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Let it All Out: 2021 Browns Rant Thread

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Ugh, the Browns are Simply the Worst!

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 21.7%
  • No

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • Not the Worst, but Second Worst

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Let's Not Get Hysterical Here, Four Years Ago This Would Have Been a Banner Year!

    Votes: 5 21.7%
  • Fuck You, Mr. Stoic! This Whole Season is Just the Worst after Super Bowl Predictions!

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • This Game Should Have Been Postponed

    Votes: 4 17.4%
  • Yes, But Evan Mobley and the CAAAVS!!!

    Votes: 7 30.4%
  • Karl XIV Johan Was, in Actuality, a Better King than Gustavus Adolphus as Peace is Greater than War!

    Votes: 2 8.7%
  • Jim Chones

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • The Pogues Were Robbed of the Christmas #1!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    23
Hasn't overcome a deficit of 8 points or more in 27 consecutive games and is 2-16 in trying to mount fourth quarter comebacks. Those numbers cannot make you a viable starter with any kind of team in the league. Will he be happy bouncing around as a backup? I can't see that. A media career beckons sooner rather than later.

Honestly these are the kind of stats that really bug and worry me. There’s the game winning drives one too where he’s like 2-14(?). I’d almost blindly throw out his flaws if he was elite when it came to game winning drives, or if he was great at mounting comebacks. Hell I absolutely love Derek Carr for pretty much that reason.

He isn’t clutch and that’s not an ability I believe you can develop over time, it’s one of those either you are or you aren’t traits.
 
Is there any cap relief if we cut or trade him at any point this offseason?
Not if they cut him but can be completely absolved from his salary if traded, which seems like the most likely outcome..
 
The Browns have a bottom 3 WR group in the NFL and the absolutely the worst WRs in the AFCN. Feel free to say they get open or whatever you want but this WR room is dog shit. Even Higgins he’s been dropping everything this year and he’s been our most efficient WR the last couple of seasons.

I definitely agree that a decision had to be made at QB.
Agreed 100%
 
The problem I have with stefanski is the lack of adjustments through out the entire season. You have a very hurt QB and he didn’t try to compensate for that at all and just continued to run the offense like he had a perfectly healthy QB. How many times this year have we all sat here and said why the hell are we not giving Chubb more carries. Instead you have a QB that is hurt and just completely shot any confidence he did have. As a coach you are to put your team in the best position to succeed and stefanski did not do that this year. It was clear since the Vikings game that Baker wasn’t the same QB he was before injury. We can all debate on Baker should have just shut it down and had surgery. Personally I think he should have after that Arizona game. Instead we sent out a clearly hampered QB with a coach that made no adjustments to add extra protection to compensate for having a banged up QB. Baker lost all confidence, didn’t trust himself and bailed out of pockets to avoid being hit, mechanics went to shit and his accuracy was heavily effected bc of it. There is plenty to blame Baker on and is well deserved but stefanski needs blame as well for the way he handled it all.
Chicken or the egg argument possibly, but if the passing game isn’t executing and the defense is loading up to stop the run, forcing the Browns to beat them, what’s the correct call? Continually run into a stacked box or attempt to loosen the defense and allow for space to operate?

This has been the issue all year: the lack of passing attack has stymied the run offense, allowed for defense to prepare to stop the run, play man on the outside and force the broken passing game to win..

The run game still managed to finish 5th in EPA this year (11th last year) but was 12th since week 9 and 17th since week 12… So as teams have continually schemed to stop the run and force the pass game to beat them, the run offense has gotten worse and the offense as a whole has suffered..

It may be questionable why the Browns have passed as much as they have, but running it with diminishing returns was not going to dig them out of the hole.. The only way was for the pass game to show some life to open up the offense, which it never did..

With all this, the Browns still ranked 25th in neutral pass rate (compared to 29th last year) so while the Browns passed more this year, it still was not anywhere nearly as pass heavy as the rest of the league..

What’s interesting is since week 9 the Browns are 13th in neutral pass rate on 1st downs which is a huge shift from being ranked 29th last year… And with the inefficient passing attack, I think this has lead the Browns to get behind the sticks and fall victim to passing more to gain yardage.. With that also, since week 9 the Browns still have a higher success rate on first down passes than runs FWIW…
 
Is there any cap relief if we cut or trade him at any point this offseason?

$0 cap relief if he's cut.

If he's traded, whoever trades for him will assume his full $18.8M guaranteed salary for 2022. So potentially major savings there.
 
The Browns have a bottom 3 WR group in the NFL and the absolutely the worst WRs in the AFCN. Feel free to say they get open or whatever you want but this WR room is dog shit. Even Higgins he’s been dropping everything this year and he’s been our most efficient WR the last couple of seasons.

I definitely agree that a decision had to be made at QB.

Agreed. Good part about WR being our biggest hole (besides the QB dilemma) is that it's arguably the easiest thing to shore up.

Hell, one superb addition can change the entire dynamic of the room by moving our #2 and #3 receivers masquerading as #1s back to where they belong.

Add a high draft pick and a decent free agent? Boom, fixed.
 
$0 cap relief if he's cut.

If he's traded, whoever trades for him will assume his full $18.8M guaranteed salary for 2022. So potentially major savings there.
The only way it actually amounts to savings is if the browns trade Baker and dont bring another QB on, and just hit the reset button (absolutely an option at this point)

Otherwise any other QB they bring in to start is going to cost more money.
 
The only way it actually amounts to savings is if the browns trade Baker and dont bring another QB on, and just hit the reset button (absolutely an option at this point)

Otherwise any other QB they bring in to start is going to cost more money.

Jesus.

The question was does releasing or trading Baker create cap relief. Not if we replace him.
 
Chicken or the egg argument possibly, but if the passing game isn’t executing and the defense is loading up to stop the run, forcing the Browns to beat them, what’s the correct call? Continually run into a stacked box or attempt to loosen the defense and allow for space to operate?

This has been the issue all year: the lack of passing attack has stymied the run offense, allowed for defense to prepare to stop the run, play man on the outside and force the broken passing game to win..

The run game still managed to finish 5th in EPA this year (11th last year) but was 12th since week 9 and 17th since week 12… So as teams have continually schemed to stop the run and force the pass game to beat them, the run offense has gotten worse and the offense as a whole has suffered..

It may be questionable why the Browns have passed as much as they have, but running it with diminishing returns was not going to dig them out of the hole.. The only way was for the pass game to show some life to open up the offense, which it never did..

With all this, the Browns still ranked 25th in neutral pass rate (compared to 29th last year) so while the Browns passed more this year, it still was not anywhere nearly as pass heavy as the rest of the league..

What’s interesting is since week 9 the Browns are 13th in neutral pass rate on 1st downs which is a huge shift from being ranked 29th last year… And with the inefficient passing attack, I think this has lead the Browns to get behind the sticks and fall victim to passing more to gain yardage.. With that also, since week 9 the Browns still have a higher success rate on first down passes than runs FWIW…
So the issue I see is that that KS built a team around the run, Play action, and strong TE play. It is effectively a modified early 2000s offense. So what do you think is goign to happen when you try and change the team mid season to a pass happy offense that doesnt have any receivers?

All but 2 games since week 9 have been decided by a single possession (one was last night which was still very close) and since that time the browns have only started passing more, and more, and more. Being capped by last night throwing the ball almost 40 times. As the weather has gotten worse, as games have gotten closer KS has completely gone away from the offense HE built this team around.

Nick Chubb is absolutely and 100% the best player on the offensive side of the ball and the fact that during some of the biggest drives of this season he is on the bench really makes you question what the hell KS is thinking. In the GB game Chubb had 150 yards of rushing and wasnt in the game's final drive, when the browns had 3 timeouts at mid field only needing a fucking field goal to win.

Last night Chubb got a total of 12 rushes, his lowest total of the season.

We can point to Baker all we want and but in games when the running backs should have been used, when the offense this team is based on could have won them games. KS has gone away from that.
 
So the issue I see is that that KS built a team around the run, Play action, and strong TE play. It is effectively a modified early 2000s offense. So what do you think is goign to happen when you try and change the team mid season to a pass happy offense that doesnt have any receivers?

All but 2 games since week 9 have been decided by a single possession (one was last night which was still very close) and since that time the browns have only started passing more, and more, and more. Being capped by last night throwing the ball almost 40 times. As the weather has gotten worse, as games have gotten closer KS has completely gone away from the offense HE built this team around.

Nick Chubb is absolutely and 100% the best player on the offensive side of the ball and the fact that during some of the biggest drives of this season he is on the bench really makes you question what the hell KS is thinking. In the GB game Chubb had 150 yards of rushing and wasnt in the game's final drive, when the browns had 3 timeouts at mid field only needing a fucking field goal to win.

Last night Chubb got a total of 12 rushes, his lowest total of the season.

We can point to Baker all we want and but in games when the running backs should have been used, when the offense this team is based on could have won them games. KS has gone away from that.

So if a called pass play results in an open receiver and the QB is unable to make the play, it was a bad play call?

We're going to blame the coach for not doing more to tiptoe around his rotten QB instead of, you know, blaming the QB for being rotten?

"Baker is shit, but I'm mad at Stefanski for not scheming around his shittyness enough!" is just the silliest talking point that some of y'all keep hammering over and over.
 
So if a called pass play results in an open receiver and the QB is unable to make the play, it was a bad play call?
I mean, yeah? Do you not take your quarterbacks strengths and limitations into account when making play calls?

Imagine if this was the attitude they had with Lamar Jackson in Baltimore? You need to be able to pivot to your personnel, or get different personnel.
 
I mean, yeah? Do you not take your quarterbacks strengths and limitations into account when making play calls?

Imagine if this was the attitude they had with Lamar Jackson in Baltimore? You need to be able to pivot to your personnel, or get different personnel.

My friend this is the NFL we're talking about here.



If your QB can't make a play like this? Then his limitations are far too extensive to justify him being on your roster long-term.

We're not talking about overly complex stuff here. Really high level guys like Mahomes execute passing concepts that have multiple layers and variations and then option routes on top of that. Baker's head would explode if a coach asked him to do anything like that. Stefanski has dumbed this offense down to the most boring and predictable level he can to try and give this guy the easiest and most basic reads he can and it still isn't enough.

That is the dirty little secret that people who bash Stefanski don't want to admit is that the Browns don't run the kind of really creative stuff Shanahan and Kingsbury and Reid like to run because Baker can't execute that type of stuff, not because Stefanski is likes a offense that's nothing but boring slants, flats and sticks.
 
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And the thing is...

A quarterback can still absolutely succeed in the NFL (to a certain point) without the ability to play with anticipation. But generally you need one of four things.

1. A great offensive line to keep pressure off of you
2. High level presnap ability to know which of your available routes will come open quicker than pressure can get home
2. Plus athleticism to escape pressure
4. The ability to maneuver up, down and side-to-side in a dirty/collapsing pocket and/or the willingness to step up in the pocket and take a hit while delivering a throw

Passing windows are going to open eventually as no defense can consistently cover forever. Any time an OL can give a QB an extra half second or more or a QB can buy himself an extra half second or more, it can mean all the difference in the world.
 
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So the issue I see is that that KS built a team around the run, Play action, and strong TE play. It is effectively a modified early 2000s offense. So what do you think is goign to happen when you try and change the team mid season to a pass happy offense that doesnt have any receivers?

All but 2 games since week 9 have been decided by a single possession (one was last night which was still very close) and since that time the browns have only started passing more, and more, and more. Being capped by last night throwing the ball almost 40 times. As the weather has gotten worse, as games have gotten closer KS has completely gone away from the offense HE built this team around.

Nick Chubb is absolutely and 100% the best player on the offensive side of the ball and the fact that during some of the biggest drives of this season he is on the bench really makes you question what the hell KS is thinking. In the GB game Chubb had 150 yards of rushing and wasnt in the game's final drive, when the browns had 3 timeouts at mid field only needing a fucking field goal to win.

Last night Chubb got a total of 12 rushes, his lowest total of the season.

We can point to Baker all we want and but in games when the running backs should have been used, when the offense this team is based on could have won them games. KS has gone away from that.
Go look at Bitinio comments midseason. He pretty well said we are seeing loaded boxes every game and it is tough to run when there is more people to block then blockers. No one cared if we threw the ball cause they knew we couldn't beat them that way. You cant establish the run with 8 guys in the box. If any top 10 QB saw the defenses we were seeing they would of thrown for 500 yards and 6 TDs every game.
 
My friend this is the NFL we're talking about here.



If your QB can't make a play like this? Then his limitations are far too extensive to justify him being on your roster long-term.

We're not talking about overly complex stuff here. Really high level guys like Mahomes execute passing concepts that have multiple layers and variations and then option routes on top of that. Baker's head would explode if a coach asked him to do anything like that. Stefanski has dumbed this offense down to the most boring and predictable level he can to try and give this guy the easiest and most basic reads he can and it still isn't enough.

That is the dirty little secret that people who bash Stefanski don't want to admit is that the Browns don't run the kind of really creative stuff Shanahan and Kingsbury and Reid like to run because Baker can't execute that type of stuff, not because Stefanski is likes a offense that's nothing but boring slants, flats and sticks.

Looking at this play, if anyone was intentionally tanking that game it wasn't Stefanski.
 

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