Week 5

Ahh these Cleveland Browns.  Kings of battling and progress, owners of a now franchise record 11 game losing streak.  It's nearly impossible to pull that off in the NFL, but the Browns and their fearless leader Pat Shurmur have accomplished that feat, and they're now the only winless team in the NFL after a 41-27 drubbing from the New York Giants.  They truly are an absolutely maddening football team, and they are as mentally fragile as their coach, who is incredulous to the media and is absolutely in over his head every game.  Here's hoping Jimmy Haslam III puts him out of his misery after he takes over.  There is nothing to gain by allowing this snide, condescending, incompetent miser lead this football team any longer.  Not only has he made progress and effort acceptable in lieu of winning, he makes a decision or two EVERY GAME that costs this team an opportunity to win.

This weeks edition of the Pat Shurmur school of how to do something incredibly stupid took place in the second quarter of a game the Browns surprisingly led 17-10.  The Browns had turned a Giants fumble on their opening series into a Trent Richardson touchdown.  Richardson was dominant early in the game and is so good he makes four yard runs look like things of beauty.  Anybody still mad we gave up a fourth and fifth rounder to make sure we got him???  Anyway they forced the Giants to punt and scored again on an absolutely beautiful throw and catch from Brandon Weeden to Josh Gordon for a 62 yard touchdown.  After the Giants and Eli Manning surgically knifed through the Browns defense to respond with a touchdown and a field goal, Cleveland was driving again, and faced a third and one at the Giants 25 yard line.  Shurmur, who honestly believes he's really really smart, takes out Trent Richardson for Chris Ogbonnaya.  Was there a soul watching this game that didn't think the Browns were passing now?  Not only does Shurmur take out Richardson, he flexes Ogbonnaya out in the backfield, completely eliminating any threat of a run.  So even if there was an inkling of doubt in anyones head on run or pass, Shurmur eliminated it.  So now the Giants know Cleveland is passing.  Shurmur then rolls Weeden out to the strongside of the field, which turns an entire field into a 10 yard box.  The Giants shockingly are able to cover the 2 receivers on that side of the field, and Weeden makes a bonehead throw back across his body, overthrowing Gordon and falling right into the arms of Stevie Brown of the Giants, who returns the ball into Cleveland territory. 

It sounds crazy to pin a game on one play, but this play turned the entire game around.  Ignoring the 3rd pick in the draft, a guy who was brought in for power running and who was having great success early, is idiotic and inexcusable.  If the Browns get stopped and only get a field goal, at worst they are up by three at halftime.  Instead, they went into the locker room down 10 (!!!!!), after a series of blunders including a fumble by Josh Cribbs and a stupid pass interference penalty by abuse victim Buster Skrine with 4 seconds left in the half.  Buster Skrine wouldn't start for the Toronto Argonauts.  If you don't think that play turned the game around, know that after that play the Giants outscored the Browns 31-3 before Weeden found Gordon again late in the game.

The defense was gashed by Manning and by Ahmad Bradshaw.  The Giants offensive line dominated the Browns in the second half.  Bradshaw had 200 rushing yards, and rookie David Wilson busted a 40 yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to seal the game.  He wasn't touched on the play.  When D'Qwell Jackson went out with a concussion, the Browns rush defense went from bad to horrible.  Eli Manning did whatever he wanted in the passing game.  There was no pressure on him.  He went to the line, saw who Buster Skrine was covering, and threw to them.  That's what good quarterbacks do.  The Browns also went with the bold strategy of ignoring Victor Cruz in the red zone, leaving him one on one with Skrine and Patterson.  He only had 5 catches, which is good.  Except 3 were for touchdowns.  The only chance the Browns had was to take the 14 point lead the Giants gifted them and stay ahead.  They failed.

Offensively Trent Richardson is a gamechanger.  When the Browns hire a real head coach he's going to be really good.  As it is, he's underutilized, especially in the second half's of games when power backs should be wearing defenses out.  The Browns offensive line played extremely well, I don't think Weeden was sacked and Richardson had holes to run through.  That's encouraging.  Josh Gordon had two touchdowns and looked like a NFL receiver.  Hopefully the light stays on for him, the Browns need him, because Greg Little is worthless.  He's rapidly moving into Owen Marecic territory on the worthless player scale.  I think Weeden only threw to him once or twice, and never again after he let a slant pass go right through his hands.  I said it last week, I'll say it again, if I was running this team he'd be inactive for a month at least.  He is horrible right now.  And I do like Brandon Weeden but you can't play quarterback in the NFL if you throw interceptions in the red zone.  Two spots where the Browns could've gotten points ended with interceptions, and that's unacceptable.

Special teams wasn't horrible, Cribbs had a fumble which was a killer but also had a 75 yard return.  Tank Carder jumped offsides on a punt on a 4th and 4, which extended a Giants drive and was incredibly dumb.

The Browns don't have the talent defensively to compete with the Super Bowl champion Giants yet.  However this was a game where the offense appeared to be firing on all cylinders, at least early.  When this team wins a game (hopefully this season), it will be in spite of their coach, not because of him.  Joe Haden is back this week, which may allow the defense to play a little more aggressively.  Hopefully the receivers will be back, and hopefully Shurmur will realize that Trent Richardson should have the ball in his hands 25-30 times a game.  And hopefully, next Monday, we can feel good about a win. 




Random gifs

Wow that Matt McGloin is quite an athlete.  And what's with the belt what is Penn State the champion of??

Welcome to the NFL RG3

You too Andrew Luck