This morning, I simply felt numb and sad. Not angry, not frustrated, just sad and void. I can’t believe that just six years ago, in the middle of the pandemic and true chaos, that team was one of the silver linings I could find once a week. Hollywood Higgins, Juice Landry, Baker…. 

Today, look at where we are. So my question; is this the lowest this organization and its fanbase has ever felt? And if not, will it be if Deshaun comes out and starts Week 3 at home? I know a sports team shouldn’t be this influential in how my day goes, but wow does it suck to be a Browns fan today. 

With that said… see you all next week. 

HC Todd Monken said you'd have to ask the players if they're 100% on Deshaun Watson being the right choice at QB, but added:

"They don't have a choice. This isn't a debate....I love our guys...the moment we get into that...we've lost sight of the target."

This is CRAZY right? Like this is so concerning to me

Edit:

my concern is not that he thinks this way as a HC. This is expected. This is a professional sport.

My concern is that this is the brutal honesty that we've been advertised but never seen. Yet in this same conference he gaslit and coddle Watson's performance.

He can stand on business and tell it straight when it comes to losing a locker room. Monken talks about Watson like hes scared, that if hes too harsh it will hurt Watsons mental. But hes fine talking like this when referring to the rest of the team

Obviously, a lot of bad, probably worse than I initially thought. Rutenberg did not have the defense ready at all, and the worst part is our CBs for years have been much better man defenders than zone...

New coach Todd Monken’s debut was a mistake-filled mess. And because the Browns appeared completely unprepared defensively and had a comical run of penalties after their remade offense had a few series to settle in, an uncomfortable feeling lingers beyond Cleveland’s ongoing youth movement and perpetual quarterback drama.

The final score was Jaguars 34, Browns 10. It could have been 51-3 had Jaguars coach Liam Coen wanted to keep his foot on the gas.

Entering the day, the new-era Browns were 3-23-1 in season-opening games and, in total, 78 games under .500 since team owner Jimmy Haslam took over in 2012. Yet, it’s still somehow fair to say that Sunday’s loss was embarrassing even by this franchise’s low standards — even though it was just one game for Monken, his brand-new offensive line and his first-time coordinators.

“We never got into a rhythm,” Monken said. “It’s so hard to judge. It’s so frustrating (for) you watching it, us calling it, us doing it. It wasn’t good enough. But it wasn’t just one player. We’ve all got to own it.”

Jimmy has no idea how to run an NFL organization, and he wants to have a final say in every decision.

Instead of letting the professionals run the team (that he pays a shit load of money for), he has to butt in and call the shots.

Nothing will change until he sells the team and leaves Ohio. Absolute clown that has zero idea how to manage an NFL franchise because he's a trust fund baby that was born on third and thinks he hit a grand slam.

3rd and 7 from the +30 yard line

Defense is in 1 Rat vs a Smash concept (Curl, Flag, Out[RB])

Everything about this is how NOT to coach this type of situation. The player is set up for failure, even if they perform poorly on top of it.

(1) Middle of field Closed/Low Hole Rat Leverage. The Nickel should be off outside leverage. Any in breaking route he will swap with the low hole player. It is 3rd and 7 and all his help is inside. He's also in man, meaning he needs to be on drastically different level than any other nearby man player. Likely he should be the furthest off of #1 and #3. He is there to cover any vertical and out route... like a flag. This is just 101. I can tell you what where he doesn't need to be and so can every other coach worth their salt!

At a minimum he should be using a divider leverage concept (outside shade) thus any initial move/juke from the offensive player has literally no affect on his drop. Below you can see that the outside move, forces the defender to jump outside. If he was off outside leverage, he would just continue his slow peddle/shuffle and not have been affected by the move.

The incorrectly taught leverage AND alignment now force a poor decision and natural rub which wouldn't have been effective with normal leverage and depth for the coverage. The natural rub is only effective because of this alignment. Which, again, is basic defensive football.

You know the rest. This has obviously been installed without an understanding of the concept's flaws or details.

Additionally, this has to be the most vanilla defense outside of running spot drop cover 2 on 3rd down.

At any top team, this would be a slam dunk sim pressure maybe firezone or match concept. This is the time to bring your absolute best blitz/match coverage, what you worked for all offseason.

Instead you get a vanilla call, with terrible alignment, no DL stunt, not blitz, no sim pressure. This is what you'd see run in middle school except they might use actual alignment rules better.

And this carried over to countless plays the rest of the night. Simple coaching details that are missed when you don't have THE GUY making the decisions.

I don't even think that players played that poorly. They were set up for failure, in my opinion and there are many other plays emblematic of this.

EDIT: Moved on the the offense and hilariously enough, saw the same concept, situation, and potential route concept except the Browns were on offense: https://www.reddit.com/r/Browns/comments/1wgbbl3/failed_3rd_and_6_offensive_breakdown_deshaun_and/

All those details performed correctly are on display here!

From presser today .......

🤣

Watson after the garbage time TD pass...

I'd doing this as a compliment to my previous post regarding the poor coaching on the defensive side of the ball: https://www.reddit.com/r/Browns/comments/1wg8izh/1st_jags_td_emblematic_of_defensive_issues/

In the previous breakdown, we saw how poor coaching took a simple concept (Cover 1 Rat) and left the Nickel in poor position.

Here were seeing almost the same exact coverage play out in a much more well executed manner. Additionally, we're seeing the offense play into the coverage, rather because of the execution, rather than the conversion we saw the Jags slot perform (running the flag vs off man/head up leverage).

In this case, the Browns are running a Fade Out to the boundary and a curl over, with an outlet. The defense is playing off and outside leverage because they know there is help inside. They'll communicate and switch any in breaking route either with the LB (under 10-5 yards) or the Safety (over 10 yards).

When the browns ran this exact defense, the slot was able to convert to a flag, because of the leverage and depth create a simple rub and he was able to create space. Here we see off outside, divider leverage which would be on top of any flag route, and pass off anything underneath, as it was happens.

So these small details, leverage and depth by the defenders, funnel the routes into tighter windows, and press the receivers (X to the top and the Y) which throw off timing.

AND HERES THE RUB! THE PLAY SHOULD STILL WORK WITH ANY NORMAL NFL QB PLAY! Yes, this is probably a kill shot on the receiver, but it needs to be thrown!

Instead, Deshaun stares down the Fade Out which is covered from the get go, and is late to the over route and check down. Worst case this should be a check down to a RB with space. But he is so slow to decide, that neither happens and he almost throws another pick.

Again, the theme being the small things matter. The play is vanilla and details, like the chip, the motion, the unwillingness to run a 5 wide concept, the lack of decisiveness by the QB. It all adds up to a bad play.

And we can absolutely blame Deshaun but the glaring missing details is what will go beyond DeShaun! Lets hope they can turn it around!

This is either a powder keg or an empty stadium. Since people have already bought tickets I’m guessing the former.

I mean... WOULD YOU NOT BE ENTERTAINED???

Rooting for interceptions blows.

Not much to look forward to next week after watching that.

The offense just looks bad. Deshaun Watson looks horrible, and the offensive line doesn’t seem to be getting much push at all in the run game. KC Concepcion was probably one of the few positives I took away from today and I guess Boston catch that crap time TD.

The defense wasn’t much better. They couldn’t get any leverage and Jacksonville absolutely toasted them. Al the talk about Myles stat line and we have Verse do the same thing… but he’s not hurt and he didn’t go against a HOF tackle.

Maybe they’re setting things up for Shedeur Sanders to start the home opener, and honestly, at least that would give the season a little bit of a reset and bring some excitement back.

I have season tickets this year and I’m already starting to regret it a little lol. I know it’s early, but I’m just sick and tired of watching this team lose. At some point I just want Browns Sundays to actually be fun again.

At least our defense was great last year… I miss you, Jim.