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As teams progress or regress, they tend to take steps forward or back. The Browns are kind of an odd team in that they are terribly unbalanced with a playoff defense and a top of the draft offense. These are a few things I'd like to see from the coaches, team, and individual players.
1. Picking up the pace. I find it hard to think of an offensive series when the team played "hurry up", except maybe a few end of the half/end of the game situations. Maye is going to see a fierce pass rush today, maybe the best he's seen all year, and one way to mitigate that rush would be to play some "hurry up" offense, and put some pressure and wear and tear on that defensive line. I can see why we haven't so fare because of the OL newness and unfamiliarity, but they've had 8 weeks of good continuity now. Maybe now is the time to break it out some.
2. It's kind of hard to improve on a 91% completion rate, with a number of deep throws, but I'd like to see Drake take to heart some of the criticisms we heard when we listened to the QB School and Kurt Warner clips. In other words, put a little LESS wear and tear on his body and be more selective about his running.
3. That being said I've always subscribed to the "it hurts less to be the hittER than the hitEE" school of pain management. I discovered that philosophy very early in HS, so while I was considered a tough guy/mad man in terms of hitting, I was actually a coward trying to protect myself from pain. So there are times where sliding scares me almost as much as firing your shoulder into the other guy's chest (or in my case back in the day, my helmet (facemask)
4. Keeping the on with the protection idea, perhaps it might be wise to use a few more planned roll outs or bootlegs in order to say move Drake away from Garrett and threaten the corner with Maye, though not actually run him.
5. On defense: I'd to see 5 or 6 men on the LOS threatening blitz only to drop one or two out and wind up in an overload look out of the Rex Ryan school. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of overload blitzes which try to create a numbers advantage to one side, while actually rushing only 4.
6. And whether they use an overload concept or not, I'd like to see 5 or 6 men on the LOS a lot simulating blitzes on pass downs or loading up against the run a lot. Sometimes going and sometimes dropping out trying to confuse the rookie.
7. With Jeudy and Njoku likely playing today, I wouldn't mind seeing more Man today and seeing some of that "shutdown close down half the field" look from Gonzo. Not all the time, because we probably won't need it, since this is such an anemic offense and we want to make Gabriel throw into traps when he misreads the defense.
8. We are a playoff team with dreams of being more. We cannot lose to this two-win team. The only way we do it is to do what the Dolphins did. Turn the ball over endlessly and allow the big play TD or defensive score. That is how you score 31 points without putting up many yards of offense.
We have won the TO battle in every one of our wins on this 4-game win streak. In fact, IIRC we've won it my 2 or more in each game. It's not like we cannot have a TO or two. Those things happen, but we cannot duplicate a Pittsburgh like game, because we will get Pittsburgh like results.
9. And like everyone I would like to see some more production from Henderson and Williams, though I'm probably more patient than a lot of fans to see more from kids that held so much promise.
OK, it's about 5 hours until game time, and what do YOU want to see today?
1. Picking up the pace. I find it hard to think of an offensive series when the team played "hurry up", except maybe a few end of the half/end of the game situations. Maye is going to see a fierce pass rush today, maybe the best he's seen all year, and one way to mitigate that rush would be to play some "hurry up" offense, and put some pressure and wear and tear on that defensive line. I can see why we haven't so fare because of the OL newness and unfamiliarity, but they've had 8 weeks of good continuity now. Maybe now is the time to break it out some.
2. It's kind of hard to improve on a 91% completion rate, with a number of deep throws, but I'd like to see Drake take to heart some of the criticisms we heard when we listened to the QB School and Kurt Warner clips. In other words, put a little LESS wear and tear on his body and be more selective about his running.
3. That being said I've always subscribed to the "it hurts less to be the hittER than the hitEE" school of pain management. I discovered that philosophy very early in HS, so while I was considered a tough guy/mad man in terms of hitting, I was actually a coward trying to protect myself from pain. So there are times where sliding scares me almost as much as firing your shoulder into the other guy's chest (or in my case back in the day, my helmet (facemask)
4. Keeping the on with the protection idea, perhaps it might be wise to use a few more planned roll outs or bootlegs in order to say move Drake away from Garrett and threaten the corner with Maye, though not actually run him.
5. On defense: I'd to see 5 or 6 men on the LOS threatening blitz only to drop one or two out and wind up in an overload look out of the Rex Ryan school. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of overload blitzes which try to create a numbers advantage to one side, while actually rushing only 4.
6. And whether they use an overload concept or not, I'd like to see 5 or 6 men on the LOS a lot simulating blitzes on pass downs or loading up against the run a lot. Sometimes going and sometimes dropping out trying to confuse the rookie.
7. With Jeudy and Njoku likely playing today, I wouldn't mind seeing more Man today and seeing some of that "shutdown close down half the field" look from Gonzo. Not all the time, because we probably won't need it, since this is such an anemic offense and we want to make Gabriel throw into traps when he misreads the defense.
8. We are a playoff team with dreams of being more. We cannot lose to this two-win team. The only way we do it is to do what the Dolphins did. Turn the ball over endlessly and allow the big play TD or defensive score. That is how you score 31 points without putting up many yards of offense.
We have won the TO battle in every one of our wins on this 4-game win streak. In fact, IIRC we've won it my 2 or more in each game. It's not like we cannot have a TO or two. Those things happen, but we cannot duplicate a Pittsburgh like game, because we will get Pittsburgh like results.
9. And like everyone I would like to see some more production from Henderson and Williams, though I'm probably more patient than a lot of fans to see more from kids that held so much promise.
OK, it's about 5 hours until game time, and what do YOU want to see today?
