Bye Week, Onto Oakland

[Brown Warrior]

Good article by Grossi (yeah, I said it). I, too, hope Shurmur now has a better grip on his personnel and will settle into fewer rotations at WR (focusing mostly on Little, Massouqoui, and Cribbs), and get Moore a lot more snaps.

And McCoy does need to throw less. He seems to get worse the more he throws. He needs to be treated more like Bradford was last year.

Didn't realize Haden was dinged that bad. Thought he'd be back after the bye.

It's a busy bye week for Pat Shurmur and the Cleveland Browns: Tony Grossi analysis | cleveland.com

[Crow]

Oh shit, I forgot we were playing Oakland.

We're going to get raped. Their emotional high from the Crypt Keeper's death will end us.

[Sez.EJ]

[quote=Brown Warrior;144860]will settle into fewer rotations at WR (focusing mostly on Little, Massouqoui, and Cribbs), and get Moore a lot more snaps.




So Shurm is finally listening to what I said a around 3-4 weeks ago.. Pure Genius!!! ha ha ha

As for Oakland.. 2 weeks to prep may not be enough for us to go out west and Win.. This is not the Oakland team of the past 6-8 years.. They are very talented and playing good ball. I have been watching them a bit cuz I have McFadden as my fantasy RB this year.. Still not great QB play, but good enough.. he's not really hurting them.. If the receivers get healthy that will help out the QB too. They have 2-3 WR's on the injury list every week so far this year. They could become a scary team and end up winning that division...Yeah I said that.. Raiders could win the division and knock off San Diego..

The Raiders D is playing very well. McFadden is having and excellent year so far both running and recieving... He's going to be tough for us to deal with. I don't think we win this one.. We CAN win it.. but we have to play darned near flawlessly.. I have not seen us come close to that yet.. I have yet to see us put together more than 2 good quarters.. I am still waiting to see 3 quarters..let alone a full game... But I am an optimist..so..


I also want to add.. Al Davis passed away today..that is only going to make this game that much tougher to win. The fans will be extra fired up (as if they needed that ) AND the team will be motivated to win this for him.

[Jax Dawg]

I keep hearing (or reading actually) how Oakland will be extra fired up when they play the Browns next week because Al Davis passed. Guess what? The Browns aren't their next game, they aren't on a bye week like us and they play Houston today. If anything they will be extra fired up vs Houston but emotions can be like a rollercoaster - high one week while in the peak of something emotional but they come crashing down. I think the Browns play them at the perfect time - the week after Davis' death.

[Thaid_Up]

We have a sub .500 record against the Raiders but play them better at Oakland so always optimistic when heading west. Not looking forward to McFadden so let's hope Jax is right and they burn it all out at Houston

[hiwaygal]

Originally Posted by Jax Dawg

I keep hearing (or reading actually) how Oakland will be extra fired up when they play the Browns next week because Al Davis passed. Guess what? The Browns aren't their next game, they aren't on a bye week like us and they play Houston today. If anything they will be extra fired up vs Houston but emotions can be like a rollercoaster - high one week while in the peak of something emotional but they come crashing down. I think the Browns play them at the perfect time - the week after Davis' death.

That's kinda what I was thinking too, but it will be the first HOME game after his death. Still, I would think by then that some of the emotions will have tempered a bit.

[Sez.EJ]

Originally Posted by Jax Dawg

I keep hearing (or reading actually) how Oakland will be extra fired up when they play the Browns next week because Al Davis passed. Guess what? The Browns aren't their next game, they aren't on a bye week like us and they play Houston today. If anything they will be extra fired up vs Houston but emotions can be like a rollercoaster - high one week while in the peak of something emotional but they come crashing down. I think the Browns play them at the perfect time - the week after Davis' death.

But it's the first home game.. The fans and the team will likely be extra fired up.. The offense has to be ready for an extra loud stadium.... (hint..silent snap counts).. We have trouble with jumping off already.. OUCH..

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

Good article by Grossi (yeah, I said it). I, too, hope Shurmur now has a better grip on his personnel and will settle into fewer rotations at WR (focusing mostly on Little, Massouqoui, and Cribbs), and get Moore a lot more snaps.

And McCoy does need to throw less. He seems to get worse the more he throws. He needs to be treated more like Bradford was last year.

Didn't realize Haden was dinged that bad. Thought he'd be back after the bye.

It's a busy bye week for Pat Shurmur and the Cleveland Browns: Tony Grossi analysis | cleveland.com

Thanks for the discussion piece Shep. As usual, Grossi is behind our message board in getting the obvious. This has been posted all week about Shurmur using too many WRs. I'm REALLY worried about Haden, which is a classic reminder of why you can never have enough good corners to comepte in a passing first league today. I like Haden because he can play zone or man unlike they are finding out about a higher paid corner in Philly right now.

Whenever scores were kept closer than the TN game, McCoy DID throw less. When a defense knows the scoreboard margin predicates a race against the clock - guess what they pin their ears back and do without playing run? They bring it 1 dimensionally with all out pass rush because they can. Meanwhile, Hasselback only threw the ball 20 times and completed it 10 for a 50% completion rate. That might not have been a terrific batting average but the sluggign percentage went through the roof when he busted our Safeties cheating into the box. Oh, meanwhile Chris Johnson had his first 100+ yards rushing day of the year. Which QB would you have rather been - the one supported by the #1 ranked defense or the one who's defense got toasted by TEs. When a margin of error provided by a defense says you only need to complete 10 of 20 passes today for a blowout win - you got life pretty good on Sunday.

[Enigmatic Evil]

Oakland's going to be fired up for this game and we're heading onto their turf as well, aren't we?

My keys to the game:

Establish the offense early: Both the passing game and running game are going to need to hit a rhythm early. This is on Shurmur's shoulders as much as it is on Colt, Hillis/Hardesty and our recievers.

On D, Pressure the QB: If our defensive line can create havoc like we did the first three weeks of the season and keep Campbell on his toes, we can cause him to make mistakes. If we let him get comfortable he's going to look like Chad Henne did in week 3 and we're all going to be banging our heads off the desks or tables, or whatever.

Colt McCoy: Colt needs to get calm, and quell his early-game excitement. Early on in the game is when he seems to make the most mistakes. He needs to calm down, focus and get into the zone early, this is more of an extension of the first key but Colt alone needs to play at a higher level for us to beat Oakland. I agree with Grossi's notation that we need to reduse his responsibility as well. Give the running game more opportunity, even 10 plays more, to reduce Colt's need to make plays BUT the argument against that is we haven't really had the luxury of doing that. Penalties and coming from behind have forced Colt to play a lot of passing downs. There's always that.

[YtownBacker]

Originally Posted by Thaid_Up

We have a sub .500 record against the Raiders but play them better at Oakland so always optimistic when heading west. Not looking forward to McFadden so let's hope Jax is right and they burn it all out at Houston

Why fear McFadden it's a passing league..........................

Then again, if it's a passing league then you have to stop the pass to win. Makes sense that defense is getting even more important in today's NFL. You know, rushing the passer and covering the receivers.

So, why do most coaches say you have to stop the run first if you want to win? This new NFL is so confusing.

[Brown Warrior]

Originally Posted by YtownBacker

Why fear McFadden it's a passing league..........................

Then again, if it's a passing league then you have to stop the pass to win. Makes sense that defense is getting even more important in today's NFL. You know, rushing the passer and covering the receivers.

So, why do most coaches say you have to stop the run first if you want to win? This new NFL is so confusing.

Actually, that last line is especially true and it's making for some very interesting discussions and articles. Seriously. It actually is confusing.

Really good passing teams (and there seem to be more and more every year) don't give up a ton of rushing yards... although they may not be very good against the run, based on YPC. It's just that they put teams in a hole quickly and then see nothing but passes.

DCs are starting to look for smaller, quicker ends, multiple pass rushers, corners disguised as safeties, etc. If you can pass the ball and score points, you won't be seeing many runs. And if you can't pass the ball in this league... well, there isn't much to talk about.

Here's where it gets interesting and it shouldn't take too long: These teams building almost exclusively to stop the pass become really vulnerable to the run. And if they DON'T get ahead on the scoreboard? It can get old school ugly. Philly's seeing that.

Oakland has a bit of a problem: They run the ball well but are the worst in the league at stopping the run. So if a team gets a lead on them? One of those teams that can pass? Then they're going to have a hard time getting the ball back for three quarters.

But they aren't bad at QB.... just not fantastic. Jason Campbell is definitely capable of taking advantage of teams that stack up against the run. He has a nice arm and is accurate enough. Can he win a shoot out? I don't know. I've underrated the guy before so I'm reluctant to do it again.

[Enigmatic Evil]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

Oakland has a bit of a problem: They run the ball well but are the worst in the league at stopping the run. So if a team gets a lead on them? One of those teams that can pass? Then they're going to have a hard time getting the ball back for three quarters.

But they aren't bad at QB.... just not fantastic. Jason Campbell is definitely capable of taking advantage of teams that stack up against the run. He has a nice arm and is accurate enough. Can he win a shoot out? I don't know. I've underrated the guy before so I'm reluctant to do it again.

These points are why we need to get Hillis working and establish him. If we can get them on their heels pounding it with Hillis, then using Hardesty as the change of pace back. If we can get them cowardly against the run, that will make Colt McCoy's game a lot easier and maybe he can actually have a solid game (where as he's struggled in most every game so far)

Jason Campbell should not be underestimated which is why I made the Chad Henne analogy earlier, if we play the pass soft like we started against Miami then Campbell will get into a rhythm early and we don't want that. Can he win a shoot out, against McCoy? I'd say yes but McCoy hasn't really been in a shootout type situation yet has he?