2017 Season The Good, Bad and Ugly

It seems there should be a separate thread for this, keep the DPL clean.


Steelers Game:

The Good;
Our young guns seem to learning on the fly. Obviously Kizer came out and looked the part of a NFL QB for the majority of his plays. The worst decisions made were several held balls. That will come with time.

The defense was flying all over the field and converging at the ball in hoards. I loved seeing guys being stopped immediately and having no chance to wriggle free for extra yards. Once the ball was located there were never less than 4 guys there within seconds to put an end to the play.

The Bad;
Special Teams, how do you get the first punt of the season blocked? Absolutely no excuse..cost them the game, imho.

Wide receivers are not getting off the ball and getting separation. These guys either need to learn how to get off the line better, or they need to be replaced. Watching live, it was easy to see why Kizer was holding the ball too long on a couple of plays...but the other bad, Kizer did miss a couple of wide open receivers 10-20 yards down field. Should have been easy pass and catch, but play ended up going opposite way for either sack or scramble. He needs to do a better job scanning, then re-scanning.

The Ugly;
Quite frankly, I didn't see a lot of ugly from the Browns..but he cheap shots being laid by the Steelers yesterday cannot go ignored by the league office. They were clearly looking to hurt people. They seemed to be getting frustrated and I can only hope the league offices put an end to this before they hurt themselves and others.

 

Yay!!

 

Week 1: Steelers

Gotta agree with a lot of @IrishDawg42's post. Here's a couple other thoughts from the game.

Good
Gregg Williams, my goodness. The Browns' beleaguered defense just held a Super Bowl contender to 2.1 YPC (2nd), 35 rushing yards (2nd), and 14 points. In Antonio Brown's last three games before this one, he averaged 134 yards per game against the Browns, so his 182 isn't an anomaly. He's a tipped ball that went the wrong way and a toss-up pass (that Jason McCourty didn't even try to track) away from sub 100 yards on the day.

Derrick Kindred had himself a game. I posted it in the DPL (I think), but he was the highest-graded Browns defender on Sunday. It wasn't even the interception that was so good, but he also had a couple great blitzes where he came in and walloped an offensive player. Hue said it in his presser today, but it's the first time he's been here that he's seen "tackling and hitting... violent hitting". Unlike the Steelers, we did it cleanly, too.

#CreditWhereCreditsDue - Corey Coleman had a nice game. He wasn't the the field-stretcher they thought but he had a couple of nice catches, including holding onto the key one on fourth down for a touchdown despite yet another illegal hit from the defense. Could be in part due to a low bar set by his counterparts, but I saw a lot more than I expected out of Coleman.

Second-Half DeShone. Kizer is going to make an appearance in the Good, Bad, and Ugly this week, but that's not atypical of a rookie quarterback starting his first NFL game. DeShone certainly looked the part Sunday playing tough football while taking a ton of hits. His arm talent was never in question but what speaks volumes the most is how comfortable Hue was dialing up a pass play on fourth down with him. He said after the game he "likes having DeShone next to him" on the sidelines and during his presser today that the "young man is special". This is Hue Jackson's ride-or-die and that should bring out the best in both of them.

Bad
Letting Antonio Brown go for 182 yards on you. The tipped pass by Schobert was a tough break. Nine times out of 10 that ball goes to the ground or another defender. It was made worse by Jabrill Peppers whiffing on the tackle after the catch was made. On the "hail Mary" toss up into triple coverage, check out McCourty (#30):



Dude is an 8-year vet who should know to get his head turned around.

The other bad from the week is the hits that Kizer was taking, and not necessarily the holding the ball too long, but on the runs. He took the illegal shot from #50 to the ribs and another illegal shot from #50 on another scramble. Even at the goal line, he took some abuse on the sneak. I get he's built like a prototype QB (6'4" 233 pounds) but can we not try to run him into an injury Week 1?

Ugly
The interception and sacks taken by Kizer. Those were rookie mistakes that cost points, field position, momentum, etc. The good news is that they're all correctable mistakes. Will they get cleaned up in the next week or two? Probably not. But as long as he continues to take fewer chances and fewer sacks, we'll be making great strides forward.

How about the rest of the NFL? Call me a homer, but I saw at least 10 teams (whole rosters) worse than Cleveland's and we still have six teams who've yet to play ball this season. In no particular order, I fully believe the Browns can beat:

Baltimore (twice)
Indianapolis
Cincinnati (twice)
Houston
Jacksonville
New York (Jets)
Chicago

... and those are just the games on the schedule (San Francisco, New York (Giants), and Arizona round out the Top 10) . Yeah, I know Baltimore got the win, but that was one of the worst Bengals teams I've ever seen (and there's been a long list of them).

 

The Good:
I was pleasantly surprised by how the Browns kept themselves in this game. The offense and defense both had a few moments where they looked pretty darn good and will be able to compete fairly competently in the near future. Kizer shined a few times and the defense made a couple of key stops. For once, in a long time, this game wasn't over at half time.

The Bad:
-Kizer showed that he's a rookie learning the ropes. Hung on to the ball far too long quite a few times and wound up getting sacked 5 out of the 7 times IMHO because of it. Didn't get the happy feet though. Stood in the pocket......just too long a few times.

-Kenny Britt. Dear Gawd he has stone hands!!! He hasn't done squat even in preseason. Should get demoted but I really don't see who'd get moved up other than R. Louis and not sure Coates has the playbook down yet.

-Why were the DB's playing so far off the wideouts? And who was covering TE James on that one play? The secondary is still shaky but I guess I'll reserve judgment until the DEF is a bit more used to the Williams' schemes.....and that goes for the rest of the DEF as well. They all had some very good moments as well.

-Didn't get much pressure on Big Ben in the second half. There were a few plays he had 10-15 seconds waiting for somebody to get open. Hopefully Garrett comes back healthy soon and rectifies this.

-Back to the WR's......Coleman is no burner in this offense but he contributed well. As for the rest, nobody really stood out. On second thought, I thought DeValve played well. (Maybe Josh Gordon's possible reinstatement could put them over the top - but I wouldn't bank on him being back. It would make it interesting).

The Ugly:
-The blocked punt at the beginning. Without that, the Steelers may have lost this game.


All in all, a much improved version of what I'm used to seeing the last 20+ years. Still not sure if the Browns DEF played that well or whether the Steelers were having an off game on offense. Judging by what I'm used to seeing, I kinda think it was an off day for them. I really hate that I think that but you know..........that's what we're accustomed to (Maybe my attitude on this should go under The Ugly category). Until they can replicate a defensive performance like that again....... In no way was I disappointed in this outcome other than they lost. The Browns appeared to have some fight and resilience in them. And the game wasn't over at half time (or before half time).

 

The good Dalvin Cook w a record in his 1st game....salute my friend

 

Congratulations, now find the right thread to put it in...Browns v Steelers G, B & U is not the correct thread...

 

Try looking on CBS or Yahoo.

 

That was more for SAS to see

 

*Googles Kareem Hunt*

 

Ahh! Yes... completely forgot to put Britt in there. Good call.

Shades of Dwayne Bowe.

Looking at the defense most of the times, Peppers (and the announcers couldn't stop talking about it) was 20-25 yards off the LOS at many times. It seems Williams' approach in that game, with two game-breaking receivers, was to let them have the underneath routes and take away the deep ones. Now, that worked with the exception of two passes to Brown.

It looks like Joe Schobert was on Jesse James most of the game - definitely on one of the TD passes. Has anyone found the All-22 film of the game, yet?

Trent Green mentioned on the broadcast that Williams' approach was to try and "frustrate" Ben by dropping so many guys into coverage. Ben is slippery in the pocket, but he's not a running threat. In fact, once he's pressured if you don't get to him, in Williams' own words: "that's when he's the most dangerous". I actually liked the decision to limit the rush and try to frustrate the QB. Now, we can play the "what-if" game with the toss-up to Brown to seal the game all day, but overall, I thought it was a solid gameplan.

 

He was tough week 1

 

New England Run Defense (2016): 3rd, 1st scoring
New Orleans Run Defense (2016): 14th, 28th scoring







... and actually, this does sort of belong here.

Bad
Browns rushing game. Obviously, the Steelers were going to sell out to stop the run and force a rookie QB making his first start to beat them with his arm and head. They were successful - Crowell had 33 yards on 17 rushes (1.9), Dayes notched 7 yards on 3 carries (2.3), and again Duke Johnson was inexplicably kept out of the rushing attack. Not only was our running game foiled, but doesn't it seem logical that every defense is going to approach the Browns like the Steelers did?

If the Browns can't figure out how to get their running game going, a LOT of pressure is going to be put on Kizer to win games with a cast of receivers that are not going to scare anybody.

A dude like Hunt - who grew up in Cleveland and was a Browns fan and badly wanted to play here could have helped that backfield out a ton.

 

Treating this as the "All 2017 Thread" and keeping with the theme...

I think I might want this guy wearing orange and brown next season unless Crowell turns it up a notch:

 

Looks like the kicker or punter

 

Lol, does it matter?

 

So 87.1 yards per game from scrimmage and he returns kicks? Yes, please!

 

Does it matter if he did that to a defensive player or a kicker/punter...100% it matters....Im not taking anything away from his game just the clip wasnt that impressive if it was the kicker compared to a defender

 

I like him better than fournett

 

GOOD: The defense played inspired football. We needed a little more pass rush, but I think that's where Garrett could help....Also, our young QB deserves some love. He showed grit and toughness, but most importantly, our sideline believes in Kizer.

BAD: The running game, and the hands of Kenny Britt....Britt was awful in the preseason and worse on Sunday. I do not want to hear any more comparisons between him and Pryor. It's not close...I said throughout the offseason that our biggest mistake was not matching Pryor's reasonable deal from Washington, and now that decision has already cost us a win IMO...

UGLY: The multiple cheapshots laid out by Steelers players...Especially the shot Gay took on Ricardo Louis. That was ridiculous.