San Francisco Treat? More like San Francisco Cleat. (In our faces)

Here is an actual sentence I  typed in an email Monday afternoon. "I might be foolishly optimistic to think we can score four touchdowns"  I will not dodge it when I have made a horrendous prediction, I will own my mistakes, and try to make sense of where it all went so wrong.  I cannot imagine what that team flight was like coming back from California.  It was probably similar to a trip I had leaving San Francisco when I was carrying along some of these little critters in my intestines.  (If you ever need a compelling argument about why to treat water when backpacking at high altitudes, I'm the the guy to make the case for that.  Yikes.  Double yikes.)  Regardless, that 4 hour flight from SFO to CLE had to be brutal for this team, I'm guessing there were a lot of headphones, eye masks, and silent introspective meditation about the dismantling of the Cleveland Browns at the the hands of the San Francisco 49ers.  The nine readers of last weeks post (sad, crying emoji) saw me pick the Browns to win 31-20, but I crazily thought the Browns could get some first downs, complete some passes, and at least interfere with the 49er offense.  The only thing I can think of that maybe the whole team fell victim to some bad cioppino from Scoma's in Sausalito, as I did several years ago.  (I do not mean to disparage the good name of Scoma's, or shellfish in general, but on that day, something was a little bit off in the kitchen)

So here it is, six days later and I am still mulling over the shit sandwich that was Monday Night Football last week.  (That's pretty strong language for a guy like me, good thing my mom doesn't read my Cleveland Browns blog)  But I can't really put it any other way.  The Browns went to San Francisco, coming off a great win at Baltimore where the offense looked 1000 times better, and they absolutely could not have played much worse.  Terry Pluto referred to the Browns as "underprepared and overwhelmed" but I bet he would secretly agree with my own astute shit sandwich analysis.    Cleveland wasn't ready for any aspect of the game; they gave up 275 yards rushing, three sacks in the first half, and an 83 yard TD run on San Francisco's first play of the game.  Perhaps the most telling stat is that Baker Mayfield had one completion in the second half.  It didn't help that the 49ers seemed to have the ball the entire game. (The Browns ran only 46 plays compared to 71 by San Francisco)  So my five AM wake-up call turned into being down 14-0 by about 5:09.  And actually it could have been worse.  Baker threw a pick right after Breida scored the long TD but 49ers couldn't cash it in, then Baker fumbled 3 minutes later and they missed a field goal, so it stayed 14-0.  

After that, not a thing could get going in the right direction, the Browns were clearly demoralized to the point of no return, and it's pretty clear there's not really a leader who can rally this team when adversity strikes.  That's mostly a shot at Kitchens, who once again didn't really put the offense in a position to be successful.  It looked to me like they tried to add plays during the week, I'm not sure why that would be necessary because they were generally successful against Baltimore.  I'm not sure why Callaway was even on the field.  He look totally confused at times; I think he had at least one false start, looked like he didn't know where to lineup, and of course the pass that was a sure touchdown bounced off both of his hands and his chest for an interception.  He couldn't practice with the team while under suspension, and it showed.  I can see why it might be worth it to have him on the field, he could just run deep routes and try to get the 49ers secondary to shift.  Even more bizarre was OBJ returning a punt down 21-3 late in the game, that made no sense whatsoever, and Freddie's defense of that decision was pretty thin.  Speaking of OBJ, the book is out on Baker and his tendency to roll right when under pressure, so I am not clear why OBJ lines up on the left so often.  What I am clear about is that he has 4 catches in the last 2 weeks, and has been far from impactful for the Cleveland Browns this season.

Final comment on the game: I am not sure how I would have liked Freddie to look in the post game presser, but he looked shell-shocked, with a dazed sort of look in his eye.  Some of his responses to questions just sort of tailed off into Alabama mumbling, without really offering much insight or even opinion about the game.  Mumbling is okay if you are Bill Belichick, but it's not okay not if you've got two losses by more points than Hue Jackson ever lost by.  (That's poor sentence construction, but you get the idea)

So here we are, 2-3 with a reasonable chance at getting to 3-3 at home against Seattle tonight.  On one hand, 3-3 could be construed as mildly successful at this point in the season. (Let's not forget the black hole of 2015-2017 where we won a total of 4 games out of 48)  However, my opinion is that the manner in which you lose is relevant, sometimes I don't buy into a loss is just one game, they all count the same, and so forth.  The Browns have now been absolutely taken apart twice, but maybe we can let week one slide a little.  In those losses we looked completely lost, Baker looks to be making binary reads, then running for his life when neither option is good.  (Thanks Doug Farrar for that expression) The Browns are 29th in offensive DVOA above Miami (trying to intentionally lose), the team in Washington D.C. (recently fired a coach), and the Jets. (who are the Jets)  DVOA is a pretty deep dive into football statistics, way beyond the linear algebra and differential equations I muddled at university.  But really, the take away is that the offense is among the very worst teams in the NFL, a far cry from how they were #1 in DVOA during the second half of 2018.  We have a talented defense that can control aspects of a game, but the offense has got to score 20+ points to even give use a chance in today's NFL.  And it falls on Freddie and his staff to get this figured out pretty quickly.

Look, I'm not quite ready to utter the three big words words that strike fear into Northern Ohioans everywhere (Same old Browns), but if they lose tonight, then dump another game at New England, we are right back in the familiar territory of a 2-5 start.  A place where we have spent a lot of time since 1999. (look for a brief preview of tonight's game later tonight)

Go Browns.