GDT Week 5: Browns vs the Bye

[MWil23]

2-2 headed into the bye week, and a few things stand out:

1. The game given away vs Pittsburgh hurts. You have a lot of margin for error with a hurt quarterback against the #2 defense in the league in Baltimore yesterday as opposed to being in a position to “have to” win a home game.

2. The Browns are 1-2 in divisional play; not ideal

3. While the defense has balled out, there is cause for concern after yesterday’s game:

A. The Bengals and Steelers are completely inept offensively and Tennessee is not exactly a juggernaut themselves. Some of this is undeniably playing bad units

B. Once again yesterday showed we struggle with heavier personnel and our linebackers have a hard time holding up against teams like Baltimore 

C. If you thought the D struggles yesterday, SF in 2 weeks will be like Baltimore on steroids with personnel, motions, RB running and out of the backfield. CMC and Kittle with Aiyuk/Deebo coming to town and a massive OL and heavy personnel unit

4. The wide receiver situation continues to rear its ugly head. Moore isn’t a 2, he’s actually pretty underwhelming. DPJ is meh. Tillman can’t get on the field. Njoku is overpaid and average. Cooper is legit.

5. Jed Wills is low key bad. Teller is having a bad season. Pokic is hurt so we will see. That unit isn’t getting better anytime soon.

6. On the bright side, Watson should be back healthy and should have a full 2 weeks to plan for SF at home. A loss and moving to 2-3 spells problems.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

14 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

2-2 headed into the bye week, and a few things stand out:

1. The game given away vs Pittsburgh hurts. You have a lot of margin for error with a hurt quarterback against the #2 defense in the league in Baltimore yesterday as opposed to being in a position to “have to” win a home game.

2. The Browns are 1-2 in divisional play; not ideal

That Pittsburgh game was rough at the time and will only look worse as the season progresses.  Can’t leave wins like that on the field tbh.

14 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

3. While the defense has balled out, there is cause for concern after yesterday’s game:

A. The Bengals and Steelers are completely inept offensively and Tennessee is not exactly a juggernaut themselves. Some of this is undeniably playing bad units

B. Once again yesterday showed we struggle with heavier personnel and our linebackers have a hard time holding up against teams like Baltimore 

C. If you thought the D struggles yesterday, SF in 2 weeks will be like Baltimore on steroids with personnel, motions, RB running and out of the backfield. CMC and Kittle with Aiyuk/Deebo coming to town and a massive OL and heavy personnel unit

I think we all knew teams like Baltimore would be our biggest concern just based on personnel.  Schwartz is gonna need to get creative over the next couple of weeks as we can’t just line up and “out talent” them.

14 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

4. The wide receiver situation continues to rear its ugly head. Moore isn’t a 2, he’s actually pretty underwhelming. DPJ is meh. Tillman can’t get on the field. Njoku is overpaid and average. Cooper is legit.

idk, I haven’t seen enough to make many determinations other than Amari is a dude. DPJ is what he is, he isn’t gonna run wide open but he can get open enough and make tough catches.  Moore needs to quit being force fed the ball in the backfield, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  Tillman is a rookie 4 games in.  Njoku has plenty of upside but needs targets that aren’t TE screens.  He should be a focal point in the end zone. 

14 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

5. Jed Wills is low key bad. Teller is having a bad season. Pokic is hurt so we will see. That unit isn’t getting better anytime soon.

Not having guys like Chubb and Watson will make things harder on any OL.  I think they’re still talented enough to be better than most units and have arguably the best coach in the business.  There’s no excuses for this unit moving forward tbh.

14 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

6. On the bright side, Watson should be back healthy and should have a full 2 weeks to plan for SF at home. A loss and moving to 2-3 spells problems.

Eh, I don’t think so.  2-3 isn’t ideal obviously, but this is the toughest part of our schedule.  I think 2-3 does put some pressure to rip off a few wins in a row, which I’m not sure this team can do yet.  They seem to really start feeling themselves really quickly and seemingly forget the last wake up call after like a week or two.

[MWil23]

23 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

That Pittsburgh game was rough at the time and will only look worse as the season progresses.  Can’t leave wins like that on the field tbh.

Agreed

23 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I think we all knew teams like Baltimore would be our biggest concern just based on personnel.  Schwartz is gonna need to get creative over the next couple of weeks as we can’t just line up and “out talent” them.

The issue I have is with Barry. Baltimore we play twice. At some point we need to have an answer for divisional opponents on either side of the ball and we haven’t for about 30 years now outside of Cincinnati the past 3.

23 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

idk, I haven’t seen enough to make many determinations other than Amari is a dude. DPJ is what he is, he isn’t gonna run wide open but he can get open enough and make tough catches.  Moore needs to quit being force fed the ball in the backfield, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  Tillman is a rookie 4 games in.  Njoku has plenty of upside but needs targets that aren’t TE screens.  He should be a focal point in the end zone. 

I love KS but IMO it’s pretty clear that the OL is a great fit for his ZBS style and Cooper is a good fit in any offense.

Njoku has had “plenty of upside” for 6 years now, he’s a career into his upside.

Moore maybe shapes up to be a good slot or even 2, but he’s clearly not a guy used to get backfield touches.

23 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Not having guys like Chubb and Watson will make things harder on any OL.  I think they’re still talented enough to be better than most units and have arguably the best coach in the business.  There’s no excuses for this unit moving forward tbh.

Wills is BAD in pass pro, and I love him but so is Teller. My biggest issue with this is the “fit” going forward with Watson and company.

23 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Eh, I don’t think so.  2-3 isn’t ideal obviously, but this is the toughest part of our schedule.  I think 2-3 does put some pressure to rip off a few wins in a row, which I’m not sure this team can do yet.  They seem to really start feeling themselves really quickly and seemingly forget the last wake up call after like a week or two.

They get the Colts the week after in more or less of an October must win game, then AT Seattle is a big game, with home vs Arizona after. Going on the road against Baltimore with a must win home game vs Pittsburgh the week after. You need to win 4 of those 5 games period, no alternative there.

[DawgX]

Moore has been underwhelming. He's done pretty much nothing after the catch. He had a bad fumble vs the Titans and then a disastrous play yesterday.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Agreed

The issue I have is with Barry. Baltimore we play twice. At some point we need to have an answer for divisional opponents on either side of the ball and we haven’t for about 30 years now outside of Cincinnati the past 3.

I’m not sure there’s really any team that isn’t more susceptible to one play style than another.  You can’t be built to beat everyone.

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

I love KS but IMO it’s pretty clear that the OL is a great fit for his ZBS style and Cooper is a good fit in any offense.

Absolutely.

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Njoku has had “plenty of upside” for 6 years now, he’s a career into his upside.

I guess by upside I meant ability.  We’ve seen him make big plays and contribute plenty of times before.  He’s had some issues with drops, but other than that he’s been pretty good when given targets.  They just don’t target him often.

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Moore maybe shapes up to be a good slot or even 2, but he’s clearly not a guy used to get backfield touches.

Agreed.  I think he’s pressing to show his ability and KS is pressing to use him to inject some wrinkles and to help fill the void left by Chubb’s injury, but it’s too much too soon.  The play yesterday was almost inconceivable.

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Wills is BAD in pass pro, and I love him but so is Teller. My biggest issue with this is the “fit” going forward with Watson and company.

yeah they’re gonna need more pass pro centered OL moving forward. Jed just sucks tbh.  Maybe he’s a G?  Teller has been terrible save a couple highlight blocks here and there.  He needs to get his poop in a group and fast.

12 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

They get the Colts the week after in more or less of an October must win game, then AT Seattle is a big game, with home vs Arizona after. Going on the road against Baltimore with a must win home game vs Pittsburgh the week after. You need to win 4 of those 5 games period, no alternative there.

If they lose in 2 weeks, yeah, you’re starting to look at some “must win” type games which is unfortunate.

I will say though, west coast team flying east, 2 weeks to prepare, any given Sunday, etc., it’s not a game we can’t win provided Watson is back and plays well. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

12 minutes ago, DawgX said:

Moore has been underwhelming. He's done pretty much nothing after the catch. He had a bad fumble vs the Titans and then a disastrous play yesterday.

He seems like a guy who’d be great on short crossing routes and I haven’t seen much of that at all.  From anyone tbh.

[BetterCallSaul]

I almost want to give our defense a mulligan yesterday vs. Baltimore. Lamar Jackson was just on fire. Couldn't miss. It's the best version of Lamar I've seen, to be honest. There were times we played things very well and he just made pinpoint throws/amazing plays.

Sometimes everything clicks for the other team & there's nothing to be done. It doesn't excuse our offense's performance, but I think it matters to the defense.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

28 minutes ago, BetterCallSaul said:

I almost want to give our defense a mulligan yesterday vs. Baltimore. Lamar Jackson was just on fire. Couldn't miss. It's the best version of Lamar I've seen, to be honest. There were times we played things very well and he just made pinpoint throws/amazing plays.

Sometimes everything clicks for the other team & there's nothing to be done. It doesn't excuse our offense's performance, but I think it matters to the defense.

Yeah he played a great game and got lucky at times.  That throw to Andrews in the end zone is picked if it’s 6 inches lower for example.

Also you can tell when another team is on the ropes.  There’s no way they didn’t know early DTR was a deer in headlights and knew they could mash the gas offensively because a turnover wouldn’t hurt them.

[NateDawg]

The Moore trade was bad at the time and looks bad now. Too much value given for a guy the Jets were quick to want to get rid of when they needed more offensive talent. 

Need to figure things out on this offense. It’s hard to find the bright spots right now on that side of the ball.

[sdrawkcab321]

One thing we know for sure is Stefanski won’t make a single adjustment with this extra week 

[mtmmike]

Excellent post 

The lack of development at wr fire that coach right now. 

Ol was always overrated. 

Defense we are still a top 10 unit up from 14 how much did you expect 

Running backs they chose ford  now we have no starting level Running back 1 starting level wr and a 25 to 32 ranked qb.

 

[brownie man]

It’s still early 

[sdrawkcab321]

57 minutes ago, mtmmike said:

Excellent post 

The lack of development at wr fire that coach right now. 

Ol was always overrated. 

Defense we are still a top 10 unit up from 14 how much did you expect 

Running backs they chose ford  now we have no starting level Running back 1 starting level wr and a 25 to 32 ranked qb.

 

I thought chad O’Shea would be the best position coach on the team when we hired him. He was the WR for those NE teams that made everyone look good. But it’s obvious that was all Brady. He hasn’t developed anyone. 

[mtmmike]

11 minutes ago, sdrawkcab321 said:

I thought chad O’Shea would be the best position coach on the team when we hired him. He was the WR for those NE teams that made everyone look good. But it’s obvious that was all Brady. He hasn’t developed anyone. 

In his defense berry has not drafted anyone that went elsewhere and developed. 

Obj has been a injury waiting to happen sense he left.

[dawgdish]

On 10/2/2023 at 8:40 AM, BetterCallSaul said:

Sometimes everything clicks for the other team & there's nothing to be done.

Seems to be the theme for the Browns when we play the Ravens. Can't put too much stock into that game, just like you can't put too much stock into the Ten game. Our record is 2-2, and pretty much reflects what we are: an inconsistent team struggling to reach the next level. 

Edited October 3, 2023 by dawgdish