I bet the Browns could pry Tim Couch out of retirement if they asked real nicely.
“Awful” is when a team with several bright spots ('Skins) plays Detriot – and loses. 
I’m fairly confident that the Bucs will beat Washington next week, thus denying us a shot at sucky-history (again).
Carolina has way too much talent on both sides of the ball not to win a single game.
Cleveland’s secondary, however, strikes me as the worst group of position players in the history of everything, regardless of what SB says.
You’re way wrong. Why pick on the secondary specifically? Eric Wright is a top 10, maybe top 5 corner in the NFL. Elam makes some mistakes but is very talented. The other two are passable starters. It’s not even in the top 3 worst units on the team.
You guys seem to think 0-16 is easy to achieve. It is not. You have to have a lot of bad breaks besides playing bad football. The differences between teams is not that huge due to the NFLs love of parity. They never achieve it but they have a lot of programs in place to do it.
It requires bad coaching and a bit of team disunity helps too. A few bad calls at just the right time goes a long way toward the obtaining the goal. It is easier to do for an expansion team. For an established team ,it requires determination from the top down in the organization. All the bad drafts have to come together at the same time.
It’s official, Derek Anderson will start against Cincy.
There is no doubt that Brady Quinn was playing poorly, I’ve never seen a guy who used to have so much swagger transformed into such a nervous, uptight check down machine. He’s so consumed with worrying about making a mistake he seems unable to see the play unfolding. The fact that the right side of the O line can’t pass (or run) block isn’t helping.
When I see how much venom much of the media has for Eric Mangini I almost find myself sympathizing for the guy. But no matter how open their hostility becomes much of the criticism is valid. He is a micro managing control freak who leads not through any intrinsic ability to motivate people but rather through intimidation. And it’s working, Brady Quinn is scarred to death.
I have no earthly idea which of our QBs should be starting but at this point the only way I can see to screw up this situation any worse would be to keep yanking these guys in and out of the starting line up. Which of course is exactly what I expect Mangini to do. He could at least put a little “spin” on the story, tell the press that Anderson will run the base offense and Brady Quinn will be brought in to run offensive coordinator Brain Daboll’s new “Scaredy Cat” formation.
The Browns and Lions are currently the only teams in the NFL that constantly match the Bengals on the Suck-O-Meter.
So the upcoming game – Bengals vs. Browns – is probably going come down to who sucks less on Sunday.
The Bungles look legit this year. They’re running the ball and playing tough D. They’d be undefeated if not for one flukey play.
Let’s see: Quinn, Anderson, Frye, Dilfer, Holcomb, Garcia, you see where I’m going with this? When was the last time Cleveland had a solid, no doubt about it, starter? This has been an ongoing theme with them for most of this decade as far as I can recall. The problem seems to lie deeper than Quinn or Anderson.
You forgot to throw Tim Couch in there, too. The last QB Cleveland had that had more than one reasonable season was Vinny Testeverde, who was more mediocre than good.
What, really? The Bungles are going to tear Cleveland a new one (to go with the three new ones they’ve already received this season, plus numerous “old ones”, as it were).
I’ll be surprised if Cedric Benson doesn’t top 150 yards.
Ever since they returned to the league they’ve never really had much of a draft strategy. They took Tim Couch 1st overall, who ended up being a bust, but they sure didn’t help him any by focusing most of their attention afterwards on the defense. All of the D-linemen they drafted were busts (they took Courtney Brown ahead of LaVar Arrington, Jamal Lewis, and Brian Urlacher in 2000; Gerard Warren ahead of LaDanian Tomlinson and Steve Hutchinson in 2001). 2002 they switched back to offense, drafting William Green (ahead of Ed Reed) and making their only playoff appearance since returning to the league. Tim Couch broke his leg in the last game of the regular season and he was pretty much done. They next year they finally started concentrating on the O-line, drafting Jeff Faine (who they traded after signing LeCharles Bentley, who hurt his knee and never played a down for Cleveland). They took The Soulja and Braylon Edwards the next two years, took Kamerion Wimbley (after trading down with Baltimore, who took Haloti Ngata), and have targeted the O-line since.
They blew it so hard with Couch that they spent years wasting 3rd round picks on QBs like Charlie Frye and Luke McCown, picks that they could have been using to build depth at other positions, instead of grabbing another QB in the first round (they could have had Roethlisberger in 2004 and Aaron Rodgers in 2005).
Couch wasn’t that bad. He was a strong disappointment for where he was drafted but if this team had been run by a group of people with at least average ability I believe he could have developed into a perfectly ordinary quarterback. But your larger point is very true, this organization’s ability to find new and innovative ways to shoot it’s self in the foot is only exceeded by how frequently they do it.
Since Marvin Lewis has been the coach (2004), the Bengals have been 8-8, 11-5, 8-8, 7-9 and 4-11-1. I’d hardly place them at the same level of the ineptitude of those two teams, particularly the Lions. The Bengals have been ravaged by off-field incidents (2006) and huge swaths of injuries throughout their roster (2007 and 2008). They are completely healthy now and are looking like they aren’t going to lay down and die when things get tough in a game and they get behind like they’ve done in years past. They fought back for big wins against the Packers in Lambeau and last Sunday against the Steelers.
The scary thing is is that the Bengals offense, with all it’s aerial weaponry (Carson, Chad, Coles, Henry, Caldwell) haven’t really been consistent throughout an entire game yet due to what I believe is rust and timing issues with Carson having not played since early last season. When that happens, and it will (probably next Sunday), they are going to score points in bunches, and now they have a solid defense to help out the cause. They are a young/inexperienced but emerging team.
I expect we’ll do our part to help the Browns in their cause to reach for the ultimate dream.
If we lose, I reserve the right to sulk and generally avoid SenorBeef and all his derision-filled posts afterwards.
I’m not disputing that he could have been good. In 2002, he looked positively respectable. But, in general, the guy was hurt a lot, and he’d show a spark for a few games, then toss 3 interceptions the next game. Playing for a team that had a terrible defense, offensive line, and no better running backs than William “Pass the Dutchie” Green was no good for him. That didn’t change the fact that he was generally a player who would have been seen as a need for replacement, even without the whole Kelly Holcomb controversy (and the fact that Cleveland had a lot bigger issues pretty much everywhere else).
With Anderson, we may win the game Sunday, and we may lose 35-0. It’ll be completely unpredictable. Quinn would pretty much guarantee a loss, what with the team quitting and he’d essentially be going for bunts all game long and missing most of them, whereas Anderson is going to swing for the fences all game long. If he moves the offense early, the defense may not quit like they have been after the offensive failure of the first few game.
I’m not predicting a win or anything. I’m just saying that with Quinn in there, this would’ve been a predictable, futile game. With Anderson in there, who knows.
Edit: Braylon Edwards, when asked about the QB change:
“Something I’ve dealt with for five years and that’s something I’m not even worried about anymore. I signed a five year deal, so.”
Get ready for the fastest bail in the history of free agency. He will be signed elsewhere at 12:00:01.
I’m sure it’s not going to help the Browns cause much that Mangini announced in his press conference that his two starting wideouts are going to be Jonathan Joseph and Leon Hall…
Now FGE, you know darn well that Mangini said no such thing in his press conference. He wont admit that until game day rosters are due 90 minutes before kick off. He doesn’t want to tip his hand and spoil the surprise.
You’re right, Mangenius is from the Belichek tree, which mandates lying, cheating and generally using subterfuge to undermine the enemy. I just saw that Anderson is listed as questionable on the injury list right after he was announced as the starter. The Bengals are still wondering whom the QB is going to be…
I’m really hoping Anderson goes nuts out of nowhere and throws for 5 TD passes again. All of the people who’ve spent the last 2 years going TRADE ANDERSON! CUT HIM! KILL HIM! ANYTHING TO GET GOLDEN BOY IN THERE! will commit mass suicide.
Well, that, and it’d be nice to be more interested in my own team’s game than my fantasy teams’ game.