Well… that performance was embarrassing. The offense was atrocious. Watson couldn’t hit his receivers and when he did, they dropped it. The offensive line could not hold up in the pass or run game. Jerome Ford picked up where he left off last year, running for negative yards. This offense had no identity.
Although the defense performed better in the second half, they still had communication issues. The tone was set when Thronhill allowed a receiver to walk in for the first touchdown of the game. Also, how in the world are we still not stopping the jet sweep?? You know teams are going to run it!
The penalties were baddddd as well. 11 penalties and I believe half of them were on first down. We could not even line up correctly. It clearly shows that the training camp the team went through did not prepare them for week one.
Bubba Ventrone is starting to worry me. He was brought here to fix the special teams, but we are still giving up returns for touchdowns. That punt return was the nail in the coffin.
I will say teams have bad games. The Bengals lost to the Patriots today and a few years ago, they lost to the Cowboys without Dak. Hopefully, this is the wake-up call the Browns needed. Last year, the Browns had a very poor game against the Steelers in week two and we still made the playoffs. They were 1-1 after week two. We wanted this game badly because it allows some wiggle room early in the season. If the Browns can find a way to go to Jacksonville and win, we will be feeling just fine heading into week three. Finally, if you are going to have a bad game, it is best to have it against the NFC. The losses don’t matter as much when you get into playoff seeding.
Let’s hope that Njoku in a walking boot is precautionary and is good for week two.
That’s all I really have right now. I will post an updated post tomorrow after the loss has settled.
Go Browns