Shurmurball in the Big City

There’s also this, from Mary Kay http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2012/10/cleveland_browns_vs_new_york_g.html :

“Browns cornerback Dimitri Patterson will have the dubious task of keeping leading receiver Victor Cruz from salsa dancing in the end zone.”

It’s a suspicious job keeping track of all this, guys.

also few notes via announcers…

“no one want to play the Browns…” <-lol wut?

"Browns draft a guy with no weaknesses at #3….." and "Browns throw 70% of the time" <- so draft a running back #3 then throw 70# and make sure you take him out in 3rd down situations…. #SHURMURBALL !!!!!!

Can’t wait to tell my future grandkids about the Oh and Four Luxury Offense first implemented by Pat Shurmur in 2012.

if Haslem had any doubts before today about firing Shurmur before the season ends, I gotta imagine (and hope) this is the absolute nail in the coffin. sure, plenty of players making mistakes (weeden, cribbs) but the way they laid down after that 1st-half INT is embarrassing and is ultimately on the coach. welcome to the browns Jimmy

RG3 was out with a concussion, perhaps it was a good thing to draft two QB’s.
However, it is odd for a rookie QB to have a rookie QB back-up.
I hope that I am incorrect and that RG3 has a long and injury free career, but the reason I was so dead set against the Browns giving away all of their first round picks for a decade to draft him was because he is not very elusive, he is fast, but he takes a lot of hits. It may only take a concussion or two to end, or drastically change his career.
“The mind is a terrible thing.”

Orange hats ALL OVER THIS BOARD. This is how it’s supposed to look!!

Things to like from this game:

Shurmur/Chilly’s offense showed promise at points in the game. There were literally 0 minutes of 2011 where you could say Pat Shurmur’s offense showed promise. Whether it’s Childress’s influence, the artillery piece drafted for them, or a combination of the two, they take shots down field early and often, which leads me to my next point -

Brandon Weeden is starting to hit on the long intermediate and deep routes. There are things you can ask this guy to do that you can’t ask Colt to do. The more I look back at old Colt footage, the more I see him having to really gear up to hit targets that Weeden delivers the ball to without effort. He still needs to be a little more accurate on the move. Speaking of on the move -

The Browns O-Line didn’t allow a sack in a game where we had to throw a lot of passes. I’m not sure how many times Weeden got knocked down, but if someone told me zero I wouldn’t be surprised. The only criticism of the pass blocking is that I really felt our line was responsible for most/all of Weeden’s tipped passes – while they didn’t allow pressure, they gave up ground and didn’t keep the heads of the defensive linemen down. Some of these Giants D-linemen were standing up looking for passes to tip. If a guy does that, blast him on his ass. Building off that, the initial hit the Giants were getting off the snap hurt us in the run game. Richardson had guys touching him in the backfield way too much. That said, as the line hopefully improves, this line has to be really good at pass blocking in a pass-first system, so I hope that’s a sign of things to come. Speaking of a pass-first system,

Josh Gordon had 2 catches for like 700 yards and two touchdowns. On both those catches, he really showed why the Browns made sure to get him – he came off the line with a pretty standard release, then at about 10 yards turned on the jets and dusted the Giants secondary. Both plays had opposing safeties out of position, but with a lot of guys, you can make up for that.
And oh boy did Weeden put it on the money both times – it can’t be understated in 1000 words how important it is to have a QB who can neatly plunk the football down in front of Gordon on that first TD, or deliver the ball on a rope on the second one. Gordon had to slow down about one half a step to catch the first TD, but he basically caught it at full speed. On the second, the pass arriving just a hair later would have gotten it knocked down or picked.
Gordon’s showing he has the natural hands to pluck the football out of the air, although he did have one drop on a ball behind him. Even on that drop, he showed solid body control to turn himself against his momentum to get his hands where they needed to be, and it was a 50 mph laser thrown in the rain, so I’m not really bagging on him for that. One thing – I don’t think he is running his short and intermediate routes very well at all yet. Of Weeden’s 13 incompletions, at least 6 were tipped balls (and 1 completion was too). Weeds was zinging the ball accurately all day, but on both of his memorable misses to Gordon – a 2nd and short inside the red zone and the long INT – the ball was waaay behind the receiver. Some of that is on the passer, but I’m not 100% convinced Gordon was quite where he needed to be.

Things not to like about this game:

Um, our defense blew most of the gmae. The Giants have sucked at running the football and have been sketchy at best in pass protection – while Manning hasn’t been sacked a ton, he’s been getting put off his spot a lot through the first four games. We made sure they didn’t have either of those problems. They really got lucky on both our turnovers – the Giants caused their own first fumble and Sheldon Brown interfered SO BAD on the INT – but I guess at least they forced those turnovers. Sheldon Brown really needs to be turned around to play safety, or moved into the nickel-slot against smaller/slower guys he can press hard at the line. He’s past the point where he can man cover. Let Patterson, Skrine, or Trevin Wade get reps across from Haden when he comes back next week. I will say that the Browns tenuous grasp of the thing called defense collapsed after Dimitri Patterson went out with an ankle twist – he’s gotta be a better option than Brown, even with the beating he got from Anquain Boldin last week.

Um, our defense blew most of the game. And oh yeah, Dimitri Patterson and D’Qwell Jackson got hurt. If we thought we’d seen a Road Warrior post-apocalyptic wasteland with nobody in sight for miles where the camera was pointed before DQ52 went out, the bomb dropped the second he waddled dizzy off the field. I think we had like 1 meaningful defensive possession afterwards.

Weeden did throw 2 picks. Gotta get better at that. Guy’s a rookie – not belaboring this point.

Browns fans are calling for Weeden to be benched/run through a wood chipper. Shut up. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Back to our defense sucking, there was a noteworthy absence of anything resembling tackling for much of the game. Ahmad Bradshaw wouldn’t have looked so good if guys had just wrapped up on many plays where they chose not to wrap up, instead running into a guy with a low center of gravity only to fall down and watch him pinball forward for 8-15 yard rippers. Losing tackle machine DQ52 probably hurts here, but these young linebackers need to emulate him.

Pat Shurmur’s game management was, at times…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….well I’m not sure what it was. A giant 10 gallon brass ball call to go on 4th and 1 at your own 36 precedes a meek punt on 4th and 5 at the opposing 45. There’s a good chance this punt nets you less than 30 yards. You’re 5 yards out of Phil Dawson’s max range. Go find that set of coconuts you just grew. Other decisions made me scratch my head, but – I can’t believe I’m writing this – I mostly felt he put together a solid coaching game (although the shittiness of the defense took a lot of pressure decisions out of his hands). For example, his time out management was better and he seems to be paying attention to the footballing more than his play sheet. A season ago, I don’t think he can be counted on to call time out on a critical down/distance to avoid delay of game. This probably won’t save his job, but it’s progress, and that’s good no matter what.

The referees were cravenly blowing the Giants for 4 quarters of football. For the number of penalties called on the Browns, there might have been an all-time broadcasting record set for the fewest Browns penalties replayed on the air. After the first Buster Skrine PI call that gave the Giants a big first down, they replayed it and the announcers just kind of watched it and didn’t say anything. The silence was deafening. The contact was completely incidental and Skrine beat the receiver badly for that deflection. Instead of 3rd and 11, 1st and 10. These things can’t be understated. There was also the gratuity score with 4 seconds on the clock in the second – no visible interference and no replay.

The announcers were cravenly blowing the refs for most of the game. The refs suck. So do you.

We lost badly after being up 14-0. Nobody expected the Browns to win this one or really be in it, but then they got into it, and it makes it frustrating how it ended up.

Um, FrOrange. I gave this site to Rod of Disaster last week. Please desist publication unless you can show written authorization from Rod.