By Kris Mead
In the film, Star Wars
Episode IV: A New Hope there is a scene in which Han Solo and Luke
Skywalker must venture into the Empire’s Death Star, posed as enemy storm
troopers, in order to rescue Princess Leia. At the same time the Jedi, Obi-wan
Kenobi, attempts to switch off the Death Star’s tractor beam. The mission is a
success. Solo and Skywalker are able to secure possession of Leia, and Kenobi
is able to switch off the tractor beam. Although Kenobi sacrifices himself for
the group to escape, and the fact that Solo, Leia and Skywalker must fight
their way out of the Death Star, the group is still able to successfully
complete their mission with limited casualties.
The Browns, last week in their loss to the San Die ... ooops…Los
Angeles’ Chargers, were “attempting” to do what Skywalker, Solo, and Kenobi
were successful in doing – escaping, successfully, undetected in enemy
territory. I put attempting in quotations, because the Browns’ attempt was
about as effective as the Battle of Mogadishu was in preventing Somali from tumbling
into civil war.
For the Browns, it has felt as though they have been able to
disguise themselves as storm trooper (i.e. a legit professional football team
against whom other teams actually have to practice) all within the confines of
the Empire’s (i.e. the NFL) Death Star. For the most part, the Browns have been
able to evade complete discovery. In a way, the Browns were similar to any of
the Assassin Creed video games. In
those games the player is, well, an assassin who sneaks around so as not to get
detected. The player has this little arrow that will enlarge and change color
to alert her that she either has been or, if she does not hide, will be
detected. In times, when the assassin is not noticed, the arrow will stay
“white” and small. The Browns for the first five games have mostly stayed in
either the non-detected or “slightly detected” stage (loss to the Raiders).
However, the massacre that happened this past Sunday was
essentially the equivalent of Solo and Skywalker stepping off the Millennium
Falcon, in the Death Star, and being decapitated immediately by Darth Vader.
The Browns did not fool anyone. They reverted to their old ways, and I’m
talking “old ways,” like the butt whooping the Browns received by the Cowboys
in the 2016 regular season twenty-five-point loss. The Browns weren’t just an
assassin detected, but it was like being detected in the Palace of Versailles,
in Assassin’s Creed Unity, and all of
King Louis’ Palace Guards were slashing their cutlasses into the Browns’ gullet
simultaneously. Watching the Browns’ on Sunday was like watching Alabama beat
The Citadel in football, and, unfortunately, The Browns were The Citadel!
So enough with the sci-fi analogies. It is the only way that
I can cope with the loss without resorting to a strong drink, which, if the
people at my bar are a sample size of the greater Cleveland Browns’ fan base,
most people have chosen a stiff drink as their coping mechanism (I salute
you!). How was this a massacre? The score alone, 38-14, is enough to suggest
that this was a massacre, but that’s not a reliable measure to simply write off
a game as a “massacre.” If questioning this theory, just look at the Ohio State
victory against Minnesota last Saturday. Although Ohio State won by sixteen
points, anyone who watched that game would never consider it a blowout.
So then why was this such a blowout for the Browns? First,
the Browns could not stop the run … at all! The Chargers could run it up the
middle, around or side to side. It
didn’t seem to matter where they ran it because they just could. Melvin Gordon
was the Chargers’ leading rusher with 132 yards on just 18 carries. He also recorded three touchdowns. All the
Browns rushes combined do not even come within ten yards of surpassing Gordon’s
rushing yards. The Browns’ leading rusher, Duke Johnson, had thirty-six yards
on two carries; whereas Carlos Hyde had the most touches (14), but only ran for
a total of thirty-four yards. The second issue isn’t so much the Browns’
rushing attack, but more so the Browns’ offensive line - or lack of one.
Combine the lackluster rushing with Baker Mayfield’s five sacks, for a combined
loss of twenty-four yards, and it is a recipe for an offensive disaster. The
third issue was Baker Mayfield himself. He resembled, dare I say, Tyrod Taylor
instincts. In other words, Baker held the ball far too long when he should have
either dumped it off or thrown it away. However, this coincides with the fourth
issue – lack of wide receivers. With Rashard Higgins injured, the Chargers
doubled team Jarvis Landry and took their chances playing one on one with the
Browns anemic receiving corp of Njoku, Calloway, and the rookie – Damion Ratley
(who ironically would be the leading receiver for the Browns). So pretty much the offense as a unit was
completely dismal, i.e. they played like the traditional Browns. So the
Chargers thought, and to quote the ex-Arizona Cardinals head coach, Dennis
Green, “they [Browns] are who we thought they were” and they suck!
On a bright note, the Cleveland kicking game, which has been
the Browns’ Achilles heel (pun is absolutely intended) was the best part of the
team! Greg Joseph went two for two. Encouraging as that may be, the Browns have
to restart, and they have to realize that this game exposed them. The Browns
can’t stealthily sneak up on opponents and take them out, like in Assassin’s Creed. Sometimes they are
going to have to take their opponents head, a full-frontal attack, with “guns a
blazing.”
Onto Tampa Bay!
P.S.
If you still don’t think this was “that bad of a loss”, just
realize that Geno Smith played better than Baker Mayfield (in terms of QBR).
The very fact that the Los Angeles’ Chargers allowed Geno Smith to not only
touch an actual football field, but allowed him to touch an actual football,
should cause any reasonable person to instantly nauseate. That’s how bad the Browns played.
No comments:
Post a Comment