Football is back, America! Along with it are the countless
Bud Light Lime commercials, the endless Lincoln ads in which Mathew McConaughey
is the epitome for the phrase “just smile and look pretty,” and of course, the litany
of Allstate “Mayhem” commercials. However, what is even more prominent is what
I like to call, “The 2018 Cleveland Browns’ Chronicles!”
That’s right, after the Browns accrued no wins in 2017, I
became inspired to write a blog each week detailing the major “points of
emphasis” for that week’s game. In turn, this blog will be the inaugural for
the 2018 Cleveland Browns Season. Let’s begin!
1. Cleveland’s
Offensive Line: Boy was it bad. Several stats can be used to gauge how bad
an O-line really is. Looking at the stats is like a doctor running a diagnosis
by checking for symptoms. The patient says he has a sore throat and then the
doctor tries to run different tests in order to determine whether the sore
throat is caused by allergies, a cold, sinus infection, strep throat, or mono.
From there the doctor can prescribe a treatment for the patient or tell the
patient to just rest. Either way the
patient will be sure to receive a bill that far exceeds the doctor’s efforts.
Anyhow, enough with America’s big business called healthcare and back to
America’s soul called, football!
So what the stats will show is whether the fault lies with
the offensive line or the quarterback. The first stat to look at is the amount
of sacks that the quarterback, Tyrod Taylor, incurred. Tyrod was sacked seven
times for a total loss of forty-seven yards. In other words, if Tyrod
remembered his own birthday by the end of the game, it would be a miracle. The
next stat is leading rusher. Typically this usually should be a running back.
However, for the Browns it was Tyrod Taylor. Yes, Taylor is a scrambling
quarterback, but he hardly had any quarterback design runs, and so this signals
that he may have been running for his life, rather than by tactical intent.
However, the Browns did have more rushing yards than their opponent, with 177
yards. Unfortunately, 77 of those yards came from Tyrod Taylor running for his
life. Granted, the Steelers pass rushers resemble Patton’s tank battalion’s systematic
trampling over the French plains. Also, the Browns are replacing the Hall of Fame
left tackle, Joe Thomas, who unfortunately suffered from Stockholm syndrome as
evidenced by his refusal to leave Cleveland for, I don’t know, a team with any
sort of playoff chance.
2. Ben
Rapistberger. Not only did the largest pretentious brute in the NFL,
and that’s saying something as there are a lot of pretentious brutes in the
NFL, play terribly, but he might have been what cost the Steelers the win.
However, this should really be credited to the Browns’ defense that never lost
focus and only got better as the game went on. It was good to see young first
round draft picks, specifically Myles Garrett and Denzel Ward, have huge
impacts on defense. The commentators,
specifically Big Ben’s former offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians, kept
praising Big Ben for slimming down and following his diet (disregard the fact
that Rapistberger’s previous daily diet consisted of a case of Bud Heavy and a
family size package of Oscar Meyer all beef hot dogs). However, even with Big
Ben’s “tremendous” weight loss, he still evaded rape charges better than the
Cleveland Browns’ pass rush. Also the Browns’ pass defense caused Big Ben to
force passes, which resulted in three interceptions.
3. Hue Jackson.
I used to feel sorry for Hue Jackson, as I thought he was just a dispirited
coach who has tried to do everything to get his team to win, but to no avail.
For the longest time I thought, before the Browns players would rush out on the
field, Jackson would flip a coin to decide whether he would take a swig of
whiskey or shoot himself in the head with a revolver. However, now I have come
to the conclusion that Hue Jackson is like the two young Joad children, Ruth
and Winfield, from Steinbeck’s Grapes of
Wrath. More specifically when the Joad’s enter California they first live
in a “government camp.” Here Ruth and Winfield encounter one of the camp’s
sanitary stations, what we would call toilets, but what they thought were
simply white, porcelain pots that held water. Winfield then pulls the lever on
the toilet and jumps when the water swishes down. Ruth then claims Winfield
broke the machine and Winfield starts to sulk.
Jackson’s coaching is like Winfield coming upon a toilet for the first
time. In the past two years, whenever Jackson would look down at his play sheet,
he was like Joad staring at the porcelain toilet. Each time Hue would hear a
voice in his headset, he would jump, just like Winfield jumped when the water
swished down the toilet.
However, now Jackson looks like a man who has been told that
what he has in his hand is called a play sheet which he can reference to decide
what plays to run in a given situation. At one moment I saw Hue cussing out a
referee. It brought a tear to my eye, because it caused me to realize that Hue
does have a soul. He has finally
realized where he is and what he is to do. Now, it may be that Hue is finally
feeling the fire under his ass, because if he can’t put a winning team
together, he may find himself in a position similar to Joad’s, in that he must
start frantically looking for new work.
4. The Weather. Bruce Arians was not only a terrible analyst,
but he was about as unbiased as Matt Lauer was while he was moderating a 2016
presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton (Laurer would ask
Hillary how she would end worldwide poverty with only a ten dollar bill and a
ballpoint pen, while he would then ask Trump if he likes his Quarter Pounder
with or without cheese). Arians believed that because Big Ben was the best “bad
weather” quarterback, that the advantage went to the Steelers. Never mind the
fact the Steelers are the defending division champs and are picked to possibly
represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, but it’s the fact that Big Ben is good
when things become “messy. “Just like Ben’s stellar ability to escape prosecution
after forcing himself upon a hotel maid. Looking at the pass statistics the
Browns were very affected by the rain – they only had 150 yards of passing
offense and Taylor only had 15 completions out of 40 attempts. So, it’s ironic
that Cleveland next travels to the city most affected by Hurricane Katrina
after they basically just played in it.
5. We Tied, Which
Means We Can’t Go 0-16, Again! After losing every game last year and
only winning one the year prior, it felt good just securing a tie, especially
against an upper echelon team like the Steelers. So yeah, a tie feels the same
as being ghosted after going on one date with a beautiful lady, but hey, at
least that lady thought enough of you, initially, to go on one date. So
Cleveland, we may have been unable to secure that coveted second date, but we
got that first date, which was more than we ever got last year!
On to New Orleans! Go Browns!
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