#Browns Game 1, Manziel can play, Haden bad, offense offensive.
The Cleveland Browns faced off in New Jersey to face the New York Jets on Sunday September 13th for the opening game of the 2015 season. Hopes were running high for both defenses as each team had major additions to their units in the offseason. The Jets added Leanord Williams, Darelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie and our own Buster Skrine, while the Browns added Danny Shelton, Randy Starks and Tramon Williams.
The Browns started quickly, forcing a punt after deferring the coin toss. Josh McCown drove the team all the way down the field from the 10 yard line, only to fumble, and leave the game with a concussion after attempting a John Elway, super bowl style dive into the end zone. The jets took over and Johnny Manziel started warming up.
I will get the bad and obvious out of the way first. Being extremely visible in the secondary, Joe Haden and Tashaun Gipson had really, really bad games. The Brandon Marshall strip after the Gipson interception really set the tone for the entire afternoon. Joe Haden was continually abused by Brandon Marshall and honestly, anyone who lines up against him. Ryan Fitzpatrick consistently got the ball out quickly while Hadens back was still to the ball. If I am an opposing offense, I would take note.
The good and not as obvious was that Johnny Manziel had a really bad game as far as ball security goes but he was good everywhere else. Manziel has 25 yard run erased by Crowell chop block in the Second quarter (11:10)Manziel had a very good throw on 3rd down, brought back by a holding call on Joel Bitonio. Manziel had a 20 yard run erased by a Mack holding penalty, made it 3rd and 18 instead of 1st and 10 on the other side of the 50 (pictured below).
The very next play Mack runs into Manziel and Manzeil fumbles. The game was over right then and there.
Manziel made good progressions, he got the ball out quickly, he made anticipation throws, he extended plays and had huge runs. There were a few lapses in field vision and sometimes was looking to make the big play and missing a check down, but Johnny Manziel looked really good. Fumbles aside, Manziel looked like an NFL QB, no question about it. I am not sure how the Browns will handle this situation after seeing the film.
There are so many problems on offense I am not even sure where to begin, but I will start where it all starts, with the offensive line. Mitchel Swartz and John Grecco were about as terrible as you could possibly imagine.
On this play, the line start blocking down, I guess Schwartz just assumed Wilkerson would push his way down the line. He did not, he stopped and Schwartz fell down.
Again, Schwartz getting abused by Wilkerson. I don’t think he even got a hand on him on this play.
That is not to say the running backs were good either. Red line is where he went, Yellow line is where he should go. Isah Crowell channeling his inner Trent Richardson.
However, the right side of the line was so, so bad. Here you have John Grecco on the ground, his assignment making the stop in the backfield.
Here you have John Grecco, getting pushed 4 yards into the backfield.
Last but certainly not least. While I believe the game as a whole was called well byt offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, does anyone really beleive that Jim Dray is capable of blocking Quinton Coples one on one?He is not and it was proven on the field.
When it comes to the skill positions. The Cleveland Browns are probably the worst in the entire league. Dwayne Bowe was paid $9 million dollars to come in and help a unit that was downright terrible to begin with. Bowe was a non injury inactive on Sunday. The rest of the squad could not get separation from the Jets secondary and when they did I counted at minimum 4 drops.
On this play it is hard to imagine that even an average height WR would pull this pass in for a touchdown. Andrew Hawkins is simply too short, has to jump to get it and can’t get his feet down. Time and time again the height of these WR’s shows up as a problem. Limited catch radius consistently shows up on the film.
There were very few bright spots on this day, but I am of the opinion that Johnny Manziel with no running game and absolutely terrible receivers was one of them. I believe that he proved that he can play in this league and I see absolutely no reason to go back to Josh McCown. Unfortunately I don’t think Pettine would agree with that. The other lone bright spot was the play of Danny Shelton. I was a big critic of Sheltons, but he proved that he can split and shed double team blocks. He has a lot to learn but he appears to be physically capable of handling NFL blockers.
The defense looked off, the players, especially the veterans on defense looked like they had too much rest and not enough reps. The offense was abysmal, between the poor line play and the best wide out on the field being Brian Hartline. Think about that, Brian Hartline is our best receiver. It was a really poor showing for the Browns who are now coming home to play the QB they always wanted, rookie Phenom Marcus Mariotta. The Browns need to make some serious adjustments if they want to win that game.
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Why cutting Terrell Pryor was long overdue. #Browns
The Cleveland Browns signed former Ohio State Buckeye, Quarterback Terelle Pryor this offseason with the plan to switch him to playing Wide Receiver. A position that Pryor had been reluctant to play in the past, it is my belief that Pryor, well aware of the Browns quarterback carousel and was willing to try and play some WR with the hope of keeping an NFL job, while setting himself up with his best and last chance at any QB duty. Pryor had to have thought that with the history here he would at minimum get to play a game at QB, while attempting to transition.
During the offseason we saw a ton of Pryor in shorts and no shirt, making tremendous grabs against imaginary defenders and fans hopes for the former buckeye started to rise. The first day of camp we saw a trick play for a touchdown and hopes continued…
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Why cutting Terrell Pryor was long overdue. #Browns
The Cleveland Browns signed former Ohio State Buckeye, Quarterback Terelle Pryor this offseason with the plan to switch him to playing Wide Receiver. A position that Pryor had been reluctant to play in the past, it is my belief that Pryor, well aware of the Browns quarterback carousel and was willing to try and play some WR with the hope of keeping an NFL job, while setting himself up with his best and last chance at any QB duty. Pryor had to have thought that with the history here he would at minimum get to play a game at QB, while attempting to transition.
During the offseason we saw a ton of Pryor in shorts and no shirt, making tremendous grabs against imaginary defenders and fans hopes for the former buckeye started to rise. The first day of camp we saw a trick play for a touchdown and hopes continued to rise. The rhetoric out of camp was that Pryor was a tremendous athlete that would likely make the team with his speed and ball skills.
However, once the pads were put on, Pryor ceased to be impressive. Injured most of camp with a nagging hamstring that he re-injured Pryor was not practicing. Due to his nagging injury, he was not playing in the games either, which for a guy at a new position, is a major concern. Carrying him on the 53 man roster when you don’t know if he can play is a disaster waiting to happen.
And it was…
The first instance that you really knew something was not right was a series of tweets from Donte Whitner regarding Josh Lenz.
Whitner was clearly under the impression that someone was going to make the roster that definitely did not deserve it as much as Lenz. Then on the same day came a series of tweets from Brian Hartline which were along the same exact topic. Hartline was not as outspoken as Whitner and neglected to comment on exactly what he was referring to, none the less, you can read between the lines.
What really sparked my interest in this article was when Tony Grossi asked if there was any beef between Pryor and Hartline. Hartlines response was very agitated and aggressive. Paraphrasing he said “we were team mates at ohio state, I didn’t say that you said that”. He was clearly aggravated with Grossi. Something was going on here; the players will never admit it publicly but I do not think it was a coincidence Pryor was cut shortly after.
The problem is the mix of Ohio State buckeye fans. Fans really wanted to see Pryor play and frankly, they are being irrational about his release. When you script (see what I did there) it out, it goes like this.
- QB, cut from multiple teams
- Transition to WR stalled by recurring injuries.
- Played in game 4 of preseason and was ineffective at best.
- Was classless in his release, saying the Browns would regret it, rather than just thanking them for the opportunity and moving on.
The cutting of Terelle Pryor was long, long overdue. He probably didn’t deserve to make the 75 without practicing. For some reason the front office kept him around long enough to piss off some of the Veterans. The grinders, the hard workers on the team, it was clear something was not right. Finally they cut him, fans are complaining, and so am I, just for different reasons. There was no reason to keep him around as long as they did and upset the veterans on this team.
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