Ask a Browns Fan

They beat us last year
They are 1-1..not 0-2
They have scored more TD’s this year
There defense has allowed less points
Bad part is Miami has all the talent…but it is what it is. If we lose this game Sparano will be gone IMO

Basically what Kevin13 said… I personally feel like the Browns aren’t too far ahead or behind the Dolphins, although I have to admit I think wherever each team is now, the Browns are trending upwards and the Fins are hitting a rough spot.

We’ve won 3 games in a row against you guys, including last year, and right now we’re a 3 point favorite. Colt’s been playing well and while our offensive line is a bit of a patchwork, they looked serviceable against Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney. I’m not sure Miami’s line is going to offer the same caliber threat (I think the line is Indy’s best defensive unit), and I think part of the reason the right side of our line struggled is because both Oneil Cousins and Artis Hicks are new, and theyre still learning. Another week of reps under their belts will improve both players.

I think Peyton will have another decent game and I think we’ll start to see the Browns making more use of Cribbs as a receiver and back up HB Montario Hardesty, whos more of a change of pace from Hillis’ bruising style.

Defensively our line has impressed with rookies Phil Taylor and Jabal Sheard, Sheard sealing the deal with a forced fumble and recovery last week in Indy, and Taylor breaking up passes in addition to doing a solid job clogging the line. Match them with Rubin, who a lot of people dont know is a stud, and we’re not to shabby. Lots of work still to be done, but as a Browns fan I’m pleased with the progress. Then you’ve got a solid group of blue collar LBs and Joe Haden playing lights out with vet Sheldon Brown playing servicably, TJ Ward at safety…. I guess my point is we’re nota bunch of all stars anywhere on safety, but we’re decent. I think that kind of reminds me of your offense. I just think at home, the Brownies can pull it out and use the ground game and effective, efficient passing to control the pace of the game and win a close one.

It depends on what you mean by “in serious trouble.” I think we showed we could be a competitive team last year despite the 5-11 record (wins against Saints, Pats, an infinite number of close games) but we just hadn’t taken the step to be able to win some of those games.

This year with a new coaching staff against a weaker schedule I don’t expect us to be able to take that next step, but I do think we’ll have a slightly better record.

So I don’t think you’ll be the 2nd team to lose to a 2-14 team if we do win, but I don’t think you’ll have lost to a playoff-bound team either.

We seemed to run a lot on first down last game, and we plugged away with Hillis even though until later in the game is YPC was pretty low. I think this game we’ll run more on second down and you’ll also see more of Hardesty getting carries as he only got a few against Indy and he wasn’t used properly – I think even by Shermer’s own admission.

I think you’ll definitely see more Cribbs. He had a down season last year but he’s looking like his former self so far this season. Against both Indy and Cinci he’s had BIG returns that seemed to be a block or two away from being taken to the house. IMO, its just a matter of time before he takes one in. Not to mention against Indy, he played a pretty critical role as a receiver, stretching screen plays for big yards at critical moments. Cribbs is just a freakin’ gamer, love that guy. Shermers even said he wants to get it to him more.

No, we don’t look at you as a bottom tier team. Buffalo is in the cellar of your division until they prove otherwise. Unfortunately for you, they’ve looked strong this year. There’s a lot of season left to go, though.

We have passed more than we’ve run so far, but Peyton is still gettting his. You will see more Peyton, but we used Cribbs on a lot of screens last week and he’s dangerous in space with the ball in his hands.

The good news for you is that we will run into 8 man fronts all day, and you will have the bodies upfront to stop the run. We haven’t yet become good at getting to the 2nd level and blocking LBs.

Meh. Personally, I dont love him or hate him but I dont miss him. I was personally more keen on Ryan. I feel like feelings are pretty diverse around DBN about that.

Great guy. Not yet there as an Offensive Coordinator, but I think he will eventually be an excellent coach.

Worst coordinator ever. He was great against the Pats, but horrible against everyone else.

He will have a good opening script, but ran out of gas in almost every game. He was far too conservative with us, ran far too many plays that didn’t go together cohesively and were instead a schizophrenic mess. Our routes were easy to pattern read, and we often played “not to lose.” It seemed like he was so committed to not having tendencies that he ended up not putting our players in the best position to succeed.

He did know how to run the ball, though. Players seemed to like him.

I’m loving the way Colts coming along but it’s still to early to judge. He’s got 3 TDs to one junk time INT so far this season. He’s been smart with the ball but in poor weather he’s started to lose accuracy.against Cincinnati he had a C game at best but he played very well against Indy, moving around well, avoiding turnovers (only one sack) and hitting the open man.

I think Peyton is playing pretty well so far this season, but I think Shermer is still trying to figure out how to unse him most effectively in this new offense.

We replaced our all world Fullback (Vickers) with a fourth round rookie. Hillis’ yards per carry are down as a result.

Colt is doing pretty well. He hasn’t had that game yet where he’s been lights-out, but he’s in a system that suits him and his accuracy well. He’ll throw a lot of short passes, occasionally going deep. I will say he doesn’t look as comfortable in this offense yet, as evidenced by his lack of success in the 2 minute drill this year. Last year he was driving the ball downfield in seemingly every 2 minute situation, this year it’s the opposite.

So far, so good with the madden curse. Peyton is still dragging people forward and stiff-arming LBs onto their backs. Our line/offense isn’t doing their job around him though. Fingers crossed.

Our defense is OK right now. I think we are going to effectively play a lot of “bend don’t break.” The Colts had 4 FG (0 TD) on us last game until deep in the 4th when we were up by several scores and went to the prevent defense. We’ve looked good against the run with a few glaring exceptions, though we haven’t exactly faced world-beaters in the running game. When our defensive players each “do their job” we are tough to run on, but we are young and inexperienced so there have been mental errors.

Defensively, Joe Haden is emerging as a star and I am looking forward to seeing how he does against Brandon Marshall. TJ Ward is looking solid as a SS, especially against the run. DE Jabaal Sheard and DT Phil Taylor have flashed the ability that made them our top 2 picks in April but they are still thinking and not playing a little out there. D’Qwell Jackson had the best game of his career in week 1 but didn’t show up as much last week. He’s our best LB.

I live just outside St. Louis (and I think Scrappy does to, or even in the city, not sure) and so I got to see a lot of Shurmur as the OC of the Rams. A lot of the feeling around here was that he was too conservative with his play calling. I was wondering if you guys had seen the same thing in Cleveland or if it might have just been his way of breaking in a rookie QB last year in Bradford.

If our team doesn’t shoot itself in the foot (7 penalties in the first quarter of the first game. First quarter…and a 20 yard punt, and a 30ish yard punt…) we will put up points. He’s been great for our offense so far, and I don’t think he’s been especially conservative.

Then again our best skill player is Peyton Hillis and we didn’t just use the 1st overall pick on a QB, so maybe I just like to see us run the ball.

I think most of us at Dawgs by Nature think Mangini wasn’t really given a fair shot, as we saw a definite improvement under him and last year’s 5-11 team was more competitive than any I’ve seen since the Browns have been back. Some are really upset about letting Mangini go.

Ultimately I think no one was extremely excited about Shurmur in particular but most are open to hopping on his bandwagon if he can win. I will tell you that I am excited about running a west coast offense. Many of us are in Holmgren’s corner, and Shurmur is his guy so I’d say a solid amount of people trust him to get it done.

Cameron Mitchell and Jabaal Sheard. Sheared was our first of two picks in the second round and he seems to be developing nicely. They just switched positions too – Sheard has moved from the left side of the line (for offense, right for D) to the right, taking over Mitchells old position and with Mitchell doing the opposite. Indy was the first time we did it and it seemed to work pretty well with Sheard getting more pressure on the QB coming from his old college position.

Pat Shurmur moved our 2nd round pick Jabaal Sheard to playing on the right side almost exclusively. He had a great game against the Colts. mitchell is more of a run stopper and will be on the left side.

We just switched our DEs, and they say they are keeping them this way, but who knows.

If they do stick with the way it is now, Columbo will be seeing our 2nd round pick, Jabaal Sheard. He doesn’t have an elite get-off but it’s pretty good. He’s got some speed and athleticism and a couple of nice moves, but he isn’t going to be Dwight Freeney in terms of quickness.

They’ll also see LB Scott Fujita blitz from that side, as well as (hopefully) safety TJ ward. The quickest guy out of all of the potential rushers would be CB Dimitri Patterson, who would be blizing off the slot WR if you put one out there. Rookie CB Buster Skrine is the fastest guy on our team (and we sent him on blitzes a lot in the preseason), but I doubt he plays.

Inside, I haven’t been keeping track of every down but I think DTs Athyba Rubin and Phil Taylor will occasionally switch sides. Both are very big and quick for their size, but neither is Warren Sapp.

Dick Jauron is the DC now with Ryan going to Dallas. Jaurons brought in a 4-3, which is a switch from the 3-4 we’ve been running for a few years.

 I’d say the strength right now is the secondary with Joe Haden and Sheldon Brown at corners, and TJ Ward and Usama Young at S. TJ struggles a bit in coverage but hits like a Mack truck and is a fan favorite. Haden is pretty lock down, eventual pro bowler, tied for second in the league for picks last year. Browns a solid old vet, and Young is really a stop gap solution til we can find a long term answer at that position, but he got an INT vs Indy so I’m happy.

I’d say, hearing from how your using Bush (sounds like you guys arent even happy with how he’s being used), I’m most afraid of Marshall, though he will likely be matched against Haden, who’s done a good job limiting Reggie Wayne and AJ Greene this year. I’m mostly afraid (scared to death) of you guys chipping away at us consistently, chewing up clock and beating us but consistently winning on first and second down. Not as worried about lots of big plays.

We are running a 4-3. Its hard yet to put a finger on what type it is, but its definitely not a soft cover-2 (we blitz some with the LBs).

I’d say our strength is our secondary, especially with Haden who is starting to become a shutdown CB. We are also very strong up the middle against the run. our huge DTs have looked good and our mlb Dqwell Jackson has been rock solid. Your best bet running the ball would be running to the right side.

I think they will come out and try to run it up the gut against your D. probably try some PA too early. Expect a lot of 2 TE sets

Ryan is gone (unfortunately), and we are now running a 4-3 under Dick Jauron.

If we have a strength in terms of units I guess it would be our DL? But players to look for are CB Joe Haden, SS TJ Ward, MLB D’Qwell Jackson, DTs Phil Taylor and Athyba Rubin, and DE Jabaal Sheard.

I think Marshall could do the most damage simply because he’s your best skill player. I don’t know how much they will try to shadow him with Haden, but my guess would be that limiting his big plays would be our top priority. Unfortunately this could leave a LB on Reggie Bush and/or space for Davonne Bess in the slot.

As for attacking your D, I expect a lot of our zone running plays to get your big front 3 to have to move, and some screens and PA fakes to hold your LBs and/or make them run wide. We always want to let Peyton Hillis run the ball, we always want to give Josh Cribbs the ball in space, and we will always use quick timing patterns to try to throw short passes, make first downs, and control the ball. Look out for big Evan Moore split out as a WR, especially in the red zone.

That’d probably be easiest

I expect the score to be right around 25 points for each team. Hopefully we can limit you to FGs instead of TDs and we can score a few TDs ourselves.

Our passing game scores more, but many of us are hoping they get the ball to Hillis on the goal line a little more, and not just his fantasy owners.

Rookie LG, and a revolving door of mediocre or worse players at RG and RT. Plenty of weak spots.

I think they are similar. Davis is more far along, but Haden might have a bit more playmaking potential. Both are very solid against the run

I would put Joe Haden pretty high, but he hasn’t really proven anything yet. I think he can be a top-10 CB but he needs to keep developing. I think Davis is probably 12-15 and mostly because of his physicality at the line. Davis will look better on Sunday because our WRs are mostly awful.

Colt has had enough time to throw with the exception of 5-8 plays (of about 75 attempts). Our healthy RTs are flat out horrible, and our Gs are both young and not great at picking up stunts and twists yet (though they have been better at pass pro than run blocking).

Colt does hold on to the ball too long at times, though. Our offense is designed so that once he hits his back foot he has maybe 1-2 hitch steps before the ball has to be out. He hasn’t been great about making his reads and delivering it on time, but he does have underrated athleticism to escape the pocket. If you guys play Cover 2 man under, he’ll run for first downs.

Great guy. Fast. Can’t catch. Never active on gameday.

He was before my time so I try not to think about it.

Pretty much every Browns fan loves him.

He is on the broadcasts for preseason games and he provides great analysis, but we can’t tell if he’s drunk, has been concussed too many times, or both.

I named my dog after him.

The Browns red zone offense seems to be centered on Hillis between the tackles and, more often than not, creating and exploiting mismatches with our power forward/Tight End Evan Moore. On the other side of the ball, the Browns have displayed the classic bend but dont break defense. Teams drive fairly easily into the red zone then sputter. But with such a small sample size (two games) it will be interesting to see how everything plays out on Sunday.

Surprisingly, we’ve been actually scoring TDs in the red zone this year. We tried our best for Phil Dawson fantasy owners in years past, but this year we are doing an OK job.

We don’t use personnel to get Peyton Hillis favorable matchups down there enough, but we are getting 6’6" TE/WR Evan Moore a lot of singled up red zone looks. Colt’s chemistry with his WRs isn’t good enough to consistently win down there yet, but we’ve been OK. I’d like to see us go big more often with more PA.

With such a small sample size, I’d say we are about even with the turnover battle. Our defense doesn’t seem to be particularly good at creating turnovers, though we were able to get a strip-sack and an INT last week. Our O doesn’t turn it over much, but both our RBs fumbled last week and the Colts strip-sacked Colt (we were lucky to get 2 of those back). Colt’s only INT of the year was a wet ball that slipped out of his hand and was caught by a DL.

Haha.

As long as LeBron doesn’t meet the Fins in Cleveland to show them the nightlife. Wait, that probably played a large part in why he left…

I did not always think that they would work (although some seemed genius) but always enjoyed the post and your passion.

I mean I would probably throw batteries at you.

Seriously though, I don’t think we’ll ever be totally over it. I’d rather not get into this though, as it will cause my liver a lot of harm and probably subsequently get me banned from this site.

at Browns stadium? Probably not, and probably not anywhere else, though I don’t know if it was every truly “dangerous”. Sure some people would possibly make a comment or boo, but thats the worst that would happen even before the finals loss.

I think most of us Browns fans were surprised-in a bad way-that Hardesty did not see the ball until late in the game in the midst of a red zone drive (where he fumbled and God, I mean Joe Thomas, recovered the ball). This week I would expect to see him early and paired with Hiliis quite often.

He’s shown flashes that he can be a decent back who spells Hillis and can bring a little more “wiggle” to the table as a runner. But we’re running into a numbers disadvantage and he isn’t going to drag people forward for extra yards like Hillis when he’s getting hit at the line.

Tickle him.

In terms of schemes and disguise? Probably not much. Phil Taylor will be a good test for him though.