Thoughts & Leftovers

Here we are 13 games into the 2022 National Football League season and the Browns are still making the same mistakes that presumably were addressed at early training camp. The level of discipline on this team  scratches rock bottom.

There are numerous reasons they are 5-8 en route to yet another agonizingly disappointing season for a fan base that deserves a whole lot better. What did these fans do to get their tickets punched to reside again in football purgatory? 

How much more cleansing is required to finally, after all the misery they've been put through for more than two decades, wash away the sordid past? Good question. It's beginning to look as though that won't arrive until the front office makes a wise decision on a head coach and maybe general manager. 

Remember the team's mantra when the Andrew Berry-Kevin Stefanski regime took over? They wanted the Browns to play smart and tough and be accountable. They did so in the 2020 COVID-19-stained season Since then, they are failing at all three. 

They can't seem to get out of their own way. They don't know how to win anymore. Mistakes seemingly  haunt them on a weekly basis between September and January. And when they stumble onto a victory most fans don't see coming, they can't sustain it. Only one two-game win streak this season.

So why the poor discipline? One of the best barometers, maybe the best, to judge that is penalties. They are drive killers on offense, drive extenders on defense, field position on special teams. They quite often can mean the difference between winning and losing. The current record reflects that notion.

The Browns have committed 97 penalties this season. Ten were declined, four were offsetting. The net total of 83 cost them 703 yards. The nine they committed that cost them 98 yards Sunday in the loss to the Bengals in Cincinnati was just piling on the damage.

For example, it is ingrained in the minds of players at all levels of football that you do not plow head-on into a punter while he's in the process of doing his job. It will draw a flag every time. If that's the course you choose to take, you better make sure you get a piece of the football or face the consequences. 

Reserve linebacker Tony Fields II must have missed class because that is exactly what he did to Cincy's Drue Chrisman on fourth and 15 at the Bengals' 17. Chrisman was punting for the fourth time in the game early in the second quarter with the momentum clearly belonging to the Browns.

The Cleveland defense was on fire. Fields careless mistake cooled them off. Instead of the Browns starting their next drive at their 35, the Bengals kept the ball and proceeded to put out that fire.

Seven plays later, the Bengals scored and completely shifted the momentum of the game for what turned out to be the rest of the afternoon. Therein lies another reason to call into question the lack of discipline. It's been that way most of the season.

That's just a small sample of what has gone wrong this season. I addressed the playcalling the other day. The season-long problems on defense have been well documented. It's all a confluence of poorly-timed misfortune that seems to attach itself to woebegone teams.

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The Browns' coaching staff gulped a few extra stupid pills last Sunday. The Bengals were without wide receivers Tee Higgins (hamstring) and Tyler Boyd (dislocated finger on the second play of the game) and yet devoted single coverage to Ja'Marr Chase, one of the NFL's most dangerous receivers, most of the afternoon. 

Last time I looked, Browns cornerback Denzel Ward was one of the NFL's best coverage cornerbacks, but you'd never know it after looking at Chase's stats. With Higgins and Boyd gone, quarterback Joe Burrow targeted Chase on 15 of his 33 pass attempts with 10 receptions for 119 yards and a touchdown.

Ward had Chase most of the time, but no matter what the Browns did, it rarely worked primarily because Burrow and Chase, college teammates at LSU, work so well together. It's scary to think the Browns will have to face these two twice a year for a long time.

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Now on to Saturday's penultimate home game against Baltimore where the Browns have no idea who will open at quarterback for the 9-4 Ravens.

Lamar Jackson went down with a knee a couple of weeks ago and Tyler Huntley suffered a concussion last week, but he's reportedly out of protocol and was a full participant at practice Wednesday and will most likely start in the flexed nationally televised game.

Huntley is no stranger to the Browns. He was superb while filling in exactly a year ago for Jackson, who suffered a sprained ankle early in the game, completing 27 of 38 passes for 270 yards and a touchdown, and scrambling for 45 more yards on six carries in a 24-22 loss.

He displayed similar characteristics to the elusive and dangerous Jackson, who has been beset with injuries the last two seasons. His speed and quickness pose a problem for a Cleveland defense that has had periodic difficulty getting runners to the ground.