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Well I clearly don't know how to call em, I thought we'd be on the receiving end of what we handed out, so I'm pleasantly surprised.
Obviously wasn't perfect but it was a pretty dominant win on the road against a team expected to be in the playoff hunt again (although that seems doubtful to me after what we saw yesterday)
1) Thought it was a pretty underwhelming performance by the $240 million man. The first half was not bad and he did have a couple really nice throws dropped, but he was pretty mediocre to poor in the 2nd half. Granted, we were way up and the Browns defense is really talented, but what we saw yesterday won't be good enough against teams most weeks. Some of it could also be the product of no preseason play for the starters (again) but we definitely need more than this most weeks. Other than the Giants and the Panthers, not many teams on our schedule have QB's as poor as Watson is now.
2) Defense was outstanding, although I temper some raving about them by noting again the Browns were missing both starting OT's. That said we were also missing our starting DE and all pro starting CB, so it does even out a bit there. 3 rookies playing on defense with 2 of them starting and playing extensively. DLaw, Parsons, Overshown and Kendricks all had spectacular games I thought. Diggs and rookie Carson looked excellent and nearly combined for 5 picks. Donovan Wilson looked good as well. Run defense looked improved as we held their two RB's to 54 yds on 14 carries. Pass rush was dominant at times. We pressured Watson relentlessly and were credited with 17 official QB knockdowns. (we had 3 total v Green Bay in our last game, and the 17 were more than any game we had last season. We had double digit hits v NYG and Carolina with 12 and 11)
3) As Dooms noted, Zeke's return was not bad. 10 carries for 40 yds and a nice inside the 5 TD run. Couple of catches and some really good blitz pickups. But Dowdle didnt do much and Lamb/Cooks accounted for 30 of our 102 yards rushing. Much more is needed, will be interesting to see if Dalvin Cook is activated this coming week. If Cook gets some PT and nothing changes much with the run game results, they'll definitely have to look at outside help before the trade deadline. After halftime we had a big lead and offensively produced three 3 and outs and two FG "drives" of 6 plays 14 yards and 6 plays 10 yds. Terrible.
4) Other than the nice win itself, the best news is it looks like we may have dodged a major bullet with Ferg's injury. MRI today will confirm and he may miss some time, but hopefully it will be short term at worst. Caelen Carson as noted above had a strong game and while I have not seen any type of update, he came out of the game at some point (I think early to mid 4th) and I never saw him return. There was a huge drop off from him to Mukuamu at CB, he'd be a huge loss if he has any sort of lasting injury. (Note, he did show up on the injury report Friday)
5) Rookie OL showed pretty well for first starts ever. On the road, vs an extremely talented defense. There were some bumps, but they were not "problems" at all and both should do nothing but get better and better. We killed it for 2024 draft it appears. 5 really good looking rookies in this class.
6) 11 penalties, at least two or three missed sacks, a few drops, 4/14 3rd down conversions, some shoddy special teams play (poor punt coverage, several plays they overran the punt, numerous ST penalties including the fairly inexplicable delay of game negating Aubrey's 66 yd FG) so plenty of stuff they can clean up.
7) I am guessing Amari Cooper's 2 catch for 16 yd performance that was highlighted by a dropped TD brought a huge grin to BB's face. He normally plays well at home and wasnt injured, so it was definitely a surprise to me that we did that good a job on him. Carson was on him most of the time and he nearly had 3 picks.
7) Brandon Aubrey is a freaking legend. Nailed 4 more FG's including two from 50+, and had the atomic bomb 66 yarder negated by penalty. Cleveland is NOT an easy place to kick at. One of best players on the team and is very arguably the best kicker in the league already. When it's time to get paid, he's going to reset the kicker pay market if he continues doing what he is doing.
8) The Giants and Foreskins both looked terrible yesterday and the Eagles really didnt look very good against Green Bay. If the Cowboys can stay healthy and figure out the run game stuff, we may be set up pretty well to be the first repeat NFC East Champ in almost two decades. I do think the Foreskins lucked out big time with the Bears stupidity of falling in love with the hype machine that is Caleb Williams, who looked putrid in his debut for the Bears. That said, Dan Quinn is going to ruin his rookie QB if he continues letting him run that much. He carried the ball 16 times yesterday and was also sacked a couple times, hit several others. He's not very big and I dont see how he can take that kind of punishment and last.
9) Kind of lame FOX, but those guys spent way more time during the day yesterday pimping this Tom Brady in the booth thing than necessary. He wasn't awful, but I (nor anyone else) ultimately don't care who your announcers are. It was definitely annoying, as was the constant Kamala-nism and Covid jab ads. Big FUCK YOU for both.
10) Better tests of our team the next two games (both at home). I think the Saints are much better than people expected and the Ravens are always good.
Obviously wasn't perfect but it was a pretty dominant win on the road against a team expected to be in the playoff hunt again (although that seems doubtful to me after what we saw yesterday)
1) Thought it was a pretty underwhelming performance by the $240 million man. The first half was not bad and he did have a couple really nice throws dropped, but he was pretty mediocre to poor in the 2nd half. Granted, we were way up and the Browns defense is really talented, but what we saw yesterday won't be good enough against teams most weeks. Some of it could also be the product of no preseason play for the starters (again) but we definitely need more than this most weeks. Other than the Giants and the Panthers, not many teams on our schedule have QB's as poor as Watson is now.
2) Defense was outstanding, although I temper some raving about them by noting again the Browns were missing both starting OT's. That said we were also missing our starting DE and all pro starting CB, so it does even out a bit there. 3 rookies playing on defense with 2 of them starting and playing extensively. DLaw, Parsons, Overshown and Kendricks all had spectacular games I thought. Diggs and rookie Carson looked excellent and nearly combined for 5 picks. Donovan Wilson looked good as well. Run defense looked improved as we held their two RB's to 54 yds on 14 carries. Pass rush was dominant at times. We pressured Watson relentlessly and were credited with 17 official QB knockdowns. (we had 3 total v Green Bay in our last game, and the 17 were more than any game we had last season. We had double digit hits v NYG and Carolina with 12 and 11)
3) As Dooms noted, Zeke's return was not bad. 10 carries for 40 yds and a nice inside the 5 TD run. Couple of catches and some really good blitz pickups. But Dowdle didnt do much and Lamb/Cooks accounted for 30 of our 102 yards rushing. Much more is needed, will be interesting to see if Dalvin Cook is activated this coming week. If Cook gets some PT and nothing changes much with the run game results, they'll definitely have to look at outside help before the trade deadline. After halftime we had a big lead and offensively produced three 3 and outs and two FG "drives" of 6 plays 14 yards and 6 plays 10 yds. Terrible.
4) Other than the nice win itself, the best news is it looks like we may have dodged a major bullet with Ferg's injury. MRI today will confirm and he may miss some time, but hopefully it will be short term at worst. Caelen Carson as noted above had a strong game and while I have not seen any type of update, he came out of the game at some point (I think early to mid 4th) and I never saw him return. There was a huge drop off from him to Mukuamu at CB, he'd be a huge loss if he has any sort of lasting injury. (Note, he did show up on the injury report Friday)
5) Rookie OL showed pretty well for first starts ever. On the road, vs an extremely talented defense. There were some bumps, but they were not "problems" at all and both should do nothing but get better and better. We killed it for 2024 draft it appears. 5 really good looking rookies in this class.
6) 11 penalties, at least two or three missed sacks, a few drops, 4/14 3rd down conversions, some shoddy special teams play (poor punt coverage, several plays they overran the punt, numerous ST penalties including the fairly inexplicable delay of game negating Aubrey's 66 yd FG) so plenty of stuff they can clean up.
7) I am guessing Amari Cooper's 2 catch for 16 yd performance that was highlighted by a dropped TD brought a huge grin to BB's face. He normally plays well at home and wasnt injured, so it was definitely a surprise to me that we did that good a job on him. Carson was on him most of the time and he nearly had 3 picks.
7) Brandon Aubrey is a freaking legend. Nailed 4 more FG's including two from 50+, and had the atomic bomb 66 yarder negated by penalty. Cleveland is NOT an easy place to kick at. One of best players on the team and is very arguably the best kicker in the league already. When it's time to get paid, he's going to reset the kicker pay market if he continues doing what he is doing.
8) The Giants and Foreskins both looked terrible yesterday and the Eagles really didnt look very good against Green Bay. If the Cowboys can stay healthy and figure out the run game stuff, we may be set up pretty well to be the first repeat NFC East Champ in almost two decades. I do think the Foreskins lucked out big time with the Bears stupidity of falling in love with the hype machine that is Caleb Williams, who looked putrid in his debut for the Bears. That said, Dan Quinn is going to ruin his rookie QB if he continues letting him run that much. He carried the ball 16 times yesterday and was also sacked a couple times, hit several others. He's not very big and I dont see how he can take that kind of punishment and last.
9) Kind of lame FOX, but those guys spent way more time during the day yesterday pimping this Tom Brady in the booth thing than necessary. He wasn't awful, but I (nor anyone else) ultimately don't care who your announcers are. It was definitely annoying, as was the constant Kamala-nism and Covid jab ads. Big FUCK YOU for both.
10) Better tests of our team the next two games (both at home). I think the Saints are much better than people expected and the Ravens are always good.
