Browns Not Tanking, Just Using Common Sense

Last week, we started hearing it, the dreaded “T” word.

Tanking. Mostly, you hear about it in the NBA, when the prize for getting the first pick in the draft is a player like LeBron James or someone like that.

In basketball, having a superstar is a huge advantage because there are only five players on the court.

Both the local and national media alike are claiming that the Cleveland Browns are tanking, trying to lose purposefully to gain the first overall pick in next spring’s draft.

Our question is if the Browns are tanking this year, what have they been doing for most of the last 16 seasons since they returned to the NFL?

Face it, the Browns aren’t tanking.

What they have been doing to getting rid of veteran players who have no upside and played for a team that went 3-13 a year ago. And that just seems like common sense.

Have we fallen asleep and not realized Cleveland unloaded Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, and Jim Brown in the off-season?

No. They pared the roster of a lot of players over 30 years old who were on the downside of their careers, or rid themselves of players who didn’t produce much in the time they were here.

You could make a better case that Ray Farmer was tanking when he let Jabaal Sheard and T.J. Ward flee the team in free agency.

We have said it time and again, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team. Why not start playing a bunch of younger players, who may get better with experience, and see where the chips fall?

If you are tanking, the coaching staff tends to not play the best players. We don’t see any indication of that, unless you are a member of the media, and you still have a love affair with Josh McCown.

The Browns have tried a lot of different ways to improve their fortunes, but they haven’t tried going with a bunch of young players and let them develop, so why not give that a shot?

What’s the worst that can happen? In three years, they are still putting together 5-11 seasons? If that’s happening, then once again, Jimmy Haslam will be looking for a new coach and a new general manager.

The coaching staff and the players will want to win, and hopefully the young players will improve as the season progresses, and finally the Browns will have a foundation on which to build something.

If they were tanking, then Jackson would announce that Cody Kessler is the starting quarterback and they would have traded players like Joe Haden, and maybe even Joe Thomas.

Now, once the season starts and you are let’s say 2-10, you may not go out of your way to play veterans, so you can get an extensive look at more young players, the ones who haven’t been in there all year.

On the other hand, with all of the young players on the field, you hope to see improvement as the season goes on, and hopefully the Browns can be in a position to win those late season games.

The tanking issue is ridiculous. This was a bad football team a year ago, and they weren’t tanking then.

The Browns are trying to build something that will grow over the next few years, and doing it with young players is the way to do it.

When you really think about it, it’s just common sense.

When Things In Sports Get Too Easy

There is a cliché in sports that offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships. But is that still true?

Particularly in the sports of football and basketball, nearly every rule change in the past several years has been designed to help scoring. Fans like to see points on the scoreboard.

But when does it become too much?

Have both sports reached the point where things have come too easy.

In football, most of the rule changes have involved the passing game. What has happened, in our opinion, is that it has become ridiculously easy to throw the football.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s, 4000 yards passing was the gold standard.

When Brian Sipe and Dan Fouts threw for over that number in 1980, it was a huge amount of yardage. We remember ABC promoting a Monday Night Football game between the Browns and Chargers as “aerial warfare”.

This past season, 12 quarterbacks had over 4000 passing yards, and three more were right on the doorstep.

And this doesn’t take into account the large number of big gains as a result of defensive pass interference. It seems that most of the time, the receiver and the defensive back are both pushing and shoving, but the defense draws the flag.

In a playoff game this year between the Patriots and Chiefs, New England threw the football on their first 14 plays.

Yes, we realize they may have the greatest QB of all time in Tom Brady, but the reason they threw the ball this much, is that it is easy to move the ball through the air.

Too easy.

It’s time to let the secondaries around the league to play defense a little bit. This is not to say the NFL should go back to the time when players like Mel Blount could club a receiver off the line, and not allow them in the pattern at all, but let’s make professional football a little less like the touch football you played in the street as a kid.

In basketball, after the game was becoming too physical in the 90’s, led by Pat Riley’s overly physical New York Knicks, the NBA felt they needed to do something to get the game back to its free flowing roots.

So, they limited the contact allowed when guarding players on the perimeter.

Now, small quick players are virtually unguardable.

Here are some of the top 15 scorers right now in the NBA: Stephan Curry (1st), James Harden (2nd), Damien Lillard (6th), Russell Westbrook (7th), Isaiah Thomas (12th) and Kyle Lowry (15th).

That would be 40% of the league top scorers are basically small guys who can shoot, penetrate, and have the ball in their hands most of the time.

Basketball is a sport dominated by big men, but they are quickly being made obsolete in today’s game.

Is that good for the game? We would say no because there isn’t a penalty for playing small.

When the Cavs play Golden State, their smaller players are allowed to bang LeBron James when he gets in the paint, because the game is officiated differently for inside players than guys who play outside.

We aren’t advocating slamming smaller players to the floor when they drive to the basket, but allowing perimeter defenders to maintain some contact with these guys without being whistled might be appropriate.

Both leagues will tell you everything is fine based on ratings and attendance, and we get that. However, fans want to see professional athletes having to struggle at times too.

Only the best should make the game look easy.

Now, it seems anyone can.

Can’t Make Much of Browns Win Today

We aren’t going to make too much out of today’s 24-10 win by the Cleveland Browns over the San Francisco 49ers.

Let’s face it, the 49ers are a terrible team, just like the Browns and since Cleveland was at home, we aren’t surprised by the victory and it doesn’t prove anything about Mike Pettine, his coaching staff, and even Johnny Manziel.

The Browns gained 481 yards against the Niners, even running for over 200 yards on the game, with Isaiah Crowell rushing for 145 yards on 20 carries, the first Browns’ RB to get over the century mark this season.

The defense showed a pulse too, recording nine sacks, meaning over half of their sacks on the season (26 total) have come against Tennessee (7) and today.

Armonty Bryant and rookie Nate Orchard each had two sacks and Desmond Bryant had 1-1/2 on the day.

They still didn’t turn the ball over so that trend continued this afternoon.

After five straight games of allowing 30 points or more, Jim O’Neil beleaguered unit held a terrible 49er offense to just 10 points, including a meaningless score in the final minutes.

As for the thing everybody focuses on in this city, the quarterback play, Johnny Manziel had one throw we are sure he would like back (the pass over the middle right before halftime), but otherwise played well.

He completed 21 of 31 throws for 270 yards and a touchdown in winning his second game of the season.

But you can’t make much of this because the other win was also against one of the NFL’s lesser lights in Tennessee.

He’s proven he can play well against bad teams.

He does have an opportunity now to play against the defending NFC champions next week against Seattle, and two playoff contenders in Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

That will tell us and the front office more about the former Heisman Trophy winner than today’s win.

Two things that cause us to scratch our heads…first, another field goal block, with the pressure coming over the two rookie first round draft picks, Danny Shelton and Cam Erving.

Why wouldn’t Chris Tabor make some adjustments in the protection scheme after the last two games? This is exactly what bothers us about this staff. The inability to make changes when something isn’t working.

The other thing was not using Terrelle Pryor in the passing game. Look, Brian Hartline had 100 yards receiving in his last game of the season (he suffered a broken collarbone in the victory), and Gary Barnidge continues to impress, but why not use Pryor a little.

Yes, he did play, but there didn’t seem to be a play call which intended for the ball to go to him. Why not use him since you are sitting at 2-10 coming in?

In our mind, this win changes nothing. The Browns beat a bad San Francisco team, which they should have done.

Yes, it’s better than losing to the Niners, but you can’t get excited about it.

As for falling back into a tie with Tennessee and San Diego for the worst record in the league? Who cares. That’s for losers and you have to understand the players aren’t out there worried about next year’s draft pick.

Next week will be a huge challenge. We believe the Browns will be the biggest underdog of the NFL season against the Seahawks, with our guess being Cleveland will be at least a 17 point dog.

Is it better than losing to a bad team? Of course. However, you can’t get excited by today’s performance.

The Browns simply did what they should have done.