I am wondering how this team will play the next two weeks ? they were as flat as a team could be last Sunday . they were just as flat against the Texans at HOME ???? I don't understand how a team with so much still riding on wetehr or not they win can be so flat in front of your home crowd ? when they stink it up its a group effort . they get pushed around on both sides of the ball . the defense cant stop anything the O Line gets owned . that pisses me off more than anything . I hate it when they get smacked in the mouth and don't respond . we will see how much character this team has starting Sunday . they are not out of the playoffs yet . I know a million things have to happen in order for them to get in starting with them winning out . they have to play inspired football . its also a matter of pride ! we get to face off against Anderception this Sunday . lets hope bad DA Shows up and not he guy who can wing it for 300 + yards .
This team is pretty much the same crap that we've been dealt in Cleveland for the last 15 seasons. ...Three of our wins have come against the horrible NFC South teams. BTW, all three of those W's could have easily been L's, and let's face it, if Mike Smith knew how to manage timeouts, we'd have lost in Atlanta...We needed 4th quarter comebacks to beat both Tampa and New Orleans by 1 point at home...With an average schedule, this is a 4 or 5 win team. Hell, sometimes they don't even seem interested. Perhaps I'm too generous speculating 4 or 5 wins...
Well, as true as that may be, the record books and our later draft position next year won't confirm that.
Els, calm down bro. I actually can see how you took Lym's original response as a little bit of a slap at your intelligence. That's how it was written, and I think by him saying "you asked" at the end, it confirmed that it was a little jab, and he should have expected a little sauce on the return....But WOW dude. Your response was WAY over the top. You were like Michael Douglas in the movie "Falling Down".... Obviously there's more to it than just this, but I hope you guys can work this out...I like all the regular posters in the DPL, and I've butted heads with about all of em too. Anyway, I understand how emotion can take over sometimes, and for me to be critical of it really is the pot and kettle story.....I just don't want to lose any good posters here. So for my own selfish reasons, "can't we all just get along?"..... This is what happens when we lose 4 of 5 and everybody is pissed...It's escalated this year because we were 7-4 and in first place when our downward slide began...
Johnny Manziel looked completely lost in his first ever NFL start last weekend, which is not all that uncommon for a rookie quarterback. While the Cleveland Browns? 30-0 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals wasn?t all his fault, Manziel might have performed better if he worked harder on practicing and preparing all season. Fox Sports broadcaster John Lynch sat down with Manziel for an interview last week. According to Lynch?s colleague Kevin Burkhardt, Manziel came off as very genuine and honest. He even admitted he has not worked as hard as he could have worked this season. ?I thought he gave a pretty honest answer; he said you can?t really compare my work habits to Peyton Manning or Tom Brady,? Burkhardt told Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated. ?Manziel said this week he put in maximum effort, that he worked his tail off, and that hopefully it was going to show. He was pretty honest with us on the fact that he put in all this work this week and maybe not for the whole year. ?He came off very honest, maybe even a little naive. John [Lynch] brought up all the great quarterbacks and said they do what Johnny did this week every week.? Manziel also told Lynch that he has learned more about football from sitting out this year than he had learned in all of his previous 22 years. ?The one thing that impressed me ? and the coaches told this to John, too ? is that he has been a good teammate,? Burkhardt explained. ?Manziel said he thought sitting out was a good thing because he learned more about football this year than he had his entire life. I believed him. I don?t think it was media talk.? While there are some analysts who believe Manziel will never amount to anything in the NFL, I?m not ready to write him off just yet. That said, Manziel needs to start putting in the work and preparing every week like he is going to play ? regardless of if he is starting or not. Manziel is not going to dominate the NFL with his speed like he did at Texas A&M. He needs to stop feeling entitled and start thinking of himself as a seventh-round pick with something to prove.
Tim Couch may be the most disappointing of all the Browns? disappointing quarterbacks in the last 15 years. But Couch says it?s time to look at the franchise, not at the quarterbacks, as the reason for their continued failure. Couch, the 1999 first overall draft pick who spent five seasons in Cleveland and never even reached a passer rating of 80 in any of them, said that the Browns need to find a coach and a quarterback who can work together, then stick with them through good times and bad. ?It?s been a long 15 years of watching the same thing repeat itself over and over. The biggest that frustrates me is the lack of commitment and loyalty to let a coach see it out and a quarterback play it out,? Couch told ESPN. Couch agrees with Bernie Kosar, the former Browns quarterback who says the front office has created a culture in which there?s never a quarterback the franchise can get behind completely. ?I thought everything he said was right,? Couch said. ?This is just repeating the same process of the last 15 years, like Bernie said. Whether it was me, Kelly [Holcomb] or on and on and on, the finger keeps being pointed at the quarterback. It?s the team. Build a team and then worry about the quarterback.? It may be too late for that now: The Browns are wedded to Johnny Manziel for the last two games of this season and as their Week One starter in 2015 as well. Now they just have to hope Manziel proves to be the kind of quarterback who earns loyalty from the franchise.
Morning Bluez. Set me up with a pot of coffee if you would. Was up until almost 1AM wrapping the kids' presents
Beach, that Sam Kinison show was a classic...I saw that when I was out in California in 1989. Damn that dude was funny! Like a lot of famous chubby funny guys, he just lived his life way to hard...If ya haven't seen that whole show though, I highly recommend it. At the end when he's singin songs he wrote about his ex's, it's the funniest shit I've ever heard....
The one-sentence takeaway: One game shouldn't define Manziel's career, even if that's what seems to be happening. ESPN analyst and former Steelers running back Merril Hoge looks prescient after proclaiming Sunday morning that Johnny Football had "first-round hype with sixth-round talent," before pointing out a day later that whoever drafted Manziel "needs to be fired." NFL Films' Greg Cosell, whose knowledge of X's and O's rivals most coaches, has studied Manziel's abysmal game tape against the Bengals. His conclusion: "The problem is Manziel didn't want to stay in the pocket," Cosell wrote on Yahoo.com. "He lacks any feel for the pocket, has almost no pocket patience and discipline and is very quick to move and play what I call 'random football' outside of the structure of the offense." Sounds a lot like the criticisms leveled at Robert Griffin III, now in his third NFL season. Cosell also noted that Manziel had an "average arm by NFL standards," and "needs functional space and a clean pocket to step up into throws and drive the ball ... He works hard to put any velocity on his throws." Meanwhile, NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock said that, "The only athletic quarterbacks that survive in the NFL are the ones that learn how to win from within the pocket." Fair criticism, all of it. But here's Mayock in March, after Manziel blew away everyone in attendance at his pro day. "There's a leap of faith involved from a general manager or team perspective if you want to take this kid in the top 10," Mayock said at the time. "When chaos happens, he's phenomenal. What you have to buy into, if he's a top-10 pick, is that he's going to learn. If you combine his spontaneity with an ability to win from within the pocket, then you've got something unique in today's NFL. If you get that, yeah, he's the No. 1 pick in the draft." And NFL Network colleague Kurt Warner, also at Manziel's pro day, said, "He showed us he can make all the throws. That deep ball was impeccable. Great touch, good enough velocity and was able to set it out there." This isn't to call out Mayock, who is one of the media's best talent evaluators, or Warner, who has forgotten more about the quarterback position than we'll ever know. Instead, it's to point out just how easy it is to get caught up in Manziel Mania -- good or bad -- in the moment. Yes, Manziel was god-awful on Sunday. But he also blew the doors off his pro day workout nine months ago. Does he have a lot to work on? Absolutely. But he's made one start. "Can he get there with experience? Maybe," Cosell wrote. "But he has a lot to overcome to be a high-level NFL quarterback. He's a small quarterback with average arm strength and almost no pocket skills and discipline at this point." Which is exactly what he was back in March. It's just that nobody saw it back then.
Updated at 4:10 p.m. Extra Points ? Good times: Bernie Kosar?s scathing review of the Browns? losing culture this week pretty much spared coach Mike Pettine from blame. Kosar said the debacle of Johnny Manziel?s starting debut was ?almost abuse? and was systematic of a losing culture in the front office and above that never changes despite constant turnover of names and faces. On Wednesday, Pettine responded, ?I think that?s a little dramatic.? ?Sometimes guys make comments that are over the top,? the coach continued. ?I have a lot of respect for Bernie, he?s one of my favorite guys growing up, a heckuva quarterback. He?s entitled to his opinion. But being here on the inside of it and seeing what we?re building and seeing the interaction we have between (owner) Jimmy Haslam and (General Manager) Ray Farmer and (President) Alec Scheiner and myself, the commitment is all there for us to be successful and obstacles are being removed for us to be successful. ?I?m very encouraged about the future here, very encouraged. I?d be the last one to tell you that the odds are stacked against us to be successful because of management. That couldn?t be further from the truth.? The Browns are 7-7 and virtually out of the playoff chase after peaking at 6-3 with a win over Cincinnati on Nov. 6. ?We?re in a society of instant gratification,? Pettine said. ?Everybody wants it to happen now. As much as we want that to happen, it is a process. When you build a house, you have to build from the foundation, build it the right way, make sure it?s rock solid. And we?re in the middle of that. ?So I get people are going to have their opinions, say what they say. A lot more of that happens when you?ve lost three in a row. I didn?t hear a lot of that when we?d gotten our seventh win. So if you want that stuff to go away, it still comes back to a bottom line business. You?ve got to win games.? For kicks: Lost in Manziel?s debacle debut was the fact the Browns learned nothing about their new kicker, Garrett Hartley. He never got on the field except for warm-ups before the game and before the second half. ?This week we don?t feel that bad (about the uncertainty),? Pettine said. ?He?s played in (Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC) more than any of our guys with his history in New Orleans.? Punter Spencer Lanning handled the only Browns kickoff of the game against the Bengals and belted it five yards deep into the end zone. Pettine said coaches will decide after a full week of practice who will kick off in Carolina. The Browns were forced to finally make a change on Billy Cundiff when he hurt his right knee at practice on Thursday and it stiffened up the next day. He agreed to an injury settlement and was waived. ?There?s nothing below the surface with Billy,? Pettine said. Hartley?s only previous NFL stadium was the Louisiana Superdome, but during his career with the Saints, he actually had a better kicking percentage outdoors (.883) than indoors (.739). ?One thing people always said was 'can you kick outside?'? Hartley said. ?Going from high school (in Texas) to college in Oklahoma, wait five minutes and the weather?s something different. The wind blows out there. So, it?s nothing new to me. Coming out here is just gonna be a great opportunity.? Brownie bits: In Carolina, quarterbacks Cam Newton and Derek Anderson split first-team reps. Newton missed the last game after injuring his back in a two-car accident. Panthers coach Ron Rivera said that Newton looked good but he would wait another day to make a decision. ?We expect him to play,? Pettine said ? linebacker Karlos Dansby (knee) is closer to playing ? tight end Gary Barnidge (ribs) was limited ? cornerback Joe Haden (shoulder) is ?day to day? ? safety Tashaun Gipson (knee) will most likely not be ready for Sunday.
Awesome pic crex...I was having a pretty lousy hump day as a matter of fact, but I'm pretty sure that made it all better... *THUMBSUP*
It seems that Couch and our beloved Bernie is on to something here. Couch as we all know got killed in the pocket. Bernie could release the ball quicker because he could read the defenses early. Plus the talent around him. But I must say I agree with both of them. I can remember a couple years ago when I had the SUCK FOR LUCK campaign going. The Browns were almost there fellas! When that next great QB comes out you have to do what you have to do to get him. The Colts did and now they are winners! The Redskins traded the house for RG3 and got burnt. You win some you lose some I guess! But back to the topic. These 2 former signal callers are right. The Browns problems are always switching things. Owners, Front Office, Coaches, Schemes and yes QB! No Stability in this organization. NOWHERE! It's plane as day that Haslam is calling all the shots. He made the call to draft Manziel (which means Farmer didn't do it) and he made the call for Manziel to play ( which means Pettine didn't). This season he has taken more control as the season went on. Is he becoming Dan Snyder or Al Davis? Irish I think you mentioned something like that earlier. Look, I love the fact the Browns could be 7-9 or 8-8 if many things happen. Coming out of college I liked JF waaayy more than Hoyer. I also understand that the team had a winning record with Hoyer so how can we bench him then. Then, the then happened. He played HORRIBLE! No touchdowns just picks. It was time for a change. They must of knew Hoyer wasn't the QB of the future at the end of last year or why draft Johnny? Hoyer is only 30. Not an old man by no means. Plenty of years left. Like I said they knew something. That something was Hoyer will shot himself in the foot sooner or later and he did. Johnny enters the game and is shunned by his team. That has been well documented around here. He then comes out, plays and the whole team except a small handful look like chit! Is that the love for Hoyer, the dislike for Manziel or bad preparation by the Browns. I think a little bit of all the above. If that's the case. If this team doesn't respect Manziel because he's cocky, already rich or doesn't show up early for meetings and stay late then we need to find another future QB! I'm a line guy 1st. But after that you have to have a good QB. JM is young and hopefully he will get better but if he has already lost the locker room before even playing a whole game then the Browns are in trouble AGAIN! The radio interview I heard said that Gordon is the cancer but Manziel is not far behind. It said he is still young enough to earn the teams respect by playing well. Last Sunday didn't help his cause any. But what if Hoyer walks and JM is not the answer? Then What? Conner Shaw? I don't know I guess we will see how this thing plays out. But for our sake, JM sake and the Browns sake he better. GOOO BROWNS!!!!
