MDDawg

16 minutes ago, Icecube said:

Their best redzone threat only got 4 TDs in a season? 

Our redzone productivity has dropped in his absence.

4 hours ago, jiggins7919 said:

This is exactly what is nobody can answer. Like you said, he DID it, so why can't he CONTINUE to do it? What many will say is that teams now have film on Baker, and they know how to confuse him. I don't buy TOO much into this because it doesn't explain why Baker is missing the throws he nailed last year. Let's take that Landry interception for example. It was a truly awful throw and it boned us right between the cheeks. You could almost say that play lost us the game. Well, you remember last year playing the Broncos, and we were down like 3 points and needed a score? We had the ball around the 5 yard line, Baker audibles the play and drills Calloway with a perfect slant for the game winning TD. It's the same pass he missed to Landry. Why the hell does he miss that THIS year? 

Our defense also doesn't do many favors. Sure, they're playing pretty well, right? But situationally...they're not making the big play. I mean, I see defensive touchdowns every week. I see pick-6's, scoop and scores, strip sacks...but never with us. Our defense gave up a TD drive before the half vs Seattle and it was crushing. Yeah, Baker threw a pick, but COME ON. Also, as weird as the game was, the defense had the lead in the 4th quarter. If you have the lead on the 4th quarter, you WIN THE GAME. You get the damn stop. We've got to figure out how to force more turnovers. 

 

In all fairness, Greedy and Ward were out and Russell Wilson feasted on TJ Carrie and Mitchell. You also need good corners for an effective pass rush, another reason why Freddie should've called a ball control offense.

14 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

Those are actually fair points. I guess the counter-argument is that you shouldn't put your team in that situation, but you're absolutely right. The coach SHOULDN'T have to worry about you effing up, he should be expecting you to make the plays. If you're Freddie, you have to be thinking, "Are you effing serious? You assholes can't complete ONE slant in the endzone?" 

Let's look at that Landry interception. At first I thought it was a terrible decision to make the throw, but upon review, Landry was freaking open, if only a little bit. As I just referenced in my previous post, our stars simply don't make plays when we need them. Baker's throw was absolutely TERRIBLE. It's not a stretch to say that I could have made a better toss there. Why? Because even I know that ball has to be inside, LOW, and either caught by my guy or the dirt. Literally, Baker threw the ball to the ONE place he couldn't...it's...unbelievable really. (what's also unbelievable is that Baker threw a low, inside ball to Calloway who somehow popped it up to a defender. I mean, wtf. Even when we MAKE the play, we can't MAKE the play?!) 

The weird thing is Baker never made these type of awful throws last season. Only with the Browns can a QB regress so quickly and the irony is that Freddie was hired so Baker could continue to develop under the same OC, instead he's worse. Now we're in a worst case scenario: lumped with an inexperienced coach and a QB who's regressing.

10 hours ago, CLEVELANDwantsPLAYOFFS said:

What baffles me was the desire to score quickly, thinking that the defense is destined to get you the ball back against an elite QB in 2 minute offense. Without the 2 starting corners..

This is why I call BS on Freddie's explanation of his decision. We were playing against the top rated QB in the league who at the minimum would've played keepaway.

56 minutes ago, gumby73 said:

saw it & not buying any of it.. John Clayton is the biggest Hawks fan known to mankind..I believe he lives there & host a KIRO radio show from Seattle..Still a heavy metal rocker but Clayton would stir the pot for solely ESPN ranking, just like the others that still rein at that network.."There was a lot of Talk" yep..got it..the guy in section 333 can source that.. 

Don't believe that rumor but if Freddie coaches a losing season or misses the playoffs, I think they'll cut their losses. Freddie's aggressive playcalling is advertising for his next job if things don't work out here.

On 10/16/2019 at 4:46 PM, PoeticG said:

Two things:

1) Baker threw that ball over the first defender, that was a perfect ball. Get your eyes checked. 

2) The ball wasn't as high as you make it out to be, Njoku could have caught that ball standing on his feet- He didn't need to leap for it. If he just keeps running it's a clean catch, he's going to get hit yeah, but the hit wouldn't have put him on IR. 

The pass was late and allowed the defenders to close in on him. He threw another late pass in that game to Beckham who has also sandwiched but fortunately wasn't injured.

Not really a revision for me as my preseason prediction was 10-6 . They're currently a game behind my expectations by losing the Tennessee game.

On 10/15/2019 at 6:52 PM, Mudfly said:

Fells was extremely average and the Browns were looking to improve depth. It was a sound move to move on and look for a better option...Fells had all of 100 yards last season and played in 16 games.....Seals Jones has already exceeded that in 3 games(150) and, so far, looks to be a much better player......

Bravo to JD for trying to improve on mediocrity.....

Fells is an excellent blocking TE with better hands than Demetrius Harris whom he replaced. With our O line woes he definitely would've helped. Seals is Njoku's back up, a pass catching TE.

The Detroit GB refereeing is a testament to this thread's title. That was criminal yesterday and handed GB the game.

5 hours ago, OldBrownsFan said:

I understand where you are coming from Hoorta  but it is hard to watch us lose games we should be winning. I can't rest on moral victories. I won't accept anything until we get real victories. And we should be getting them and that is what is so frustrating.

Agree, we forget that the 1-31 Hue Era was marked by more close games than blowouts, especially in the first half of the seasons.

10 hours ago, hx214 said:

I’m not sure if most of the people complaining about Baker have been fans long enough to remember actually watching some of the QB’s the Browns have trotted out there....

Baker on a three interception day, still looks 100% better than anything the Browns have put out there in about 15 years (and that’s included horseballs Derek Anderson’s year) 

I’m just glad the team can stop drafting QB’s in the 1st round for a while and keep building a good team. 
 

Baker does need to play better, and make much better decisions on when and where to take chances, but I’ve seen enough to let him start for the next 3-5 seasons without putting a significant investment in a replacement.

I've watched every single QB since '99. Baker last year was the best one since then but this year he's becoming similar to many of them which I think is due to poor QB coaching this year. Statistically in the first 6 games he's indistinguishable from some of the worst we've had but I think better coaching will improve that.

13 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

I went fishing all day and didn't even consider watching the game. I felt confident Browns would play better but come up short. We're not the better team and we're not good enough to beat hardly anybody. Our team is simply cursed, and it's just the way it is. The fact we can't win a game at home might be the saddest shit in the league. All those poor people who bought into the hype. All those people who leave wondering if they will get their money back after selling the rest of their season tickets on StubHub. I won't lie, I had to laugh when I heard all hysterical things that happened today. You just can't make it up. Lol. Go Browns, the lovable losers who have thrown yet another season away. 

I had this penciled in as a loss when the schedule was released purely based on the fact that Seattle’s a mature well coached team vs a rookie coach and inexperienced team.  I didn’t watch most of the game as  Sunday Ticket streaming didn’t work until the last 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. I watched them take the lead but had no doubt Russell Wilson would bring them back, however after over more than 3 min left on the clock I waited to see if Baker  would surprise me and unsurprisingly  he didn’t. Not that he’s a terrible  QB but he hasn’t been coached to become a patient QB this season. 

Game pass stream isn't working in my area for some reason. Trailing by 5 but how have we looked?

12 hours ago, hish747 said:

Agree. It's the crappy offensive scheming. Those who blame this on the loss of Zeitler, check out how his new team is doing from a QB pressure point of view. Daniel Jones is maybe the only other QB who's been under more pressure than Mayfield.

Daniel Jones will be under a lot of pressure because that's the easiest way to defend a rookie QB. I don't have the stats with me but how many times has he been pressured with just 4 and sacked by a two man rush like we were last week?

4 hours ago, jiggins7919 said:

I can't start Baker until we see improvement, but the primary reason I wouldn't start him is his lack of production in the red zone. He's literally made the wrong guess on 90% (made that up) of his red zone reads. I said "guesses" because we all see him predetermining where to throw it. When you add in the fact he's not making ANY TD throws over 20 yards, you're getting the unenviable combination of no red zone production OR deep play touchdowns. Hard pass. 

Can this this change? Hell yes. But I have to see it, and I'm betting it will coincide with Kareem Hunt returning. 

Also agree plus I don't know how he can predetermine to throw to frikking stone hands Demetrius Harris. I'll keep on repeating it, replacing Darren Fells and Orson Charles with Harris and Brown was another big mistake by Dorsey especially after he weakened the Oline by trading Zeitler.

It appears as if the replacement of Zeitler with Kush had a bigger impact than expected. The guys on Surviving the Season podcast observed that teams with short QBs eg Saints and Seahawks (Drew Brees and Russell Wilson) have excellent guards. These guards ensure the throwing lanes that are absolutely necessary for shorter QBs success are kept open. This season our  throwing lanes have shrunk evidenced by Baker’s batted passes of 7 so far when he had 9 all last season. Have you seen Baker climb the pocket this season, which he used to do with aplomb last year? Dorsey failed to pay attention to detail here and it’s even more egregious since we’re hardly getting much production from Olivier Vernon. 

7 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

Winning cures all, and a win vs Seattle would be GIGANTIC.  Problem is, Seattle is a very physical team, and we DO NOT play well against physical teams.  I also hate mentioning that Russell Wilson is playing like the love child of Tom Brady and Randal Cunningham, and I believe he has 12 tds vs zero INT's.

Yo.

That would be great but I'm yet to be convinced Freddie can gameplan to our strengths. Before the SF game, Tony Grossi mentioned that because of Shanahan's offense we'd have to play 3 linebackers more often to contain the run. What do we do in SF's opening possession? 2 LBs and we're taken to the woodshed. A true headcoach would tell Wilkes-" I know you like putting only two LBs back there but make sure we have 3 and stop the run no matter what".

24 minutes ago, mjp28 said:

Does anyone remember the very first appearance of Baker and the boys in preseason I believe against the Redskins when they blew down the field with almost if not ALL first downs on the drive?  Remember too he was passing long, checking down to Chubb and anybody else who was open. They looked like the greatest show on grass and we're going to be unstoppable.

Remember too after the drive they checked out and it was "see you in WEEK 1"  adios!  And we all including me sure that they were going to bury Tennessee and roll to 10+ wins, the playoffs and beyond.

What happened?  They stunk it up in week 1, barely beat the miserable Jets and here we are going into week 6 at 2-3 and not sure of anything.

OK fix this.  Now beating Seattle would let us all breathe and be 3-3 ready to start over.

Yes I do but week 3 against Tampa was disconcerting, Baker was missing wide open guys something he never did in the second half of last season. I just put it down to " well it's the preseason, OBJ, Landry and Njoku sat out" but it appears that it was more foretelling than we all thought. For the first time I drafted not one but two Browns in my first 4 rounds and now paying the price (-2 fantasy points for Baker last game).

13 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

The problem is that Dorsey WILL make a change if this continues.  I'm not sure what that looks like, but if we get embarrassed again, something will happen.  The problem with Baker is when teams can pressure with just 4, he doesn't know where to go with the ball.  

The change in question would be pressuring Kitchens to give up playcalling and without playcalling duties he's essentially deadman walking. Will Dorsey be able to admit he was wrong in hiring Kitchens?

Bob Wiley gave an explosive interview during the preseason and made several claims:

https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/08/ex-browns-ol-coach-bob-wylie-rips-freddie-kitchens-saying-qb-coach-ken-zampese-did-all-the-coaching.html

1. The post Hue success was due to Gregg Williams.

2. Dorsey didn't hire Williams because he didn't want to deal with a strong willed coach which may also explain why a different veteran coach wasn't hired.

3. Offensive success was mainly due to Zampese the QB coach. Indisputable that Mayfield has regressed under the new QB coach and this offense.

Also in my opinion the OL has regressed under the new Oline coach. Tackles Robinson and Hubbard graded mediocre last season but they're awful this year.

Dorsey won't admit it publicly but by trading for Beckham he was aiming for at minimum a playoff spot. Even though the second half of the schedule is easier, these inconsistent performances and lack of discipline will result in us losing winnable games and possibly missing the playoffs.

31 minutes ago, calfoxwc said:

It is true he is throwing bad, but aren't the high throws a result of having your weight on the back foot, knee bent? or one of the reasons?

    Baker is trying desperately to make a play, with the oline collapsing Tim Couch style. It was a very bad matchup, and the offensive line is having a really tough time. They did get their timing back for the ratskunk game... again, he didn't have time to set his feet most of the time. I will admit - a few times he had time - but he still moves because he lost confidence in the offensive line already, and the moving results in crap throws all too often.

The oline collapsed, and so did Baker's performance. But I watched Peyton Manning's oline collapse in a playoff game years ago, and he ended up throwing four interceptions that game.

 the niners are akin to the Rams - loaded. The Browns will bounce back. again.

The problem with Baker (and the playcaller, Freddie) is that they appear to panic when down and go for chunk plays rather than methodically working back into the game with short passes. Defenses have picked up on that and easily pin their ears back with our suspect O line.

18 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

Definitely no apology needed., and I promise I'm not trying to sound like a jaded douche bag.  I'm just frustrated.  I've never in my adult like looked forward to this team like I did this year, and it seemed to make sense.  Our young QB set records last year, we basically had all the major returning parts coming back, and we added some big names.  We should be better, or at the very least, the same, right?  Well, as of right now, that's not the case.

Look, this doesn't mean that we can't get BETTER as a team, but it's going to get potentially worse before it gets better.  I said in one of my lengthy posts that I didn't think our defense was quite as good as we hoped, and the 49's game would come down to our offense if we hoped to win.  Well, let's just say that didn't happen.  The 49's offense definitely scared me, and I figured they score 27 or so on us, but I really thought we had a chance to score 30, especially after last week's performance.  What I don't understand is why Baker is playing so poorly.  Yes, his OL let him down on multiple occasions.  I saw probowler Bitonio getting knocked on his ass multiple times, but like you said, why in the world would we have Pharoh Brown lined up with Bosa?  Why can't WE implement the same style of passing as the 49's do?  We sacked Garoppolo one time when I was watching, and the only reason we got to him was because he held onto the ball.  Why the heck can't we do more 3 step drops and quick passes?  Isn't that how we had so much success last year?  And where the heck is the big play?  

Even during the dark times, we hardly lost 31-3, or maybe my brain is simply blocking it out.  I don't remember Baker looking this lost last year, and when he did, he always fought back late and played better.  We got our butts kicked by San Diego, but Baker put together a few drives.  We stunk against the Texans, but Baker had a terrific second half.  I don't see why it's so difficult to get talented receivers the ball, and when OBJ is open, Baker either misses him high, or doesn't seem him.  We're 2-3 and far from a lost cause, but it certainly FEELS worse than that.  Somehow Seattle comes to town with 10 days of rest, which is bullcrap.  We HAVE to find a way to win either that game or the Patriots, and it's not looking good.  I will say there's a part of me that believes we're going to win the Seahawks game, and Baker will return to form.  I'm not sure they're quite as good as advertised, and we're going to be out for blood.  

In the historic 0-16 season we were only blown out twice in the latter half of the season with much less talent. Hate to see this and I thought Kitchens hire made sense at the time but I don't envisage long term success with Kitchens at the helm. Because of the schedule we may have a 10-6 season like in 2006 but flame out next year.

Baker's our QB but he's an *ss. Friend of mine was a guest of Ogunjobi at last season' KC game, asked Baker to sign a jersey for me and flat out refused to sign it or be pleasant about it.

On 10/5/2019 at 2:31 PM, jiggins7919 said:

Lord I hope you are right! 

Owe you an apology man for thinking the Browns should actually win a game they're supposed to win. Shanahan obviously had this game circled and handed it to us because Freddie was fricking clueless. Not predicting any more games this season with Freddie in charge because a hallmark of a bad coach is inability to get consistent performances from his players and put them in the best position to win. Passing to Callaway in the Red Zone when there's Landry and Beckham? Scheme ways to get them open coach. Plus asking Callaway to switch from X to Z receiver after returning from suspension? Way to go coach. Asking Pharaoh Brown to block Sosa? Even I wouldn't draw that up. We may still make the playoffs due to a weak schedule post bye but don't fool yourself that we'll win a game there.

53 minutes ago, jiggins7919 said:

Lord I hope you are right! 

Be positive Bro, Freddie's returned to his roots that got him the job and dumped Monken's dumb offensive scheme. Strap in for the ride!