Dawgs By Nature
This Sunday morning, the Cleveland Browns take on the Minnesota Vikings in London. Below, we analyze a few advantages, disadvantages, or general thoughts about the two teams before getting to our predictions for the game.
It kind of sucks that before the season started, fans were eying this week’s game against the Vikings and saying, “Well, at least Flacco will start those first several games, and then maybe it’ll be Gabriel time when Week 5 hits.” Browns fans are so used to dismal displays by the team that we can even predict our own pending failures. And that’s what Flacco’s first four games have been: a failure.
The blame goes around to a lot of people. The defense may have been built up very well, but the offense has been so utterly incompetent. Before the Packers game, I said that the team would be better offense having the offense literally do nothing to give them the best chance to win, and sure enough (even though it was a crazy outcome), they won that game. When they try to run an actual offense, almost everything is ugly. Passes are dropped, players aren’t open, Flacco has gotten a tick slower, and the tackle protection has been bad.
The Browns have scored 16, 17, 13, and 10 points in these first four games. They haven’t reached the 20-point mark once. That’s an average of 14 points per game; only the Titans (12.8) are worse. 23 teams are averaging 20.5 points or more per game, and Cleveland needs to get back to that range if they want to actually compete from week-to-week. Is Dillon Gabriel the answer? Not by himself; it’s going to take several changes toward improvement. He is one of them.
The one positive that has been in effect is the running of Quinshon Judkins. Check.
One effort was made this week to improve the protection by trading for Cam Robinson. The coaching staff was asked if he would start and were vague as usual, but he’d better start. If they did it in the past with Geron Christian, there’s no reason that Robinson can’t start.
It would help to get Jack Conklin back, but I’ve stopped assuming that he’ll be back each week. When he’s back, it’ll be a big help, but I won’t believe it until I see his name left off the inactive list.
At wide receiver, the biggest thing is for Jerry Jeudy to step up. I liked that he took accountability last week, and hopefully we can get back to him having some impactful games on the positive side; so far, he’s contributed to a lot of the mistakes.
I don’t know if Gage Larvadain or Malachi Corley will work out, but with Cedric Tillman sidelined, it’s possible that one of them sees significant reps this week.
And then comes Gabriel himself. He gets the ball out quick, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. We saw Flacco...
