It was clean, but he sure got knocked the fuck out. Pretty sure he got him with the shoulder, but it was at just the right angle that his head was in the worst possible location.
And he got a cleat to the face to boot. Looks like he’ll be fine.
Just delovely and delicious?
Know what I haven’t noticed yet? The refs! They know what the hell they’re doing! Awesome!!!
Josh Cribbs is apparently made out of titanium and rubber.
The Browns are showing up.
It feels great to be a Cardinals fan and to actually hear the Cards talked about outside of Phoenix sports talk radio.
While I hate Thursday night games, at least the Cards have the Dolphins at home followed by the Rams in St. Louis on Thursday.
In the Cards Super Bowl year, they had the New York Giants (defending champs) and then had to fly to Philadelphia to play the Eagles. The Cards lost both of those games, although of course they beat the Eagles at home in the NFC Championship game a few weeks later.
Damn near dramatic again, but for all the right reasons.
Weeden looked to be moving in the right direction. I don’t really like his age or ceiling, but the game didn’t look too big for him. They threw it 52 times vs. 17 runs, not the split I would be game planning for a rookie QB.
So, thoughts.
Greg Little is a bust. I thought having a year out of football explained how rusty he was as a rookie, but he is bad at catching the football, which is somewhat of a downer for a receiver.
Joe Flacco is really impressive. I used to think he was a joke, but if you’d have put a bag over his big dumb head, I’d have believed he was Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. I’m used to the Browns giving up passing yards because they were doing a keystone cops routine and blowing assignments, but the coverage today was actually pretty good, but over and over Flacco would place the ball exactly where it needed to be.
The Browns receivers are all bad. Weeden throws to covered guys way too often and just sort of expects them to fight for the ball. That works if you have Justin Blackmon in college and maybe Calvin Johnson in the pros, but it’s not going to work on the Browns. It’s strange, since the Browns drafted a bunch of tall, big, strong receivers - but either they’re all pussies or they aren’t coached to use their bodies and strength properly to shield off defenders. None of them can use their size and strength to outmuscle anyone.
Joe Haden probably cost us this game and possibly the Cinci game. Haden can handle Boldin type receivers well, and would’ve put someone in the backfield that could actually tackle. Sheldon Brown can too, but there’s something weird going on between him and the coaching staff.
Shurmur and/or Childress is unwilling to adjust their scheme to fit the talent. Weeden is comfortable in the pocket, and yet when the Browns are behind 2 scores in the 4th quarter, we’re running play action that no one is buying instead of putting him back there. They’re also using a zone blocking scheme for the line on runs when the makeup of the line is really more suited for man blocking. Considering that the run blocking sucks due to that, they need to get Richardson out in space instead of getting clobbered in the backfield, and yet there are very few screens or other plays designed to get him out there where he really gets a chance to get going.
Also, Phil Dawson is the most underrated kicker in NFL history. I’ve never seen a better inclement weather kicker. He used to be relatively weak legged with shitty kickoffs but I think he’s on the juice because he’s booming them for 3-4 years. But he hit 3 50+ yarders in heavy rain tonight, and he does all sorts of amazing winter kicking in high winds. If he played for the Pats or Indy or something, he’d be a legend.
I feel you. Sitting through those long, losing years rooting for the Packers (or in your case, the Browns) takes a toll on you. You look for something, anything your team is doing well and you just own it. Hell, for awhile I thought Ken Ruettgers was the best offensive lineman in the league.
I’m sure Phil Dawson is a very fine kicker. But he’s a kicker. Akers, Nugent, Janikowki, Gostkowski, Gould, Cosby all had higher field goal percentages than Dawson last year. Dawson is generally in the middle of the pack of kickers. Nothing really special.
And kickers get famous for either making a fool of themselves ala Martin Gramatica, or making big kicks in big games ala Adam Vientieri. And, unfortunately for Dawson, the Browns just don’t play in many (any?) big games.
This was exactly what I took away from the MNF game between the Bengals and the Ratbirds…he looked better than I have ever seen him play while he decimated our secondary, putting the ball into little windows where only his guy could get it, despite good coverage. I think he’s finally coming into his own. He’d been overhyped for years, but maybe it was just because the defense was so much better then than it is now and he wasn’t asked to do more than manage games ala Trent Dilfer.
Tell me about Trent Richardson:
This was my first chance to see him play and I didn’t really get a great impression. Granted, the Ravens’ defense is good, and while I didn’t see anything overwhelmingly negative about his play, it was not a good performance (47 yds on 14 carries, 1 TD). He had a few decent catches, but his longest rush was just 7 yards and he never threatened to break free from the first line of Ravens defenders.
I know it’s only 4 games in, but looking at his stat card he’s had one good game (against the Bengals) but otherwise has put up pedestrian-at-best numbers. He’s not getting very many touches either, averaging just 16 carries a game, but I’m guessing that’s because the Browns are always playing from behind? Isn’t this guy supposed to be a bruising, carry-the-team, 4-down feature back? Is his knee still fucked up? Is it the O-line? Is it the scheme, as SenorBeef wrote a couple of posts back?
That speaks much more to the O line than to Richardson, whom I saw fight for a lot of tough yards after contact. He’s a big, strong dude, which is what the Browns need in a RB right now because there will be a lot of early contact.
I said I wanted to see improvement from Weeden and I would report that I’m satisfied with what I saw. He made a couple mistakes (the pick 6 was a very poorly placed throw), but he bounced back. The receivers certainly didn’t help him. The Browns have the worst WR group in the league by about a hundred miles, with or without MoMass.
Speaking of WRs, after Sunday I said Greg Little should never see the field again unless he converts to safety. Suffice to say, I stand by that comment. I bet he’d actually make a decent safety, he was recruited as a LB out of high school. He’s a big, physical athlete who just cannot catch the damn football.
I would agree that Haden would have made a difference, but it’s hard to fault Patterson’s coverage too much. Boldin made a couple spectacular plays while in tight coverage.
That’s a part of it… part of it is that he’s making better decisions, e.g. checking down to Rice instead of forcing it 25 yards downfield into double coverage, but I think the biggest part is that his receiver are catching the god damn football. Boldin’s always been fine and Torrey Smith is turning into a beast, but Lee Evans? Donte Stallworth? Houshmanzadeh? They consistently dropped balls that hit them in the hands. Flacco’s always been more accurate than the stats said, but this is the first year he’s getting any help from the rest of the team.
Richardson’s line yesterday was likewise a little deceptive. With the same blocking and defensive penetration, most other backs would have ended the game with 12 yards. Richardson’s 47 yards don’t look great on the box score, but more than half of them came while he was dragging defenders on his back.
Agreed. This is the first time I’ve seen him in action and I thought he looked pretty good. Good burst, strength to break tackles, decent hands. He was better than I expected.
Watching Richardson basically carry tacklers for two to five yards is one thing. But it was really impressive to combine that with his touchdown run where he got to the edge so fast he made the defense look like they were wearing flip-flops.
He’s going to be a joy to watch as he grinds out 1100 yards against eight-box defenses for the next half decade plus.
I had a great idea today: replica jerseys of NFL referees. They’re riding a wave of popularity right now. Whoever owns the marketing rights is sitting on a goldmine if they strike quickly.
What do y’all think?
Who wants to look like they work at Foot Locker?
Bills are really falling apart here.
And the 49ers are destroying the Jets.