Week 3 @ Baltimore Final Score: Baltimore Ravens - 34 Cleveland Browns - 3 Browns record: 0-3 People who were honest with themselves were expecting a Ravens win, but this was demoralizing. The defense played better, although it certainly didn't show in the final score as the Ravens offense got four extra cracks at it. Moreover, in benching a starter that he took too long to name in favor of sending a rusty QB who hasn't had quality practice time with the first squad in against an elite defense, Mangini has reignited the QB controversy that has torn this team apart for the past two seasons. His personnel decisions continue to confound and confuse everybody who's watching...and more and more threaten to decrease the number of those who are. Read More »
Week 2 @ Denver Final Score: Denver Broncos - 27 Cleveland Browns - 6 Browns record: 0-2 There were some growing pains - rookie Alex Mack looked extremely uncomfortable, particularly in the shotgun - but a lot of bad scheming and execution. The Josh Cribbs experiment isn't working on offense and Brady Quinn isn't convincing anybody that he's the answer at quarterback (his QB rating is currently 28th among active QBs). The mix of receivers isn't giving any of them the reps that a group of young players need - particularly since all concerned were looking at this as a rebuilding season. The future is NOT now - most fans knew that going into the season and were fine with it. This is a work in progress, but please start to show us some progress. Read More »
Week 1 vs Minnesota Final Score: Minnesota Vikings - 34 Cleveland Browns - 20 Browns record: 0-1 The Browns defense played a strong first half and it's hard to fault a team for failing to contain Adrian Peterson. The team really seemed to drop off in the second half, though, getting away from a first half approach that saw them flying to the ball and tackling well in the open field. Offensively, the team continued to show nothing. Quinn was unable to stretch the field (despite over 200 yards passing, he averaged only 5.9 yards per attempt), was intercepted once, sacked five times and fumbled the ball when it fell out of his hand as he tried to throw and spent too long standing in the pocket. With only one real playmaker on offense (Edwards), Quinn only managed to get him the ball once (other than the reversed touchdown), with tight ends and r Read More »
The final game of the preseason is typically a throwaway game in which, at most, a few bench roles are decided. Starters play very little, if at all, and offense and defense alike tend to put in very vanilla game plans so as to not tip their hands for the upcoming opponents in the regular season. With a team like the Browns, a team in flux, it remained to be seen how much information we might be able to glean from the final practice game regarding the many unanswered questions about this team. Read More »
So this game, against a good Tennessee Titans team, was probably the best with which to gauge the progress that the Browns have made this offseason. Read More »