I said I was looking forward to winning against the Raiders, then getting to the Ravens to see exactly where we stand...Well, now I am worried. I want to see better play selection dependent on the situation.. I want to see us take care of the ball better.. I saw some really good things last week, and honestly, the field played a bigger role last week than the refs, imho. Yes, the Raiders had to deal with it also, but that's their home field, not only do they have more opportunities to practice on the field, they also play games there, so they know what can and cannot be done at game speed. The first half, there was an adjustment period for both sides of the ball. We don't have to deal with that this week, they can just go out and play football. I expect this offense to play better than any other offense the Ravens have faced this year...How's that? Here is what I want to see out of the offense: 275+ passing yards 125+ rushing yards That doesn't seem herculean does it? The most passing they have given up this year is to the Bengals and Steelers @ 265 yards. The most rushing yards given up is to the Broncos @ 120 yards. The only game they have lost this far is to the Bengals who had 373 total yards, I'm asking for 400 total yards. They just had 487 last week... The defense needs to get back on track and be more aggressive at the line chucking receivers when they are in zone. They can't continue to allow receivers to get off the line. The Ravens are averaging 396.75 yards per game...I want to hold them to 348 yards... 249 passing and 99 rushing (this shouldn't be difficult, they have only surpassed 99 yards once so far) ...My stipulation is, don't let them get chunk plays and you don't give up the yardage. I want to keep them to under 5 yards per play average... I also want to see the clock run and run and run... NO STUPID PENALTIES. That goes double for Special Teams! At some point Special teams have got to start carrying their weight, thus far they have been a detriment to this team. We need all three phases... What's the best way to become AFC North Division Champions? Win AFC North Division games! Improvement each week, and we will start having win streaks, leaving losing streaks behind us for good.
We haven't won an AFCN game in 3 years, and we get the hated Ravens, at home. This is what it's all about. No motivational speeches necessary for this one. The Browns should come into this game with a serious attitude after what happened in Oakland, while the Ravens will come to town feeling good about themselves after soundly beating the Steelers Sunday night.... I think home crowd plays a huge advantage for us. Mayfield feeds off of that as well as any QB ever has. I won't do it, but one could argue that the Cleveland Browns could be 4-0 pretty easily with a competent kicker, and better officiating. No doubt the team feels this way, even if they won't say it...We will go as far as Baker can take us, and I think he's going to be super focused. We scored 42, but Mayfield missed some plays in Oakland, and he knows it. And he also knows, the Browns squandered a 14 point second half lead, which simply can't happen.. Plenty to clean up, and Baker will be up to the task. Still a rookie. He won't be perfect, but I have complete confidence that this kid can keep the Browns in the hunt... I expect a typical hard hitting battle, and an emotional Cleveland victory over Baltimore in front of the Dawg Pound faithful...
Just like the Raiders game... it's going to come down to turnovers. In two games last season, we gave the ball away nine times to the Ravens. We were -7 differential and lost both games (obviously) 10-24 and 10-27. Joe Flacco is having the best season of his career so far. Their offense is Top 10 and their defense is Top 5. BUT... Who have they played? The Dumpster Fire Bills, the 2-2 Broncos - who have one of the worst offenses in the NFL and an average defense, the 1-2-1 Steelers - who we played to a tie, and the Bengals, to whom they lost. Immediately throw out the Bills because that's an 0-16 roster with an 0-16 quarterback. 23-34 (L) Cincinnati 27-14 (W) Denver 26-14 (W) Pittsburgh 326.3 passing YPG, 79.6 rushing YPG, 25.3 PPG - on offense. 234.3 passing YPG allowed, 82.3 rushing YPG allowed, 20.6 PPG allowed - on defense If the referees stay out of the way and the Browns win the T/O differential battle, Cleveland should win but win narrowly. I'm taking the Browns by six.
Is this really your reasoning on why Baltimore will lose? How are you discrediting the Ravens based on wins and loses when Cleveland lost to the Raiders, and tied the Steelers in Cleveland whom the Ravens beat comfortably in Pittsburgh? Using other games played doesn't really help the Browns on an objective level. All that said, if the Browns win this game, it's because their offense and defense came to play. Not because of who each team previously played. Also, don't trash the Bills too hard. Them beating the Vikings convincingly is more impressive than a 4 points win over the Jets.
QUOTE="Lyman, post: 612538, member: 23"]Like it or not, the Ravens are legit. Go . . . . .[/QUOTE] Agreed the Ravens are playing extremely good football at this point. The Browns will need to play mistake free football in ALL three phases of the game to have a chance at winning. They have to win the battles in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Defensively the secondary has to play better! They can’t continue to let receivers run free in the secondary, agree w/ TD they have to stop letting WR/TE get free releases off the line. While they are generating turnovers, they are still giving up way too many big plays at the most inopportune times, not getting stops, and getting off the field. Get to Flacco early and keep him rattled all day long. Wrap the ball carrier up and make the tackle. The half-ass one arm shit isn’t getting it done. I’d like to see less flashy stunting with Williams play calling and play more hardnosed smash mouth D. The Browns seem to get caught with their pants down when Williams starts getting cute w/ play calling, and the D gives up big plays. Offensively the Browns need to grind it out. Put together long drives that eat up the clock (agree w/ TD) and limit Flacco’s opportunities. Receivers need to eliminate drops and run crisp routes. Receivers need to keep moving once Mayfield starts scrambling. Mayfield can make things happen WR just need to keep moving and get open. Get three yards when we only need one. Leave NO Phuqing doubt that they achieved the line of gain. Spoiler: Segment for another episode of Duff's conspiracy theory's The NFL’s Bovine Feces of an explanation for overturning the call on the field. The strip sack fumble that miraculously didn't happen... All leads me to believe that the NFL didn’t want to let their $100 Million dollar coach go 0-4 The Browns need to come out and be dominantly physical from the opening kick to the final whistle.
Amen to the ^^^spoiler Crex. It's still unbelievable to me. For those jackals to come out and announce that the refs made a good call is such bullshit...Another slap in the face of the Cleveland Browns.... This team should have an edge on Sunday...A nasty one.
Admittedly, I haven't watched all four of Baltimore's game. Of the games I have watched, I'm not seeing a Top 10 offense and a Top 5 defense. So when I look at who they played to arrive at those stats, I begin to think that maybe the numbers are a bit more inflated for that purpose. I have watched all four of Cleveland's games. They won one against a rookie QB, should have one two more against veteran teams - and would have if not for the NFL referees, and played an NFC Championship caliber team damn close on their own field. Correct.
I won't argue about the Ravens offense. Fact is, they are good (you can't set a redzone TD scoring record and be top 10 in yards while not being good), but I'll agree they haven't faced top end competion yet, but not that doesn't apply to the defense. The defense has only allowed 9 points in 8 second half quarters. That's making proper adjustments and playing great defense. Half of the offenses they faced are currently top 10 offenses and they faced both of those offenses at their stadiums, one on a short week. And they did all this without their top CB, and inside starting pass rusher, and their top ILB (for two games on the ILB). Sorry but Baker is going to have to earn every yard this Sunday. But admittedly so will Joe. I just don't think who teams played favors the Browns. For example, the Raiders scored more than twice as many points on the Browns defense than they did any other defense so far. The Steelers scored more on the Browns defense than the Ravens, while turning the ball over 6 times. How much do they score with only 3 turnovers? 42? Curious though, which two Ravens games did you watch for that conclusion? I'm guessing Steelers and Bengals. If so, can you explain how you came to that conclusion? They shut the Steelers down for 3 quarters and moved the ball on them at will minus a few drives in the middle. They were dominated in the first quarter against Cincy, but even after that the offense and defense won the next 3 quarters (it just wasn't enough). They likely win if that was a Sunday game and not a Thursday night game
You realize you picked two games where the referees determined the outcome of the game, right? Specifically with respect to the Pittsburgh game, the penalty that the NFL itself said was in error led directly to seven points. So take that away and the Browns hold the Steelers to... 14 points. For Oakland, they had 17 points off short field drives (63 total yards on all three) and another 7 on the early interception returned for a touchdown. Spotting any team 24 points like that should pretty much guarantee a win. The Raiders needed five periods, massive interference from the referees, and a completely bogus reversal (which should have led to the end of the game) to "win". It's difficult to get a feeling for the offense overall, since we changed quarterbacks already, but... Tyrod was averaging 3.55 PPQ (39 points through essentially 11 quarters). Baker Mayfield is averaging 9.00 PPQ (63 points through essentially seven quarters). Flacco is averaging 7.69 and throwing out the Bills game, it's 6.34.
Now, all that's not to say I think the Browns walk away with this one. Gregggggg Williams called an atrocious game against Oakland and did let the team run up and down the field on them with reckless abandon. Part of that was blitzing non-stop (again leads the NFL). Part of that was losing Terrance Mitchell early and T.J. Carrie having absolutely no success against them. Part of that is simply the schemes leaving receivers wide open and again allowing opposing tight ends to do whatever they please. The Ravens have a good rotation of three tight ends, which does not bode well for the defense. Having E.J. Gaines start over T.J. Carrie is already a step in the right direction, but doesn't mean anything if Greggggg Williams continues to leave receivers wide open in a desire to blitz uncontrollably. Joe Flacco isn't a good QB, in my opinion, but he's veteran enough to find the free runners when Gregggg brings more on a blitz and can't cover everything on the back-end. The Browns' offense can beat the Ravens. I am not as confident that our defense can hold them and our special teams can't do something costly to hurt them.
That's not really worth bragging about imo. Let's assume they did hold Pittsburgh to 14. It took six turnovers to do so. Meanwhile, you're questioning the Ravens when they held them to 14 with just two? Come on SAS. The Raiders almost had 600 yards of total offense. Even with the multiple short fields you mentioned, and getting a score off the defense which basically ended up keeping the defense on the field longer, the Raiders offense still had +5 in the ToP battle and marched up and down that field at will. I still don't get how these comparisons in other games make Cleveland look like the team that has the edge. I never understood the love of removing random games/stats to help an argument. You can't remove the Bills game. You also can't make comparisons like this. Against Buffalo, Flacco practically sat the entire second half and I see that isn't reflected in your total. If it was, you'd have Joe at 8.78 PPQ. Things like this also don't factor in that Cleveland HAD TO KEEP THROWING and trying to score against Oakland. Meanwhile, the Ravens spent the 4th quarter against Pittsburgh focused on killing clock. This also doesn't compare the quality of defenses played. Oakland is the second worst scoring defense in the NFL right now. Pure trash. Now, you could reply and say they are that bad because Cleveland scored 42 on them, but then I'd reply by pointing out that the Ravens dropped 47 on Buffalo and their scoring defense is ranked 20th. Again, I'm not saying who will win this game, but I'm 100% saying that your comparison of who they played, and now how they did in those other games, just doesn't work in Cleveland's favor. Now if we did want to do a comparison, you could only use the Steelers, and even then only compare defenses since Baker wasn't on the field week 1. In that comparison, the Ravens defense did better against the pass and against the run. The Browns defense did much better in turnovers
I disagree. We've seen Flacco with one "good" WR and a bunch of "meh" pass catchers for practically his whole career. The two seasons he had a good WR, at least one other decent WR, and a decent pass blocking o-line he went to back to back championship games and won a superbowl. This is flat out, the best pass catching group he's ever had and he's on pace for 5k yards. As someone that actually wanted Joe gone, I still admitted he never had true talent around him and that's proving to be the case. Maybe he regresses and maybe he doesn't, but Joe looks very good right now. And for disclaimer purposes, I'm not suggesting we'll be in the championship game again. We'll see. This isn't the Raiders defense. I think Baker will be good, but this is a bad matchup for him. For as well as the Ravens defense has been playing, they are just now getting back one of the elite CBs in the NFL. That doesn't bode well for Mayfield unless they limit Jimmy's snap count due to not being in game shape or something. It'll be another problem if interior pass rusher, Willie Henry, returns. Honestly, the key to this game imo will be turnovers. If the turnover battle is at zero each, that doesn't bode well for the Browns.
Yes, but Tyrod Taylor was not converting turnovers into points... Baker Mayfield is. That game looks a lot different if Baker were at the helm, based on what he has done thus far. Hard to say he would have, being his first game out. I agree, if the defense doesn't come out swinging, this will be a tough week, no matter what Baker and the offense does.
The Ravens are the favorites (and reasonably so), but it would be nice to see Cleveland pull this one out.
I really like this team, this year. That said, we measure success/ progress with wins, and we haven't much to brag about. Close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades. I "think" we have a really good D, but again, we are giving up a lot of yards. Turn overs have been the difference, and maybe masking some of the deficiencies. I "think" Mayfield is going to be for real, but while he looks good, you could easily blame the fumble and the Ints for the loss (not mentioning officiating). So, I am sure the Browns "can" win this week, but are very appropriately underdogs. I "hope" the home crowd inspires them again. I "hope" Baker continues to grow, and learn. I "hope" the D figures out how to deploy all those weapons, and stifle the Ravens. I would expect us to be able to contain their anemic running game, but frankly that won't decide the game. A sharp Baker, an inspired D, and some actually special teams play would make me smile, and I'd take my chances. Raven's have risen, and are a tough matchup, but they aren't remotely unbeatable. Go Browns
