DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2021 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 24 Ravens 22 Other Games

Let’s just say that Mike Martz has no chance of coming to the Browns. We saw full turtle mode yesterday. It’s is all about winning the game, stats be dammed.

Frustrating to players for sure, don’t play Pass catchers in Fantasy Football with a KS team.

damn, obj looked good last night.

This.
This is the first time I've ever really considered the impact of not having OBJ on the team since after that Cinci game. I'm kinda shocked at myself right now about how little I care about a guy that came here on such an expensive price tag and left for nothing.

I feel the same way. I've come to the realization that OBJ didn't and never wanted to be here. We didn't know it at the time but it was a big mistake to bring him here.

The Browns had OBJ on their team for almost 2 full years, and they couldn't get any production out of him. (slight impact)
That should be ALARMING. The Browns team, for 40 years can't, or couldn't seem to figure out what any of the 30+ other NFL franchises and citites could figure out over the years, A passing game.

The most alarming thing about the Browns and OBJ is that they cut/waived him before the 2021 season ended.

When you identify cancer than can be removed...you remove it...you don't wait.

He's so much of a caner he's caught a TD pass every week for the past three weeks.

Good for him. I guess the change helped him.

Seems like it did. He found a team that knows how to get him the ball.

And he's probably a lot happier too. That makes a big difference.

Yeah, I guess if a player can find a team that actually finds ways to use his talent it would make for a happier player.

He's the 3rd or 4th best option among pass-catchers now...but one has to actually watch the games to see that. That and the look Stafford has had on more than one occasion after throwing the ball in his direction.

I realize that there's very little room for numbers and actual production, or the lack there of on this board. I've come to expect it.

The dude did NOT want to be in Cleveland. Love him all you like he was NOT wanting to be here.

We are better without him. We don't have his poison in the locker room anymore. We still need to heal but we will come out better without him.

You can fixate on him all you like and think that somehow we were better when he was with us all you like but that is just not true. He is playing better because he wanted to be in LA from the time the Giants traded him.

But you will beat the drum ad nauseum instead of facing the reality he isn't with us, didn't want to be with us and we are better without him for the long term.

As OBJ has a few TDs with the Rams, and when he has one, a bunch of people feel the need to go to social media and use that as some kind of proof that OBJ was not the problem... let's look at the numbers..

Before OBJ, Rams averaged 29 ppg, with OBJ averaging 26.3 ppg
Before OBJ, Rams averaged 307.9 ypg passing, with OBJ averaging 281.8 ypg
Before OBJ, Stafford completed 68.2% of his passes, with OBJ averaging 65.3%
Before OBJ, Stafford averaged 2.6 passing TDs per game, with OBJ averaging 2.5 TDs per game
Before OBJ, Stafford averaged .7 INTs per game, with OBJ averaging .8 INTs
Before OBJ, Rams averaged 1.3 sacks per game, with OBJ averaging 2 sacks per game.
Before OBJ, Rams were 7-2, with OBJ 2-2

So OBJ has 3 TDs, good for him.. and while this is a small sample, the Rams aren't any better, in fact they are statistically worse in every single category.. and statistically, OBJ hasn't proven to be any better than whoevers spot he took on the field.

He is proving, so far, that when he's in a potent passing offense, paired with a legit #1, and accepting his role as #2 or 3 option, he can still be pretty decent, but he is not the #1 WR the Browns desperately needed him to be.

I distinctly remember Baker feeding 13 when other routes were open. In fact, I remember being miffed at 6's seeming obsession to get him the ball early in all those games leading up to the CIN game where he ended up on IR. It's not like he wasn't provided an opportunity. I think the disconnect was threefold:

1. He was never invested enough in the playbook. He was constantly being re-aligned pre-snap, wasting precious play clock time.
2. He would improvise routes, based upon his own post-snap reads

Both the traits are killers in a precision/timing offense.

3. I think he was miscast here. Trying to feature him as a #1 was part of the problem, imo. His present skill set makes him a top-shelf #2, as we are seeing now. Double-teams on Kupp mean man coverage for 3. He can win those matchups, especially on plays designed with him as target, and Cooper as decoy.


I'm not in the camp that thinks OBJ was a cancer. I think he was 'square pegged' into this team. Dorsey hired him to take the top off defenses and hit the home run. Then Dorsey was gone. Enter an offensive design that requires players to be in a specific place at a specific time. Odell just never did that consistently. He could run good routes, an when he did, it was often money. Far too often, his improvisations took him out of the play's design, ending in plays where he was out of position or mis-timed to that position. Add to those elements his lack of time with #6 (because of injury, lack of TC/preseason reps, etc), and it's easier to understand why he and Baker never married up.

Sometimes, it's not really a matter of fault or blame. Sometimes, it just doesn't work. Chemistry is hard.


.02


*edit* see... this is what happens when you start a post, and then get up to do other things before finishing: someone else makes some of your points for you. After hitting the 'submit' button, I looked at the post above mine.

You are correct Pit, the Rams are able to use his talent as a #2 or 3 option where other guys are drawing all of the attention (and still catching more passes), the Browns were trying to use him as a #1 WR, which he is not.