A great many things have come to pass in the world of sports since the Browns headed to Baltimore for a week one clash with the Ravens. The Browns shook off a loss to win the first matchup in the Battle of Interstate-71 against the Bengals, the Indians lost 8 straight games, the Big Ten realized how much money they’d lose without playing college football, and of course SV Holdenstedt II defeated SG Ripdorf/Molzen II 37-0 in the 11th division of Bundesliga.
Nobody is surprised that the Browns lost to Baltimore, but the manner in which they did was demoralizing to say the least. I believe that makes 16 straight losses in week one (bettors, file that fact away for next year) and back to back years where they lost by 30 or more points in the opener. Last year it was the 18 penalties and terrible play calling, and this year it was probably more of a case where the Browns ran into the jet-fueled buzzsaw that is the Baltimore Ravens. Everything they did appeared so easy, and I think the Ravens could have scored 50 points if they had kept their foot on the gas pedal. Meanwhile the Browns didn’t help their cause with mysteriously running a fake punt deep in their own end fumbling it away.* It really looked like a scrimmage for the Ravens, everybody was wide open, there was barely any bother from the Browns defensive line, and Baker looked completely overwhelmed. One bright spot from the game was the play of TE David Njoku who caught all three of his targets for 50 yards and a touchdown. (Njoku, true to form, went straight to IR and will miss at least 3 weeks) Not so bright in week one was OBJ, who caught 3 of 10 (forced) targets and once again was not impactful on the field.** The best commentary about the loss to the Ravens was offered by head coach Kenvin Stefanski who said simply “We did a lot of things that losing teams do.” That’s succinct enough, and perhaps is quite enough analysis of yet another week one blowout. Here at 4338, we were quite eager to move onto the Thursday night clash with the Bengals.
I have offered my thoughts on Cincinnati before; their bizarre chili-spaghetti-cheese concoction, the former nickname of “Porkopolis”, and their outstanding wiener dog race. The 2019 campaign was not good for the Bengals as rookie head coach Zac Taylor guided them to a 2-14 record. However, that paid dividends in the end as the Bengals ended up with the first pick in the draft. Somehow, they passed on guys like Quintez Cephus (Wisconsin), Lloyd Cushenberry III (LSU), L’Jarius Sneed (La Tech) and Rodrigo Blankenship. They settled on Joe Burrow, Heisman winner and look alike to Jim Breuer in the movie Half-Baked. When last we saw young Mr. Burrow, he was absolutely shredding the Clemson defense for 463 yards and 5 touchdowns en route to winning the national championship. It was as easy a pick as there ever was, there is no question about his talent and the Bengals were in desperate need of a face-of-the-franchise type of guy.
Week one was pretty forgettable for Joe Burrow, as he was 23-36 for 193 yds and one pick in a losing effort against a mediocre Chargers team that almost never wins playing in the Eastern Time Zone. However, the good citizens of Porkopolis remained stalwart in their support for the young signal caller, and a handful of them made the trip north to watch the Bengals play a primetime game against the Browns on Thursday night. To nobody’s surprise, there was a brief drunken brawl in the stands. That’s not an unusual occurrence in Cleveland, and who knows what led up to the clash, probably a lot of machismo fueled by Genesee Cream Ale. But what is odd to me is that cleveland.com reported that the average ticket price for the game was $404, and that seems like a lot of cheddar to spend just to throw blows in the stands. It’s bananas that people spent that much money on a week 2 game, not against a real rival, on a weeknight. I can think a lot more meaningful ways to put $404 into the local Cleveland economy.
Regardless, the actual game was entertaining, and the Browns started out running the ball, and stuck to it for the duration of the game. Baker was 16/23 with two touchdowns, including one to OBJ, so maybe that will get him going a bit more. Burrow threw the ball 61 times during the game. That’s not a misprint, a rookie QB threw the ball 61 times in a game. I cannot fathom what the Bengals are trying to do, there was no semblance of an actual game plan, and it looked like Cincinnati was drawing up plays in the dirt. I almost felt bad for Joe Burrow, he is really being thrown to the wolves this season, and I hope he is still upright three months from now. All that being said, the Browns really had to hold on to win 35-30. (There are a lot of upset gamblers about that bad beat) Once again, the defense was riddled with injuries, and generally underwhelming in their performance. It’s tough to complain too much about winning a divisional game, but I really thought the Browns defense would give up 17-20 points at the most to a rookie QB playing on the road. However, the Bengals actually had the ball for seven minutes more than Cleveland, and they ran 30 more plays than the Browns did. So it wasn’t the ball control offense I thought it would be from Cleveland, although we did run the ball successfully overall, 35 carries for 215 yards. Make no mistake about it, the Bengals are a bad team and will be lucky to win six games this season, yet they were able to put up 30 points on the Cleveland defense. That’s probably not leaving a good feeling in the defensive coaching staff in Cleveland.
If there is one clear take-away from the first two weeks of the season, it's that Cleveland can really run the ball effectively. The offensive line has played well, creating loads of space and also protecting Mayfield. (Baker has only been sacked twice in two games) The Browns could easily give it to Chubb for 20 carries, make sure that Kareem Hunt has 20 total touches, and feel good about their chances to control the ball and put together long drives. That means that there are some prima donna pass-catchers that need to get their targets, but hopefully stringing together a few wins can allay selfish ambitions.
*The Scottish Hammer (also a recovering rugby player) maybe put an end to the ridiculous idea that rugby players could be effective ball carriers in the NFL.
**I’m still waiting for compelling evidence that OBJ is a guy that helps a team win games. He went to one playoff game in 5 years with the Giants, and had 4 catches for 28 yards in that loss. I agree that he is a freakish athlete and always has the potential to stretch the field, but the whole OBJ package might outweigh those potential contributions.
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