A Winston Air Show Gets Grounded Late Monday

The Cleveland Browns put up a lot of points Monday night, but they gave up a lot as well, and yes, they also gave Denver two touchdowns in a 41-32 loss in Colorado to drop their record to a still disappointing 3-9.

Many folks painted the game as the full Jameis Winston experience because he threw two interceptions that resulted in Bronco touchdowns. We get it, his history shows he throws picks.

You know who didn’t throw passes to the other team? Deshaun Watson. He also never threw for 300 yards in a game (heck, not even 200 this year), he couldn’t pick up first downs, he couldn’t keep the offense on the field, and he made the wide receiver positions into glorified blockers.

We would rather have a QB that threatens the defense. Winston does that. Six different Browns’ receivers caught passes that gained 13 yards or more. Jerry Jeudy looked like a terrible deal for Cleveland until Winston was at the helm. Monday night, he caught 9 passes for 235 yards and Elijah Moore had a 100 yard game at well.

Yes, the interceptions are an issue. So is having to put the ball in the air 58 times because the Browns simply don’t have a running game right now. They did run it 23 times but gained just 77 yards.

It’s not just Nick Chubb coming off an injury either. We are 12 games into the season and Cleveland’s leading rusher is Jerome Ford with a paltry 339 yards. Ford has the longest run this year (36 yards) and the second longest run is by backup QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson with a 34-yard scamper.

The third longest? D’Onta Foreman, who can’t even get on the field anymore with a 25-yard carry.

Whether or not the Browns stay with Winston in 2025 or not, what the last five games has shown is that Watson was the problem, something that many people (including us) thought after the first couple of games this season, and some of those folks had their doubts before that.

You have to think if Winston had replaced Watson earlier, the Browns may not be 3-9 right now, and throw in the incredible decision to have Thompson-Robinson be the backup against Cincinnati, the game Watson got hurt, and could the team have a 5-7 record right now?

We don’t think that would be a reach.

And while Winston does throw picks (his interception % is 7th in the league, FYI Jordan Love of Green Bay is 3rd), he also 10th in the NFL in average yards per pass attempt, which is an important statistic.

The leader in this category is Detroit’s Jared Goff, and others in the top ten are Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, but Winston ranks ahead of Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and C.J. Stroud.

Those guys are pretty good.

Besides the turnovers, the defense was problematic as well, allowing 28 points and 400 yards of offense to a team led by a rookie quarterback. It was the third time Jim Schwartz’ group has allowed at least 400 yards, all of them in the last eight games.

In the season’s first four contests, the most yards allowed was 340 by the Giants of all teams.

The loss of Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Za’Darius Smith have hurt, but outside of Denzel Ward, who is having a tremendous season, the secondary has been shaky as well.

What is frustrating is there are periods when they absolutely shut teams down, and other possessions it is just big play after big play.

Oh, and Dustin Hopkins missed another field goal, his seventh miss of the year. He ranks second last in field goal percentage after being 11th a year ago.

The Browns should probably add kicker to the list of needs in 2025.

We would keep Jameis Winston as the starter going forward and if people really want to see Thompson-Robinson, start him in the last two games, at home vs. Miami and on the road against the Ravens.

Our guess is you will see he is nothing more than a backup.

Bad Loss For Browns, Who Need To Get Back To Basics

There are bad losses in the NFL, and there are really bad losses, and the latter is what happened to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, losing to the New York Giants 21-15.

The Giants came into the games having allowed 215 yards on the ground to Washington the previous week, and 111 in their opener. But the Browns decided to run the ball just 18 times, and four of those were by Deshaun Watson, so let’s say Cleveland ran about 16 running plays.

Why? It’s a mystery.

The game started well enough. New York fumbled the opening kickoff, the Browns recovered and scored on the next play, a 24-yard pass to Amari Cooper, and it looked like it was supposed to be, an easy Browns’ win at home.

On New York’s second drive, Ronnie Hickman picked off a Daniel Jones throw, but Greg Newsome was called for roughing the passer (Jones wasn’t even knocked down), and the Giants boat raced Cleveland the rest of the first half.

They put together two long drives and then with the first half running down, Watson fumbled with 27 seconds left, New York recovered on the Cleveland 30 and scored again to make it 21-3 at the half.

The decision to eschew the running game after a solid effort against Jacksonville was curious. In the first half, Cleveland ran the ball on their second first down (a 4-yard run by Jerome Ford), and on the next first down (3-yard run by D’Onta Foreman). They ran it just two other plays, not counting a QB sneak by Jameis Winston.

With the Giants’ blitzing on pretty much every play, not doing anything to slow down the rush is the fault of the game plan.

The defense hasn’t played great, although again, in the second half they shutout the Giants, but the offense seems broken, as the Browns haven’t scored more than 18 points in any of their three games this season.

Compare that to the end of last season when the Browns averaged 23.3 points a game to rank 10th in the NFL. And in the last five game, they scored 27.6 points per contest.

And that was without Nick Chubb.

And it was also after Jedrick Wills Jr. was injured and Geron Christian was played left tackle.

We have said this before, but the Browns’ offense wasn’t a problem, but they changed coordinators and some other coaches to put together an offense more suited to Watson, who played maybe two good games in the dozen he started?

What can they do going forward? Simply, they need to run the football and stick with the ground game. They have only run the ball for over 100 yards once this year, and not surprisingly, it was the game they won, rushing for 125.

Running the ball slows down the pass rush, and allows you to run play action, a staple of Stefanski’s offense. It may not be the high-flying attack they thought they could have with Watson, but it helps you win football games.

And that’s the name of the game. Everyone has to put their egos aside and do what is best for this football team. You have a two-time coach of the year on the sideline, whether people in Cleveland agree with that or not.

Maybe it’s time to do what he wants to do with the offense?

Browns Use Old Offense To Beat Jags.

Last week, we said it was just one game in referring to the Cleveland Browns’ loss to Dallas in the season opener.

This week, we will reach into the cliche bag and tell everyone a win is a win. The Browns played a very good first half of football and held on to beat Jacksonville 18-13 to raise their record to 1-1.

After hiring a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey, who was bringing in an attack more friendly to a dual threat quarterback, the Cleveland offense looked much like the same as it had the previous years under Alex Van Pelt.

The brown and orange came out trying to work the running game. After having just 19 running plays vs. Dallas, and some of those were Deshaun Watson scrambles after escaping the pass rush, they ran the ball 29 times for 125 yards.

D’Onta Foreman started and had the most carries, toting the ball 14 times for 42 yards, and had a huge run in the fourth quarter that unfortunately was called back when he grabbed a defender’s face mask. Jerome Ford looked much better than he did in week one to us and seemed to run harder hitting the holes.

He had 64 yards on seven carries, including a big 36-yard on a fourth down play.

The offense looked a lot like the same kind of system used when Jacoby Brissett was behind center. It appeared the coaching staff told Watson to take care of the football, and indeed Cleveland did not turn it over all day.

There weren’t a lot of high-risk throws. Perhaps the one play that stands out was Watson at the end of a scramble throwing the football into a crowd and somehow Jerry Jeudy came down with it on the sidelines.

Watson would up 22 of 34 for 186 yards and ran the ball five times for 20 yards. It was interesting to see Stefanski use Jameis Winston, a bigger QB, in some short yardage situations for quarterback sneaks.

The defense allowed two big plays, the 66-yard pass from Trevor Lawrence to Brian Thomas and Lawrence’s 33-yard run, otherwise, the Jaguars were bottled up all game. The Browns sacked Lawrence four times, including a safety on Alex Wright’s sack, which should have salted away the game.

Ultimately, that sack followed the play of the game, the punt by Corey Bojorquez which went out of bounds on the one-yard line late in the fourth quarter. Stefanski decided to punt rather than have Dustin Hopkins try a 58-yard field goal, and that was the correct decision.

Speaking of Stefanski’s decisions, we also believe the last offensive play was not supposed to end in a pass, he wanted Watson to roll out, gain as many yards as he could, and then go down and keep the clock running.

We are sure some will focus on the penalties, which Cleveland accumulated 13 flags during the game. It needs to be cleaned up, but there seems to be another “point of emphasis” with officials to call motion penalties. And according to people who know football better than us, a few flags against the Browns were not merited.

But again, a win is a win, and the Browns should be expected to win next Sunday at home against the 0-2 Giants. It will be interesting to see what the offense looks like. Will it be run oriented at the start or throwing a lot.

Either way, Cleveland got a win they needed after a terrible first game showing. And that’s a good thing.

No Real Surprises On Browns Roster. Yet.

The Cleveland Browns got down to the 53 man roster needed to open the season, but as coach Kevin Stefanski said, it’s really but first 53, not the final 53.

That’s pretty obvious when you consider the Browns have just two running backs on the current roster and four quarterbacks.

There weren’t many surprises among the players cut on Tuesday. DT Siaki Ika was a third round pick a year ago, so that may raise an eyebrow, but it was pretty clear to most Browns’ observers that he was not going to make the team.

We were a bit surprised that RB D’Onta Foreman was let go given the state of the running game without Nick Chubb. He had three consecutive seasons of 400 or more rushing yards, and frankly we aren’t impressed with the running game right now.

It is easy to be spoiled by Chubb, but we aren’t impressed by Jerome Ford last season even though he gained 813 yards. He still seems hesitant hitting a hole. We know the NFL has become a passing league, but you still have to run the football if you want to be a good team, and we think the Browns are just that.

By all reports, Foreman will be re-signed after the team makes a decision on the quarterbacks, but even still, three running backs seems a little light.

The four quarterbacks are interesting to be sure, but it’s only because GM Andrew Berry values all four of them and didn’t want to let any of them go without getting something in return.

What is curious is that according to reports, both Jameis Winston and Tyler Huntley are the name bandied about on the trade rumors. We get it, quarterbacks have value in the league and if you can pick up a draft pick because your organization had the foresight to sign a veteran, that’s a good thing.

We are surprised Winston’s name is being discussed only based on what happened to Cleveland a year ago. If Deshaun Watson has to miss time this season, wouldn’t you want Winston to be the next guy up? He’s a veteran starter with 80 NFL starts under his belt.

Compare that to Huntley’s nine and Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s three. And that’s why it was later reported Cleveland has no interest in moving Winston. But they will not open with four QBs, so either Huntley (probably) or Thompson-Robinson will be traded. NOTE: Huntley was released this morning.

Otherwise, it’s a normal looking roster. An NFL team can never have enough linemen and defensive backs, and the Browns are no exception, carrying 10 on the offensive line, nine on the defensive side, and 11 defensive backs.

One surprise is not all of the draft picks made the roster, as 7th round DT Jowon Briggs was cut, but was added to the practice squad.

And of course, second rounder Michael Hall Jr. is on the Commissioner’s exempt list.

It would be a surprise if there aren’t plenty of roster movement before the Browns take the field on September 8th to take on Dallas. As Stefanski said, it’s not the final 53.