Believe It, Baby, We Won

I have one word for this game today:

Unbelievable.

I can't remember being so excited about a Browns win. And what a win it was.

Can you believe after stinking so much all day, Colt McCoy was able to drive the ball 80 yards in the 2-minute drill to get the Browns a 17-16 lead? And that after being shut down all day Mohammed Massaquoi and Greg Little were able to make beautiful, key catches in order to get the ball down the field? And that Massaquoi made that 14 yard catch in the endzone for the touchdown?

Seriously, that was one of the more impressive wins I think the Browns have had since we got back in '99. All this, plus we've started out a season 2-1 for the first time since 2002—when the Butch Davis Browns lost their first game against the Chiefs, then defeated Cincinnati and Tennessee in their next two games.

It might not even be worth it to take a look at the numbers today, cause who cares, we won?! But Colt McCoy finished the day 19/39 with 210 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. That's 48% completions, and a QB rating of 71.5. Not the McCoy we expect in terms of accuracy, but we won the game because he was accurate when we needed it the most. I'll take it.

Ben Watson was the leading receiver with 5 catches for 64 yards, but Mohammed Massaquoi and Greg Little came up huge in that 2-minute drill, with Little catching 3 passes for 24 yards, and Massaquoi catching 2 for 26, including the game-winning touchdown. If we can get execution like that earlier in the game from those receivers, we'll be in really good business.

The running game was actually pretty decent, despite the loss of Peyton Hillis today. Montario Hardesty did a very nice job filling in, even though he didn't get to 100 yards. He did have 67 yards on 14 carries, good for a 4.8 average. I'll always take that. And now that we've seen Hardesty can produce, I think we'll start to see more of Hillis & Hardesty in the same backfield. If not next week, then for sure after the bye week.

I don't know how he's done it, but Dick Jauron has done a fantastic job early with converting the Browns 3-4 defense into a 4-3. I just remember so many growing pains when we initially switched to the 3-4 under Romeo Crenel that it's really astonishing to me how well the defense has played—especially the defensive line. As a unit, the defense had 5 sacks, 6 tackles for loss, and 8 QB hits. Those are exceptional numbers, and I think we've really got to take our hats off to Jauron for that.

Since I love defense so much, I've just got to highlight the dominance of our defensive line. I'm telling you, Athyba Rubin and Phil Taylor are just a joy to watch stuff the middle. They combined today for 16 total tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss and 2 QB hits. In this 4-3 defense, you want those two guys along with the middle linebacker to have the most tackles, and D'Qwell Jackson led the team with 11 tackles. That's 27 total tackles between those three, the middle core of what could turn out to be fairly dominating defense for the next few years. I'm lovin' it.

Obviously, this is a great end to the weekend and a great start to the week. A comeback win is exactly what this team and city needed to really get behind the Browns again.

And as an aside, I think it's wonderful for football that the Bills and Lions are 3-0, and the Browns are 2-1. How about them apples?!


Enjoy this feeling, and I'll see you next week!
~MAS

Why Yes, That is a Sigh of Relief

It's no secret that I was super nervous for today's game. The prediction in the Start Me Up really says all you need to know. But oh is it nice to be pleasantly surprised with this 27-19 victory over the Colts.

Yes, the Colts are a shell of themselves without Peyton Manning, but in the NFL a win is a win, you can't turn up your nose at it. And besides, the Browns played pretty darn well today once we got out of the mess that was the first quarter.

Offensively, the Browns made the West Coast offense look exactly like it's supposed to. Colt McCoy was  20/32 for 211 yards and a touchdown. That's a 69% completion rate and a 97.3 rating. Hopefully Colt can keep that up, because we haven't seen consistent production like that for a very long time. Mohammed Massaquoi was today's leading receiver with 3 catches for 45 yards, while Josh Cribbs and Greg Little also had nice games with 3 catches for 41 yards, and 4 catches for 38 yards, respectively. Evan Moore made the touchdown catch—a 16 yarder. I'd still like to see a little bit better production out of the wide outs, but when we score 27 points and win it's a little hard to complain.

One thing I'm still not too happy about is the running game. I'm not sure what it's going to take to get these guys going up front, but 94 yards on 27 carries is just not good enough for Hillis. Don't get me wrong, he had some big runs, especially late in the game, but we've got to get him averaging more than 3.5 yards a carry. He's a better back than that, bur tight now the offensive line is not doing him justice.

The other thing I didn't like today was the fumbles. Four times the Browns put the ball on the ground today, four times. I don't care that we only lost one, we've got to do a much better job of securing the football. Those bounces won't go our way when we're playing better teams.

Defensively, I just think we did a really great job. There were a few times when the Colts got down in the red zone, and the Browns defense never seemed to waver until "garbage time" at the end of the game. We did allow 109 yards on the ground, but thats's really not so bad considering what we allowed against Cedric Benson last week. Kerry Collins was just 19/38 for 191 yards, 1 TD (in garbage time) and 1 INT.

Individually, the defensive line had a fantastic day. Rookie Jabaal Sheard showed a whole lot of progress from last week, with 5 tackles—one for loss—a sack, and a QB hit. As I said in the Halftime Blurb, Phil Taylor and Athyba Rubin also had great games with five and four tackles, respectively. There was a drive when the Browns just gave up run after run after run, but for the most part, I think this new look defensive front has made some major improvements from last year.

Also, we have got to find ways to keep the ball in Josh Cribbs' hands. I mean, this guy must have really been hurt last year, because he didn't look anything like he has so far this year. He is a game changer no matter where he is on the field, and it's a pleasure to watch him.

So what's the bottom line? The Browns got a win. We won't be 0-16. And we're tied for 1st place in our division! (Never mind that the rest of the division has a 1-1 record too.)

Enjoy this one Browns fans. It's going to be a Happy Monday!

See you next week,
~MAS

Browns Halftime Blurb, 12/26 Vs. Ravens

The Browns have looked a little inconsistent so far today. They've made some plays on offense as evidenced by that last drive before the half, but they've also turned the ball over three times, pretty atypical of them. That's clearly not helping out the defense, and the Browns go into the half down 13-10.

I think this is one of the only games where Colt McCoy has looked like a rookie for at least a little bit. I think he sort of shed that on the last drive, but when he threw the second interception to Ed Reed, he clearly read the coverage incorrectly. It's been nice to see the Browns use some trickery with the Wildcat, especially with the touchdown pass from Mohammed Massaquoi to Brian Robiskie. I was pleasantly surprised to see Josh Cribbs being more effective today, I guess his toes must be healing.

If you look at the numbers, the running game is clearly in peril. I guess Peyton Hillis is hurting a little bit as we've seen a lot of Mike Bell. The two have combined for 28 yards on 11 rushes, a 2.5 average. Cribbs has two rushes for 8 yards, and Colt McCoy had a 7 yard scramble towards the end of the half. Passing, McCoy is 8/12 for 70 yards and 2 interceptions, not great numbers. It's worth mentioning again that Robiskie had a fantastic catch in the endzone, and he's seems to be coming on strong in these last couple of weeks.

Defensively, I don't think the Browns have done too bad of a job - it's just been that the offensive turnovers have killed them. The Ravens have scored 10 points off of turnovers, which means to me that the defense is only truly liable for 3 points. That being said, the Ravens running game has done much too well against the Browns today, as Ray Rice has 38 yards on 9 carries, LeRon McClain has 19 yards on 2  carries, and Willis McGahee has 17 yards on 3 carries. Flacco is 8/14 for 56 yards and a TD, pretty good numbers if you're the Browns defense. Also, Anquan Bolden has not dominated the Browns like he did earlier this season as he's been held to 1 catch for 9 yards.

If the Browns don't turn the football over in the second half, they have a real chance to win this game. But I think it's going to take a lot for the Browns to pull this one out as the Ravens do have a lot riding on this game. We'll see what happens.

See you after,
~MAS

A Little Late Victory Review & Quarterback Chat

Well, this is clearly a few days late, but my travel back to the great city of New York was unbelievably  treacherous and left me way too jaded to get the blog in - especially after missing the entire first half of the Browns 24-23 victory over the Panthers on Sunday. However, I would like to get a little review of the game in and then go on to a couple other things on my mind...

Take the Victory Over the Loss
From what I saw, the Browns tried way too hard to lose their game to arguably the worst team in the NFL. As I alluded to in the intro, I didn't get to see the first half of the game and so my perspective may be a bit skewed, but I think Jake Delhomme looked awful. I don't want to hang the veteran out to dry because he did go 24/35 for 245 yards, but he threw two key interceptions in the second half that allowed Carolina to gain momentum and put them back in the game. Really, the only reason the Browns won that game was because Carolina's kicker, John Kasay, missed the last second field goal. Coach Mangini has said this week that the first interception Delhomme threw was not so bad (and I'll have to take his word for it since I didn't see it), but to me there is no defending the second. Watching the game on my 17-inch-screen laptop with the choppy DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket internet feed, I could tell Delhomme shouldn't have tried to force a late throw along the sideline to Massaquoi. In all of the games he's played so far this season, Delhomme has tried to force throws into places where they just do not belong. He did it against the Buccaneers in the first game of the season, which led to him getting his ankle sprained and the Bucs got a chance to score right before the half as well. He threw an ill-advised pass during the Falcons game where the defensive lineman was able to tip the ball and then make an incredible diving catch. Delhomme has just got to stop making mistakes that a savvy veteran such as himself should not be making.

That being said, who do I think should start at Quarterback this Sunday at Miami? If he was healthy, I'd say Colt McCoy. Seneca Wallace showed a nice ability to run the offense as well when he was starting earlier this season for the injured Delhomme, but he also had a tendency to make ill advised throws when he wasn't making nice plays with his legs. That leaves us with Delhomme, who despite how awful he looked last week was still a heck of a lot better than the now 3rd-string Brady Quinn or the laughing Mr. Hot Head, Derek Anderson.

What Delhomme does give the Browns offense is the added dimension of something many around the league call Wide Receivers. Now I'm not entirely sure what these creatures are, but apparently most teams in the NFL use them quite often to throw passes to - rather than the tight ends and running back. And, this is the most interesting fact of all, we've had some all season! Mohamed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie are the first two that stood out to me from the game against Carolina. How about that...

In all seriousness, Delhomme did help incorporate Massaqoui and Robiskie into the offense where McCoy has just not done that very much when we've seen him play. Robiskie had the best game of his young career - which, if I'm honest, isn't saying much - with 7 catches for 50 yards, and Massaqoui had 4 catches for 52 yards. My argument for Delhomme that goes against Seneca Wallace would be that in the games Wallace started, the only wide receiver who really established a good chemistry with him was Josh Cribbs - and it's starting to look like Cribbs will either be out or at least limited in action this week. It might also have been a little bit of rust that Delhomme needed to shake off in order to really get back into the game.

But This Week...
The Browns are playing a Miami team which had a pretty dominant performance against Oakland, where they held the Raiders to only 16 yards rushing. That being said, it was only on 12 rushing attempts, but still, you're talking about a team which is coming off a fantastic rushing defensive performance with an average of 1.3 yards-per-rush. You've got to think they're going to be amped up to face the bruising Peyton Hillis. Miami has a good team but their recent Quarterback injuries have probably had an impact on their schedule. Bill Parcells undoubtedly did a wonderful job turning around the franchise, and even though he has left his post his mark still remains.

I think the Browns would be wise to stick with a heavy ground attack plan, as Delhomme has revealed himself to be shaky and unreliable (at best) so far this season. Chad Henne is back in the starting saddle, and Brandon Marshall should also be back from his injury this week which could pose a problem for the Browns secondary. I think the Browns will have a good chance to win if the secondary steps up and the rest of the defense remembers how to tackle - which has been a real problem the past few weeks.

Until Sunday, if you're going to the Cavs game tomorrow, give LeQuit a piece of your mind for me.

~MAS