Elijah Moore, Njoku, other Thoughts

[Flugel]

8 hours ago, jiggins7919 said:

I've calmed down a little bit since Pittsburgh but not much. Mainly because the season is so long and victories within the division are SO hard to get, ESPECIALLY at Pittsburgh. I get that Stefanski wanted the dagger play but he didn't think of the consequences. You're up 3, you're opposition literally has negative 7 yards for the quarter, and basically the only way they will win is if you give them a free td. 

So what do you do? You run the ball to keep the clock moving, right? Maybe a draw play to trick them and somehow get the first but the main thing is clock and PROTECTING THE BALL. Anyone who plays Madden video games, ANYONE, knows that if you call a long developing play-action pass against a blitz you will get sacked or fumble the ball. Children playing a video game know this stuff, so when a coach in the effing NFL doesn't know it, it drives me absolutely nuts. Man...I don't get it. 

It's like drafting Jed Wills. So these brainiacs REALLY thought taking a RT and converting him to LT was better than taking an established LT? WHY? HOW? 

Calm down Jiggins...let's not go nuclear. 😂

This is the best team I've ever seen in Cleveland. I really want them to give the fans something special, but we have to be smarter. Taking care of the ball will determine the game Sunday, especially with Watson hurt. Can't do designed runs with him because he doesn't slide. If we take care of the ball, we can win. 

😆 You had me at "I've calmed down a little bit since Pittsburgh."    I'm glad you didn't hold any of that stuff hostage above.  

I don't have a lot of confidence in the offensive brain-trust in terms of: their choices of situational personnel, how to attack a defense with the pass, how to beat the blitz instead of inviting it, careless approach to ball security fundamentals, limited receiving route diversity, developing the timing with QBs (and the Receivers/Oline), their ability to improve route adjustments when the QB is under pressure, how to utilize formations to make things easier.  Stefanski only worked for 1 NFL offense prior to Cleveland and I think that outweighs the length of time he did so in terms of his ability to process what's unfolding on the field and attack it efficiently.  The more different experiences a coach can draw from - the more ideas he has in different situations that need a quick response from him. 

I'm hoping many of the things I mentioned are more because the season is only 3 games old.  There's nothing worse than thinking if you say you can't put the ball on the ground any more in lieu of working on the fundamentals that secure the football.  If a team has to keep saying that after games - you know they're doing nothing in practice daily to improve it.  

[Orion]

13 hours ago, Ibleedbrown said:

Is it so much to want both things in a player? Both tenacity and ball-holding-on-to skills? 

Of course not.  But if that / a little guy gets grabbed and stood up by one defender, and another guy can use both hands to try and rip the ball out...well, the little guy is definitely at a disadvantage.  And that's what happened to Moore.  The second guy did not have to concern himself with the tackling part of the equation, he was able to just focus on ripping the ball out.  Now you might say, Then put both arms on the ball to protect it.  But he was in the grasp of a defender and didn't have his other arm available.  I was hoping that the ref would say that his forward progress was stopped (he was actually being forced backwards a little bit by the defender) and he was considered 'down' before the ball got ripped out.  But obviously that was not called.  This is why I don't like little guys struggling for an extra yard (unless it's needed for a 1st down or TD).  They could get injured or have the ball pulled out.

[Flugel]

1 hour ago, Orion said:

Of course not.  But if that / a little guy gets grabbed and stood up by one defender, and another guy can use both hands to try and rip the ball out...well, the little guy is definitely at a disadvantage.  And that's what happened to Moore.  The second guy did not have to concern himself with the tackling part of the equation, he was able to just focus on ripping the ball out.  Now you might say, Then put both arms on the ball to protect it.  But he was in the grasp of a defender and didn't have his other arm available.  I was hoping that the ref would say that his forward progress was stopped (he was actually being forced backwards a little bit by the defender) and he was considered 'down' before the ball got ripped out.  But obviously that was not called.  This is why I don't like little guys struggling for an extra yard (unless it's needed for a 1st down or TD).  They could get injured or have the ball pulled out.

To your point, there was some effort on Moore's part to secure the football.    Looked to me like forward progress had already been stopped.  It would have been nice if the officials blew that play dead instead of the nice catch and run Cooper had going on down the sideline for what could have been a pretty easy TD for him.  

[Dutch Oven]

Yes yes yes on the Browns needing to stress how important it is for them not to turn the ball over

Turning the ball over can and has already negated a fantastic Browns defense. 

[jiggins7919]

12 hours ago, Flugel said:

 You had me at "I've calmed down a little bit since Pittsburgh."    I'm glad you didn't hold any of that stuff hostage above.  

You guys all know me by now. I'm an emotional wreck and I say a lot of trash, but I never target people on this board and I try to make fun of myself as much as possible. 

Weird stuff happens against the Ravens and Steelers, we all know that by now. Acting like the history of our failures doesn't have input on these games is silly, as evidenced by the previous Steelers game. THIS game will have similar wonky crap, go ahead and book it. Whether it's backbreaking holding calls, PI's, fumbles we don't get, blocked punts...expect it all. We will have to GRIND out a victory and that's IF Watson plays, or plays near enough to 100% to throw the ball effectively. 

We will not win with DTR, I'm confident in that, not without defensive tds. The Watson shoulder could be nothing, but if my dude CAN'T throw the ball, something is very wrong. Sounds to me like "dead shoulder", which is a generic term for a deep bruise that takes forever to heal. If Watson does play, we can't have designed runs, and he needs to figure out how to slide. Perhaps this is a wakeup call. 

It's a huge game, but if Watson doesn't play, I'm fine with it. It's a long seas and a loss would certainly kill us, but it's such a long season I'd hate to lose Watson for more time. Maybe DTR plays well enough and our defense wins it? Problem is, our defense is due for a reality check. Don't get me wrong, we're VERY good, but we're not "give up 6 points a game" good. We'll have to score 24 to win. I feel it. 

[BernieSuperBowl2]

Now Njoku's questionable for Sunday. Was he doing bong hits and burned his face?

 

 

[Orion]

2 hours ago, Dutch Oven said:

how important it is for them not to turn the ball over

Yup.  We're minus 5 in turnovers.   I believe that we've had 8 fumbles in these 3 games.

[Neo]

On 9/29/2023 at 7:51 AM, Flugel said:

It's good to have Hunt back. 

Although I think Ford is talented, I think Hunt should get the most playing time. I wasn't a fan of them coming out and saying Ford is the featured back. Hunt is a dual threat and probably would be better in this new offense, and also probably better in pass protection. Ford should be the change of pace back.

[Flugel]

27 minutes ago, Neo said:

Although I think Ford is talented, I think Hunt should get the most playing time. I wasn't a fan of them coming out and saying Ford is the featured back. Hunt is a dual threat and probably would be better in this new offense, and also probably better in pass protection. Ford should be the change of pace back.

I think the reason the Browns said that is because they know they can't just give Hunt the entire workload before he plays himself into game shape.  Too much too soon is just asking for a significant soft tissue injury/muscle pull that the Browns can't handle at this time.  My guess is you'll see a lot more of Hunt than you saw in last year's rotation in the very near future.

Like you, I want to see someone earn it.  I agree Hunt is better at pass pro; but 2 of Ford's 3 TDs are pass receptions. I think Ford has some jets this offense needs to tap; while I got excited to see the older version of Hunt is back.  My age is showing here but I'd love to see them in an old pro set. If we used them like the TB Bucs used Alstott and Dunn - I don't think we'd have too many people complaining.  

 

[Orion]

5 hours ago, Flugel said:

they can't just give Hunt the entire workload before he plays himself into game shape.

When the game starts,  he'll have been on the team for a week and a half.  However, he was on the team last year.  And Ford didn't do much all preseason as he was hurt with a hamstring.  Most all of the preseason game reps went to Felton and John Kelly.  (wasn't the preseason at RB just to have some guys play the position so the OL could practice blocking?  I mean, none of the guys that played are on the team)

[Flugel]

15 hours ago, Orion said:

When the game starts,  he'll have been on the team for a week and a half.  However, he was on the team last year.  And Ford didn't do much all preseason as he was hurt with a hamstring.  Most all of the preseason game reps went to Felton and John Kelly.  (wasn't the preseason at RB just to have some guys play the position so the OL could practice blocking?  I mean, none of the guys that played are on the team)

Exactly, so did you see Ford with a full workload against the Bengals?  No.  Did you see Ford with a full workload against the Steelers?  No.  Did you see Ford with a full work load vrs the Titans?  No.   Ford did participate in the OTAs so it was a little different than Hunt's situation. He missed about 3-4 weeks of training camp to an injury, which had him working with the athletic trainers during time missed.

Anyway, Ford was cleared to practice on August 31st and the Browns opener was on September 10th vrs Cincy where Chubb had 18 carries 4 receptions to Ford's 15 carries 0 receptions, Sept 18th vrs Pitt Chubb had 10 carries and 0 receptions in just 1.5 quarters to Ford's 16 carries 3 receptions in 2.5 quarters, Sept 24th Ford had 10 carries 2 receptions to Hunt's 5 carries for 13 yards and 2 rec for 22 yards.  

I could be wrong here but I don't think any of the RBs on the roster are going to get the type of workload Chubb was projected to get prior to his injury.  If you were reading the discussion I was in - I was being optimistic about Hunt.    Having said that, you don't go from being unemployed at RB (with no training camp or NFL contact/hitting) to getting 85-90% of the carries within 2 weeks of signing unless you want to increase his risk of getting a soft tissue injury/pulled hammy or groin from too much too soon.  Each week they'll probably increase Hunt's work load including today.  Who knows - they may expedite it faster than I think or they could do it incrementally (because they can use Pierre Strong for a few reps until Hunt's ready for the bigger work load). 

 

[ballpeen]

Just a general reply.

 

 

People give Hunt way too much cred.

[Orion]

1 hour ago, ballpeen said:

People give Hunt way too much cred.

None of our RB's could do anything today.  Nowhere to run.  Nowhere to hide.

[syd]