The 2019 Browns' Chronicles: Week 1 and Week 2

Ladies and gentlemen the Browns’ Chronicles are back! That’s right. The people here at The Cornercube are grateful to be your guiding hand as we, the Browns faithful, endeavor on this soap opera of a journey that is called, The Cleveland Browns 2019 Football Season.

As many of you know, the Browns 2019 campaign objectives have changed drastically in comparison to the previous campaign’s objective (noticed how I used objective in its singular form.  That’s because 2018’s goal was to win A game). With the addition of Odell Beckham Jr., Sheldon Richardson, and Olivier Vernon in the offseason, coupled with the immensely talented Jarvis Landry, Denzel Ward, Nick Chubb, Myles Garret and promising quarterback, Baker Mayfield, expectations were reasonably set at a higher bar. I’m talking a bar that Browns fans haven’t seen since the 2002 – playoffs. Now, reaching the playoffs is a long-term goal. It obviously doesn’t happen over night as the NFL season is a sixteen-game affair, and I’m sure most of our readers’ blood pressure can attest to that fact, but it’s also important to have short term goals.

A short-term goal that seemed attainable was something that has not been done by the Browns since 2004. That is to win their season opening game. The Tennessee Titans were thought to be the Browns’ sacrificial lamb to end the fifteen-year drought. This makes total sense and was not a wide-eyed immaculate fantasy, made up by some blogger oozing away in his cube. No, the Titans were a team that most resembled a chicken with its head cut off. Yes, the Titans had three consecutive winning seasons, but that’s because the Titans are playing in a division with three other headless chickens! When a team’s depth chart consists of Marcus Mariota at quarterback, then trades for Ryan Tannehill, and Mariota still maintains his starting job, not even the French in World War II could have made a more symbolic gesture of surrender. The Browns had this in their sights; they had it within reach, and they had the better players on both sides of the ball, but they failed to win.  

They failed to win because, and as you know, they committed eighteen penalties for almost 200 yards. The Browns had more total yards, more time of possession, and more passing yards. However, the Browns were inefficient on third down, mainly because penalties backed us up and made the third downs unreasonable – plus the offensive line was atrocious. First, it obviously did not help that Greg Robinson was ejected in the first quarter for attempting to imitate Jaden Smith from the Karate Kid by kicking Titan’s defender Kenny Vaccaro in the head. Secondly, other than JC Tretter and Joel Bitonio, the offensive line looked like a human version of the New Orleans’ levies being demolished by Hurricane Katrina. Such poor performance led to Baker Mayfield getting sacked five times for a loss of 41 yards.

The other issue seemed to be the play calling. It might be with the new-found talent at the wide receiver position, but it just seemed that the Browns were trying to force these long passes which inevitably failed. On a third and one in the second quarter, at midfield, the Browns took a fifty-yard pass instead of trying to gain a yard on the ground. Although The CornerCube only has experience playing “Madden” and not real life football, it seems that if a team has a poor offensive line but talented receivers, that short, quick passes, may be the recipe for success. If the players with the most talent on the field can work in space, then yards will be picked up after the catch. The Browns attempting these deep passes are recipes for short duration, stalled drives.

The Browns second game against the Jets was a vast improvement over their opening game debacle, but there were still areas to improve. Again, the play calling focused on deep passes instead of simple, quick passes to Odell or Jarvis. However, when a short pass was called in the third quarter, Odell was able to take it 89 yards for a touchdown. That should be the mentality for the rest of the season – West Coast style of play. The defense looked good other than Myles Garrett committing two personal fouls and one which sidelined the Jets backup-turned-starter, Trevor Siemian, after their usual starter, Sam Darnold, caught mononucleosis which, considering he plays for New York, was probably given to him by a life size subway rat, more so than any Manhattan prostitute (we aren’t doctors or medical personnel so don’t take that as fact, but rather just laugh at the joke. Thank you.). The sole threat posed to the Browns by the Jets was from their stellar running back, Le’Veon Bell. However, Bell’s former romantic partner and baby mama, may be causing him some mental distractions as she is now posting about her all not so inconspicuous relationship with the “all too famous for the wrong reasons” Patriot’s receiver, Antonio Brown. The Cornercube was unable to corroborate whether this truly did play into Le’Veon’s performance, but nonetheless, The Cornercube thanks you Cherise for your poor choices, possibly causing a distraction to the father of your kid(s)!

Overall the Browns won a game that they should have won, and they did it convincingly, but there are noticeable issues that must be fixed if the Browns are going to make an attempt at making the playoffs. The Cornercube hopes they can correct these issues before they go on national television against the defending NFC Champions, Los Angeles Rams.