Yeah, like the uncalled illegal hit that took out one of outer linebackers, or the ticky track PI that led to your first td.
Someone forgot to feed Wade Philips his pre-game box of powdered doughnuts. Our secondary just went from 3rd to 32nd in one game.
Forgot to address these posts.
I don’t know how to tell when you’re being sincere or ball busting. You’re almost always in ball busting mode. I honestly can’t tell the difference between, say, bringing up the $67 for Devery Henderson thing where you’re caling me an idiot, and the post about Jerome Harrison where you apparently weren’t calling me an idiot.
It’s not like I was horribly offended or anything - I just figured it was meant in the same mocking tone. And I thought it was weird that I got mocked over Harrison even though I was right.
You’re right - I think the 15 carries 164 stat was in my head from the end of the 2009 season, but he got one game in 2010 as the starter (IIRC where he was nursing a nagging injury) where he sucked and it definitely hurt his yards per game.
Anyway, my whole contention with Harrison was that he was a very effective runner - by far the best the Browns had from at least 2008 to 2009, and that for some bizarre reason he was utterly despised by at least Romeo Crennel and possibly Mangini. For whatever reason, he was talented enough to show very good production in limited spurts, but every time he’d come along and do something great, back to the bench he’d go.
The most perverse instance of this was playing the Bills in 2008. After the Browns having no offense all game, Harrison rips off a 78 yard TD run that keeps the Browns in the game. Crennel, whose team is utterly inept and whose job is on the line - how does he react to this? I remember very clearly - the camera showed him after the touchdown was scored and he looked pissed. The biggest play the Browns had made on offense all season, a rare chance to win a game - and he’s more pissed that Harrison was successful than he was happy that he’d accomplished something.
I didn’t, and still can’t, understand what could justify that treatment. There were never any rumors that he was a problem in the locker room, he was never in trouble with the law, he never talked to the media. What could he have done that was so horrible that his coach refused to play him even if playing him might save his job, yet benign enough that they’d keep him on the roster for years and not cut him? It’s seriously a bizarre mystery to me.
But then Crennel was gone, and Mangini did the same thing. Mangini ran a clearly ineffective Jamal Lewis into the ground rather than use an effective Harrison. So whatever it is, it wasn’t limited to just Crennel. Towards the end of the year, injuries forced them to use Harrison, and he blew up.
I don’t think you appreciate just how good he was. This is a Browns team that started the season 1-11. This team effectively had no passing game - it was easily the worst excuse for a passing game that any NFL team had in at least the last decade. There was a string of games with under a hundred yards passing and no TDs IIRC. That team was utterly inept, horrible.
In comes Harrison and with absolutely no help, the other team being able to stack the line at will and completely gun for him because there was no passing game at all, he took that team on his shoulders and almost single handedly drives them to 3 wins in a row.
During this period, Mangini actually deliberately tried to hurt him - this is the only explanation I can see. Basically he seemed to be saying “Oh, you all want to see Harrison? Fine, here he is” and then deliberately tried to break him. During those games, he had 34, 39, and 33 carries. You almost never see 106 carries in a 3 game span. But it’s not just that. While he was racking up 106 carries in 3 games, he was also the team’s kick returner, and he was playing gunner on the punt coverage units. You’re working your starting RB harder than any team ever works their starting RB, and yet he’s out there playing special teams too? What the fuck is that?
I can only guess that Mangini too was angry at having to use Harrison, and have Harrison be successful, so he tried his best to get him hurt so that I suppose he can say “see, this is why we never started him”
But despite this - despite taking an almost winless team with no offense whatsoever and leading them single handedly to a string of wins to end the season, there was no praise, no vote of confidence, no indicaton that Harrison would be the starter. The coaches never once praised or even acknowledged this freakishly abberant string of performances that saved Mangini’s job for another year. And in fact the Browns traded up in the second round to draft Montario Hardesty to be their starter.
Hardesty was hurt in the preseason, and even then Harrison had a tepid, limited role. Hillis had a good game, and Harrison was against relegated to sitting on the bench all year. To be fair, Hillis ended up having a great year, but the whole saga was utterly bizarre. I can’t construct a scenario in which all of that makes any sense.
He was traded mid-year to the Eagles, who had an entrenched starter, and didn’t have the chance to start there again. When Detroit needed a starter, he got traded to start there - but then it was discovered he had brain cancer, and there ends the whole saga.
Nothing ever came out after the whole thing went down that would shed light on the situation. To an outsider, it sounds like an inexplicably bizarre story. To me, who had to sit through utter ineptitude on the Browns with some degree of rescue sitting right there waiting, it was utterly maddening.
The refs called a very tight game, yes. But they didn’t call a one sided game, either.
Manning was punching a guy in the helmet, so it was a personal foul and it will get called every time. Kareem Jackson threw his hands up in Jones’ face without turning to get the ball, which is pass interference and will get called a ton, and Posier was in the neutral zone and that will get called. These weren’t imaginary penalties, they were penalties that actually occurred and were called. Call them ticky tack if you want, but it wasn’t one sided, Shields’ PI was as “ticky tack” as Jacksons’ and they called back a touchdown on a penalty.
Nothing to be embarrassed about. The team that beat you was 15-1 last year. Nobody was going to beat them last night.
Considering what they’ve put up with this season, I don’t think anyone gets to complain about the Packers getting the benefit of some questionable calls.
Manning was palm-striking the guy to get him off because his leg was folded up underneath him. It wasn’t really fair that he got flagged for it (not that the officials could have known any different).
I agree 1,000,000%. Drives me nuts. And in a vacuum I don’t really care if they want to put on a shitty highlight show, but they killed NFL Primetime to get this turd! *Primetime *was basically just two guys at a desk narrating football highlights for 90 minutes, and it was awesome! How could they fuck that up so bad?
Yes, I know there’s a bastardized *Primetime *on Mondays now, with no Berman & Jackson. It’s ok, but still not as good, and of course the old show was in the perfect time-slot.
ETA: Oh, and I too think that the Sunday night game was called way too tightly, particularly the DPI. I know it’s a fine line, but you can’t throw a flag every single time the defender happens to make contact with the receiver’s arm.
So they’re saying Ray Lewis is probably out for the season and may be done for good.
As a Steelers fan I, of course, always root against the Ravens.
As a football fan, I think Ray Lewis has been one heck of a defensive player over the years and it is a shame to see his career ended due to injury.
Is a triceps tear that difficult to recover from, or is it just that he is 37 and near the end of his career anyway?
A bit of both, I think.
What a bizarre season so far. Supposedly good teams suck. Cam Newton sucks. The entire AFC East is 3-3. Cats and dogs, living together!
Nice game, Browns. Damn the Bengals are frustrating. They get blasted in their opener by a good team, beat three “shitty” teams in a row in Cleveland, Washington and Jacksonville, then lose two in a row to two crappy teams in Miami and Cleveland.
The alarming constants from those two losses is the Bengals inability to convert third downs (something like 5 for 26 in two games) and their subsequent inability to get their opponents offense off the field on third downs.
The Bengals secondary is really shaky, and their running game blows, so I do think those are contributing factors.
The Bengals run defense is pretty good. They held RIchardson in check for the most part and set up a lot of 3rd 5 or more situations, only to allow Weeden to tear us up in our zone.
Fuck. On to Pittsburgh then a bye. The Bengals better figure this shit out quick…lots of tough games ahead.
Agreed, as well. Football Night in America was pretty good in its first couple of seasons, but now it’s gone too far away from highlights and analysis of the afternoon’s games, and too far towards yakking and sponsored segments.
Yeah, Seattle! Sorry, always had a soft spot for them.
Oh, there is nothing wrong with losing. Texans fans never believed we’d go undefeated or anything. But it is another thing to get totally dominated in every aspect of the sport. Very frustrating from a fan’s POV. No doubt we make the playoffs this year, but a loss like that should quiet us down with this Superbowl talk and such.
I’m especially disappointed in our secondary which I thought was top notch. If Rogers can torch us like that than so can Brady, Flacco, Manning, and Rothlisberger. Say bye-bye to any advancement in the playoffs then. Manning, Quin, and Joseph got humiliated last night. I don’t know if they were trying to make up for Cushing’s absence by playing up, but they need to fix that fast.
Dude. I grew up in the seventies and suffered through year after year of inept Packers teams. No one expected them to win. It was just how badly we would get beat.
That’s not weird. Weird is the entire NFC West being .500 or better, with only three total wins coming inside the division.
I’ve never had one but it’s what ended Aaron Smith’s career.
You have my permission to send Johnathon Joseph back here to good old Cincinnati. We could really use him.
Would a loss drop SD out of the playoffs? (if the season ended this week, obviously)
I don’t think so. They’d lose the division with the head-to-head loss to Denver, but they’re currently 3-0 in the conference, which should give them a wild card.
Kind of amazing - if SD loses today then there will only be two AFC teams with winning records.
Okay, Denver. I didn’t think special teams was supposed to be that kind of special.