part to give the defense some valuable rest.

In the first half, Weeden, who would up 20 for 35 and 210 yards was erratic with his accuracy. He missed a wide open Josh Cooper on the drive that led to Phil Dawson’s first field goal, and was high and wide

A Watson dropped pass led to another field goal instead of a touchdown in the first half.

Trent Richardson didn’t break any long gains, but he and Montario Hardesty did total 118 yards on the ground, and Richardson added 49 more catching the ball.

Josh Gordon was productive again with five catches for 53 yards and Greg Little did well too, making three grabs.

Despite some predictions of Weeden having difficulty with the Cowboys pressure, he had plenty of time to throw for the most part, getting sacked just twice.

On the other side, Cleveland got to Romo seven times, with eight different players accounting for the plays. However, the absence of Haden once again hurt the Browns as WRs Dez Bryant and Miles Austin combined for 18 receptions and several pass interference or holding penalties.

It seems trite to say the Browns are the best 2-8 team in the NFL, mostly because there aren’t many teams with just two wins.

Still, it is disappointing that Pat Shurmur can’t put more games in the win column, especially because other teams with similar records last year and won more games.

For whatever reason, the play calling for the Browns gets very conservative when they get near the red zone. Why? That’s a question for the coaching staff.

Unfortunately, that lack of aggressiveness will likely cost the staff their jobs at the end of the season.

This season will likely be dubbed, “Close, but no wins”.

Turnovers A Killer for Browns in New York

The Cleveland Browns were looking good Sunday afternoon against the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants as they were ahead 17-10 and driving with 4 minutes to play in the first half.

The game suddenly turned on them in a hurry.

Coach Pat Shurmur called a pass play on 3rd and 1 at the NY 25 yard line. Trent Richardson was not on the field for the play. The Giants knew the Browns were going to throw the ball at that point and Stevie Brown picked off the pass and returned it to the Cleveland 40. Two plays later, the Browns advantage was erased and the score was tied.

After six more plays were run, the Giants were on top 24-17 following a fumbled kickoff return by Josh Cribbs.

At the very least, Shurmur’s crew could have extended the lead to 10 points. Instead, they trailed by seven heading into the locker room.

It was a strange play call to say the least. If you are taking your best offensive player out of the game (while he was having a great deal of success, mind you), then surprise New York by running Chris Ogbonnaya. As said before, when the rookie from Alabama came out of the game, the Giants knew a pass was coming.

Even so, you can blame the play calling all you want, and judging by talk shows after the game, that was the focus of fans’ discontent, but the real culprit was a terrible defensive showing by Dick Jauron’s crew.

You simply cannot win in the NFL giving up 502 yards of total offense, especially with 243 of it coming on the ground.

For all the hand wringing done about defending Eli Manning, more focus should have been given to stopping Ahmad Bradshaw, who carried 30 times (note that Browns!) for 200 yards.

This enabled the Giants to win the time of possession battle by over 10 minutes.

Remember our familiar refrain about the Browns? Can’t stop the run. It was never more evident than today.

That’s not to say the secondary is blameless. Manning looked at times like he was running a 7 on 7 drill in practice, just sitting in the pocket and picking out open receivers.

The Cleveland defense could not put pressure on Manning, as he wasn’t sacked at all on the day. With the Browns’ defensive backs being either very young or very old, they couldn’t stop the aerial assault either.

New York had a whopping 30 first downs for the game, and they only had to punt twice.

It’s tough to say any Cleveland defensive player stood out, but rookie DT Billy Winn continues to impress and S Usama Young had an interception. That’s about it.

Offensively, the coaching staff seems to resist the temptation to give the ball to the rookie from Alabama more often. Richardson had just 17 carries and caught five passes, far short of the at least 30 touches he should get. He averaged almost five yards per carry.

QB Brandon Weeden came up just short of his second straight 300 yard passing performance, throwing for 291 on 22 of 35 completions. He threw two TD passes to rookie WR Josh Gordon, but threw two interceptions as well, the ill-fated pass mentioned earlier and another was picked off in the end zone with the Browns trailing by 14 early in the fourth quarter.

WR Greg Little took a goose egg on the day, but Jordan Norwood responded with nine catches for 81 yards, and Ogbonnaya caught three balls for 54 yards, including a 38 yard gain.

And besides the fumbled kickoff return, Cribbs returned six kicks for an average of 36.8 yards.

So now the Browns come back home at 0-5 and a return date with Cincinnati, who is coming off a disappointing loss to the Dolphins.

At this point, you have to wonder when a victory will come, because it is becoming obvious that this group has forgotten how to put one in the win column.

Browns Look Better in Most Areas, But Still Lose.

For those Browns’ fans who were panicked that GM Tom Heckert horribly screwed up last April’s draft, you can rest easier today. If you are coach Pat Shurmur, and your team is 0-2, you have to be concerned especially since you have a new boss.

And if you are Joe Haden, you have to feel like you let your team down because a porous secondary and a bad special teams play were the biggest deciding factors in a 34-27 loss to Cincinnati Sunday afternoon.

Usually, the formula that leads to a Cleveland defeat is that they can’t run the ball and can’t stop the run. That wasn’t the case today.

Rookie Trent Richardson showed why Heckert traded up to get him with his first 100 yard rushing game, getting 109 yards on 19 attempts and catching four passes for 36 more yards, scoring two touchdowns.

His fellow rook, QB Brandon Weeden put aside all the jokes about a 5.1 passer rating with a club rookie record 322 passing yards and two TD tosses, one to Richardson and the other to WR Greg Little. He had no turnovers after throwing four picks in his debut.

Meanwhile, the Bengals ran for just 80 yards on 25 carries, a 3.2 average per carry.

However, they didn’t need to run because they had so much success through the air.

The Cleveland secondary, minus their best player in Haden, allowed touchdown plays of 44 and 50 yards through the air, allowing Andy Dalton 318 yards passing.

The Browns leading tacklers for the game were CB Buster Skrine, CB Dimitri Patterson, and S T. J. Ward. What does that tell you? That Dick Jauron’s defense was making a lot of stop after Cincinnati receivers caught passes.

The defense did have six sacks and an interception (three of the former and the pick by MLB D’Qwell Jackson, who was excellent), but allowing the opponent’s QB to complete 24 of 31 throws equals a bad day in the aerial defense department.

Although Cleveland put pressure on Dalton most of the day, hence six sacks, they played very passively in coverage, allowing Bengal receivers an eight to ten yard cushion at the line of scrimmage. That allowed Dalton to hit short passes at will.

The key play of the game was probably the first one in which a Bengal player touched the ball. After one first down on the Browns first possession, Adam (Pacman) Jones took Reggie Hodges’ punt 81 yards for a touchdown. During the run, at least five Cleveland players’ had shots at Jones, but all missed.

It put the Browns in a hole they couldn’t get out off the rest of the day.

A couple of curious things should be questioned and both have to do with who was active for the game. Defensively, Sheldon Brown was active, but didn’t play. With the secondary struggling, couldn’t he and his experience helped a bit? And if not, should he remain on the roster.

Offensively, Brandon Jackson was not active in favor of Chris Ogbonnaya, who caught six passes for 73 yards in a third down back role, but fumbled ending a promising drive in the first half.

It was an odd game in that no statistic really stands out as to why Cleveland lost, but they did.

They outgained Cincinnati. The ran the ball better and stopped the run as well. The Bengals converted only 4 of 12 third downs, while the Browns did better, picking up 7 in 15 opportunities. The turnovers were even.

It really comes down to poor tackling defensively and on special teams.

The Browns showed improvement in a lot of areas in-game two, but now they need to convert that improvement into a victory. A home game next Sunday is a perfect chance for that.