Hello Cleveland!

Boy did the Browns and Ravens prove me wrong today. I've never been so glad to be so wrong.

Going into the season, conventional wisdom was that, given our schedule, the Browns' best-case scenario going into the bye-week was two wins. Well, we will meet that goal even if we don't beat Miami in two weeks. Part of that is because Cincinnati and Baltimore are playing worse than most expected ,but I'll take it. After that opening bust against the Steelers, I couldn't in a million years predict that we'd be at 2-2.

That offense looked downright competent. They hit some big plays. They did a good job of grinding out some drives and converting third downs. The play calling might have got a little conservative towards the end, but I have no room to complain, it did the job.

Derek Anderson might have settled in. If he could learn to avoid more of the dumb mistakes, and to put more touch on the shorter passes, he could prove to be a respectable starting quarterback. At the very least, he's looking like a great long term back-up (if not trade bait if someone wants to start him).

Jamal Lewis was his normal boom-or-bust self. He is doing an OK job so far this season, but I still look forward to someday having a more steady running back.

But how about that offensive line? No sacks against the Ravens, can that happen?

The defense looked only a little better this week, but I have a feeling this is the best we can hope for this season. Its enough to slow down the other team and prevent the big plays. The turnovers were HUGE. So was keeping the Ravens out of the endzone on a couple of redzone opportunities. But until the young secondary and linebackers show some improvement, giving up 400 yards is more likely than not par for the course.

After we were up 14-0, I popped a video in the VCR and started taping for review. Hopefully I will be able to make some insightful comments (or something) after reviewing. But for now, I'm just going to bask in a defeat of the Ravens. And the steelers lost too!!

Oooh Nelly

I haven't been posting because I don't know what to say about this team. I did not get to see last Sunday's game, but from the sounds of it we should be ashamed we didn't find a way to beat Oakland. Coaches and players deserve blame. When Ace Davis starts taking (spot on) shots at the coach, you know his tenure is tenuous.

This week I will get to see the game since its on in my area. Let me provide a preview of what I expect to see:

>> Savvy quarterback and receivers finding holes in the coverage and mistakes by inexperienced players.
>> Power running plowing through as bad a run defense as we've seen since the rebirth
>> A disciplined run defense keeping our boom-or-bust running back from breaking anything big, leading to 50 - 60 yards on 20 attempts.
>> An aggressive pass rush that hurries a young QB and keeps him from establishing a rhythm, leading to sacks and interceptions.

Needless to say, I'm not optimistic.

Two weeks of offense for the price of one

I have nothing to say. That offensive performance was as awesome as it was surprising. I'll let the video do the talking:

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80266687

So how about them Indians?

I should have expected that Sunday would end up like it did when I was in the Emergency Room by 9AM*. Little did I know at the time, but the day would hold much bigger injuries.

I don't have much to say that other people haven't already said. The Browns stunk, the Steelers looked good. Terry Pluto sums it up pretty well: The truth of the matter is, we were bad everywhere, and it was just particularly pronounced at quarterback.

Since the negative aspects of this team are all too apparent, I thought I would grasp at straws for one reason to have hope:

In the 2007 Profootball Prospectus chapter on the Browns is an article titled "How Important is Offensive Line Continuity?" Looking at seven seasons worth of data, they came up with a metric to determine how much continuity each team has in their line from week-to-week.

Of course, the Browns had the worst continuity in the league over that seven year period. Not only have we had alot of bad guys on our line, but they've been getting hurt pretty regularly.

They then took this continuity statistic and compared it to various measures of offensive line success (eg wins, sack rates, false starts, etc). The unsurprising answer was that there was a very measurable correlation between continuity and success. That doesn't mean its enough to field 5 hacks on the line as long as its the same 5 hacks all season, because continuity doesn't cause success. Its probably much more the case that lack of continuity prevents success.

I bring this all up, because in that travesty that we call "Week 1", Eric Steinbach and Kevin Schaffer were both playing for the first time in weeks. Not only would you expect them to be a little rusty, but this is also the first time in a while that the line has played together.

As the season goes on, if we can avoid injuries, the line should improve, even if none of the individual players get any better.

*Not to fear, they saved the finger and I'll be good as new in a couple weeks.

OMGWTFBBQ?!

Charlie Frye's gone? I haven't even gotten to finish my post about Sunday's game yet!

Not that I'm upset with Frye being gone, after what I saw last Sunday. But management has some SERIOUS 'splainin' to do. A guy going from erstwhile starting QB to cast-off afterthought after less than a half of play, no matter how horrible that less than a half was, suggests total incompetence is pulling the strings.

Go Browns!

I'm out for the weekend. Headed to West Virginia (defacto steelers country, but what are you gonna do?) for some camping and watching some football. As in real, actual football.

I've been working for something like a month on a sweeping review of Cleveland Browns blogs, and I think I'm almost done. I've collected my data, I'm just working on figuring out HTML coding. Unfortunately, all my coding experience from my TI-81 in high school doesn't translate, but I think I have it just about there.

So no posts from me until after we pound the steelers. Until then, go Browns!

Doh!

Just as you think we should have a healthy, intact defense (sans McGinest and Baxter) for at least the first game of the season, reports are that Leigh Bodden goes and gets himself arrested at the airport.

When I first saw the headline I was expecting something bad. But it was for disorderly conduct. He was trying to pick up his girlfriend who was travelling alone with their 2 year old and their baby during rush hour. He probably thought he was being chivalrous by doing whatever he needed to find her as soon as possible. So he parked his car against the cop's orders and mouthed off when the cop stopped him. Not exactly in the same league as running an underage child prostitution ring. . .

Too bad nobody ever told Leigh that airport cops are by rule Nazis (admittedly for good reasons).

Will this result in a suspension? It very well could, although I think any more than a slap on the wrist is pretty out of proportion. If he is suspended, would it start this week? Only if Crennel decides to impose it in lieu of the league, which I wouldn't expect.

So hopefully we'll see Leigh out there.

I like the idea of the bruce arians-directed spread offense against the Browns defense. Remember bruce arians, the O-coordinator who thought the best chance for a team playing in Cleveland was to implement a pass-based spread offense utilizing the talents of such Hall-of-Famers as Kevin Johnson, Quincy Morgan, Dennis Northcutt, and Andre Davis? Seems like the same guy is trying to do the same thing in pittsburgh.

The steelers spreading the ball actually worked against us pretty well last year. Albeit most of (and I literally mean MOST of) our secondary was hurt. But we should expect Bodden to shut down hines ward, and Eric Wright probably has what it takes to shut down santonio holmes. That means roethlisberger will be stuck trying to find his alternate receivers and tight ends. So expect a fun day for ball-hawks Sean Jones and Daven Holly.

I think we even have a decent shot at slowing down fast willie on his outside sweeps. Lets just hope no one tells arians that running strait up the center of our defense should provide all the offense that they need.

Roster cuts

The list of roster cuts has a couple surprises. The biggest surprise for me is that we cut three of this year's draft picks (Syndric Steptoe, Chase Pittman, and Melila Purcell) and three of last year's picks (Babatunde Oshinowo, DeMario Minter, Justin Hamilton). In their place we kept such players as Jereme Perry and Mike Adams.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It would be great if we could keep guys around, but on a 53 man roster we don't have room for a bunch of risky long term projects any more than we have room for mentors.

>> Mason Unck is on the injury reserve. Kris Griffin should be a good fill in on special teams. But it will be strange not seeing that name on the Special Teams plays.

>> They kept Charles Ali around as a back-up fullback. Thats not much of a vote of confidence in Lawrence Vickers.

>> David McMillan is still around. Once McGinest is back, I won't be surprised to see him cut for an extra D-lineman.

>> Nat Dorsey has stuck. With Tucker suspended for the first four games and Shaffer still recovering from his concussion, I guess its necessary.

>> Once Tucker, Baxter, and McGinest stop eating up roster spots, I won't be surprised to eventually see Chase Pittman, Babatunde Oshinowo, or Chris Barclay resigned.

>> I was sorry to see Justin Hamilton cut. He has a lot of character. I am sure he will land on his feet.

Did Alexander keep Aristotle on his 53 man roster?

Over numerous articles, the Plain Dealer has decided that, unless the Browns carry four quarterbacks on the final roster, the loser of the Derek Anderson / Charlie Frye QB competition will be cut or traded and Ken Dorsey will be retained. This all stems from the PD writers' weird fetish for the Browns to have "an experienced veteran" who can "mentor the young quarterback".

If the Browns do want to keep Dorsey around, here is my suggestion:
1) Cut Dorsey
2) Offer him the value of his current contract to stay around as a "special QB" coach

Heck, they can even let him play dress up and wear the uniform on the sidelines, and work out in practice. But it makes absolutely no sense to me to keep him around as a Big Brother for the little orphan Brady Quinn. If he does stay around he will be taking up a roster spot. And if he is taking up a roster spot, who is getting cut in his place? Chris Barclay? Steve Sanders? Chase Pittman? Willie McGinest?

The 53-man roster is a challenge for the teams to strike the balance between developing young guys and fielding a decent team. Unless Dorsey provides us a better back-up QB option than Derek Anderson, he should not take up one of those valuable spots.

Ye Gods!

I've been getting into the stuff they post over at FootballOutsiders.com, as well as reading the 2007 Pro Football Prospectus.

In the 2007 Pro Football Prospectus, the Patriots' section has an article about how the Patriots secondary is always hurt, and last year was particularly bad, and how we should feel bad for them. So they analyzed the number of injuries (looking at how much time players missed). The results confirmed their suspicion that the Patriots far and away have had the most injuries to their secondary over the past five years. However, the Browns were number two on that list.

And when they broke the list down to most secondary injuries in a single season? The 2006 Browns had the single worst secondary injury situation in the NFL over the past 5 years. In fact, 2006 accounted for nearly half of our total secondary injuries out of the past 5 years.

The authors throw out some hypothesis to explain why both Crennel's former and current team have lead the league in secondary injuries. They think that Crennel views defensive backs as eminently replaceable so he does not mind taking a gamble on an injury prone back. I find that one kind of hard to believe. Last year's Browns secondary had injuries to Bodden and McCutcheon who both predate Crennel, and Gary Baxter whose freak injury is just rotten luck. Injury-prone guys get turf-toe and high ankle sprains and knee problems. They do not tear their patellar tendons.

Then just yesterday I was reading this over/under on the Football Outsiders website, and I caught this interesting note:

The other somewhat hidden factor that should bounce back for the Browns this season? Injuries, particularly on the defensive side. The Browns, as a whole, were more hurt in 2006 than any team has been in the six years we’ve tracked injuries. A likely regression to the mean on those injuries would result in a healthy, deep team. There’s a serious success story brewing here, and a real chance to make money.

As much as I bitch-and-moan about injuries, I am glad to finally see some statistical backing that the Browns truly are getting the short end of the stick. Although, I do not buy into their point that we will regress to the mean. Sure, in theory the injuries should let up, but this is the Browns. We don't regress to the mean, we skew the entire distribution.

Oh no, he's playing well

Even when a Brown has a great performance, it is bad news.

Quinn's 13 for 17 performance against the Lions' soon-to-be-cut defense probably does not tell us anything we did not already know about him. But it does make him look more NFL-ready than either of the erstwhile starters.

It is going to be a long season if Frye and Anderson can't keep the "Brady" chants to a minimum.

Under Maintainence

I'm trying to figure out this Blogger thing. So over the next few days the format might change a few times.

Scratch yesterday's post

I am recalling yesterday's post:

After posting yesterday, I emailed Profootballtalk.com to call him out for claiming credit for an idea I had already emailed to him. Pft responded to my email to say that he had never read my original email explaining the holdout theory. He even included a screen shot of his inbox listing it as unread. I'll take his word at it. So he didn't intentionally rip off anyone's idea.

Also, Ryan Tucker sat down with Patrick McManamon to explain his steroid issue. He says the steroids were part of his mental health regimen, and had nothing to do with gaining an advantage. I'll take his word at it. Sounds like he was in a tough position.

Then we changed our name to "The New Originals"

Profootballtalk.com has a blurb with this headline:
ARE RAIDERS, BROWNS SECRETLY HAPPY ABOUT HOLDOUTS

It goes on to talk about how a holdout is a good tool to guarantee the guy won't play too early. The only problem? The editor goes out of the way to point out that it is his "original" idea. Dude, WTF??

Both Bitterfans and I have both pushed such an idea, and I have seen it referenced other places, too. And what's worse, last week when pft asked Browns fans to write in their thoughts about the Quinn holdout, I emailed him and spelled it out for him, in case he's not a regular of the Browns blogosphere. His report was that all Browns fans were ticked off by the holdout, which seems in direct contradiction to most of what I've read.

I still frequent pft just because it is free and to the point, unlike most other NFL "news" sources. But man, my opinion of this guy keeps getting worse and worse. He's a Pittsburgh fan, and the worst kind of Browns-hater: the kind who pretends he doesn't hate the Browns, like a political idealogue who claimes that they're really just a moderate independent. He has had numerous offenses against the Browns that I usually don't bother commenting on because his opinion isn't worth wasting my time on. But this one got to me because it's personal.
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So Ryan Tucker is all juiced up with no place to go? I don't care too much because we have alot of depth, but, man, this is how catastrophes start: A strong position has one or two guys go out, and all of a sudden its a position with problems. Don't get me wrong, I still think that even with one or two backups playing this year, our line could be better than last year's line. But it is almost surely weaker without Tucker.

The thing that annoys me is that Tucker doesn't seem sorry about it. He says that he did what he needed to do to come back. Well I hope for his sake that the 'roids gave him more than four week's training would do, because now he is just going to be using his bigger bulk for holding the bench down. Idiot.

Some depth?

Profootballtalk.com reports that the Colts are going to cut Corey Simon. He would fit right in with the Browns over-the-hill, injury-waiting-to-happen defensive line.

He would be a risk, and an expensive risk, but after three years of drafting d-linemen no higher than the 6th round, we need to start making such moves just to stop the bleeding.

Sounds about right

You know you're a Browns fan when an injury announcement comes as a relief:

OBR reports that Orpheus Roye is going to have knee surgery. The surgery is to clean out some cartilage, and the hope is that he will be back in time for the season opener.

Of course, if I remember correctly, that was the EXACT same story that was used for Daylon McCutcheon last August, and not only did he not come back for the opener, but he never came back at all, and was cut this spring.

Not that we should expect the same thing for Roye. Clearly management had been preparing to cut Cutch, so maybe the surgery/injury was just a cover to free up the roster spot without creating a PR issue. Assuming that management isn't ready to cut Roye, this should be a different situation.

I say that this comes as a relief, because I'm expecting the injuries to mount, especially at some of our older positions without alot of depth. The fact that its finally here and not a season ending injury is kind of a relief. Although, maybe this is just a preview of what the football gods have cooked up for us.

Another new blog?

I just found this link for Dawgbeat on OBR. I don't know if this site has been around, but its new to me. Seems to have some formatting issues, but man, do I like that 2007 Game-by-game projection.

I've also added a few more links (on the right) to more blogs that I've come accross. I always think I've seen all the Browns blogs, and I always seem to find new ones that I've been missing.

One of these days I mean to do full review of the Browns Blogosphere, as a sort of directory, but also to take a snapshot of who is currently out there. See, I figure once the Browns start winning big and consistently alot of Fair weather fans will roll out new blogs, and at that time it may be useful to know who was there during the lean years.

You haven't got a bit of rope?

As much as I was looking forward to this time of year, it really sucks now that its here. So much waiting, so many open-ended questions. I am used to brushing off the training camp stars like Frisman Jackson, but with all our unsettled positions this year (QB, cornerback, D-Line. . .) its like ANY player review is nothing more than August fluff (and its still July!).

Eric Wright looks like a solid coverage guy? Oh, thats nice.

Jamal Lewis looks like he's back to his Browns-busting form? Great, hope it holds up.

Charlie Frye is making quicker throws, and learning the scrambling basics from Donovan McNabb? Super, can't wait to see it in action.

Chud is opening up the offense with end-arounds and Josh Cribb passes? Neat, I hope it works against somebody other than our reserve defenders.

I can come up with scenarios where we will see huge improvements:
>>A healthy Leigh Bodden, Eric Wright living up to the hype, and Sean Jones and Brodney Pool playing a pair of deadly snipers in the secondary could propel us to a top ten pass defense.
>>All the new guys on O-line means it could be one of the best in the league.
>>I was just reading a Football Outsiders reminiscence about Jerry Rice's rookie year when he was known for his drops. Maybe Braylon will turn it around like Jerry did.

But then I rememer all the reasons for doubt:
>> Bodden has never stayed healthy, so Holly will probably start a couple games. Wright is a complete unknown. Our CBs could be as bad as last year.
>> Weren't Cosey Coleman and Joe Andruzzi supposed patch up our line's last holes? Why should we expect Steinbach to keep performing now that he has gotten paid?
>> Are reports of the running backs/o-line doing a good power-rush impression for real, or is it just a sign of how bad our run defense is going to be this year?

I think the answer is, no matter how many reviews and training camp reports I read, nothing is going to settle anything. None of this is going to be settled until we see them on the field against the Steelers. Until then, its just a waiting game. So I'll probably just keep looking for rays of hope and reading Doerschuck's great training camp reports, and posting random thoughts, because at least that will help pass the time.

VLADIMIR: That passed the time.
ESTRAGON: It would have passed in any case.
VLADIMIR: Yes, but not so rapidly.
ESTRAGON: What do we do now?
VLADIMIR: I don't know.
ESTRAGON: Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for the season to start.

King High on Lewis

Peter King had a report from Browns training camp. I don't give a whole lot of weight to King's opinion, but he was very high on Jamal Lewis. He also added some background to the Quinn contract talks. King goes out of his way to be nice to everyone, so if he's calling Quinn's holdout silly, then it must have a measure of truth to it.

It looks like alot of the national beat writers are starting off at Cleveland. I guess they want to save the better teams for later in the preseason. With the Browns, they don't need to see how anything shapes up to figure out what the Browns' issues are.

And then there was one

So much for holdouts. The Browns got Joe Thomas and Eric Wright signed in time for camp. I'm happy, since I hope to see those guys playing early this season.

They can take their good-ol' time signing Brady Quinn. Maybe right around the second preseason game would be a good time for him to come in. That way he'll still be able to get some practice time, but he will definitely be out of the running for the first half of the season.

Although I'll also be happy if Quinn signs early, so that all those Quinn haters can eat their words.