DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2024 NFL Season Looking Back: Broncos 41 Browns 32 Post Game Thoughts

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the oline had actually been trending down over the past 2-3 seasons. To your point, they looked like they had fallen off a cliff this year, but I was ready to chalk that up to the tackle situation and us not overall investing enough to keep the line performing at that #1 level.

I stand by my statement...

Stefanski can make any QB look amazing... minus Watson.

This game our players really left it all on the field. Ski is safe for sure.

And he should be. We outplayed a good team at their house that we never beat. We shredded what everyone said was a very good D that was improving. We lost this game obviously because of TO's. We beat ourselves.

Hard to believe we are talking about Darnold. He sucked when he was in NY

Some QB’s take longer to develop. Darnold had all the tools in college, and was right there with Baker and Josh.

NY chewed him up.

It happened to Geno Smith as well… Geno is a respectable QB these days.

Last year presented strange circumstances. At the time I don't think anybody with decision power was ready to move on from Watson. Bringing Flacco back would have created a QB controversy. That was the last thing they wanted. I get why they made the decision. I would have done the same.

No argument here, at all.


I just finished writing a txt response to my best bro (who isn't a member of this site).

He wrote:

My response:


Live by the JW/die by the JW.

I'll say this much: 'life with JW' is providing much more entertaining Browns football than 'life with DW' ever was. I'm a basic football fan more than I am an amateur GM... so I rarely engage with the draft-talkers on Dawgtalkers. I care about one thing: "Do the Cleveland Browns play this Sunday in a way that makes me want to watch them next Sunday?" Yes... I'm pretty much that basic.

______________

The games that have been QB'd by JW are far more fun to watch than that dreck CLE was trotting out, 1st half of the season.
Monday Night Football felt a LOT like last year: anything could/can happen, Browns are holding their own against a statistically superior team... and Elves are still relevant, with 2:00 left in Q4.


I don't give a rat's back end about the draft. We pay professionals to sweat that stuff. I care about sitting down to watch Orange & Brown on a field of green.
Jameis Winston has given me the excitement casual fans show up on Game Day to see. I'm all-in to see what CLE can do, going forward, 2024-style.

CLE beat PIT just a couple weeks ago. I'd love to see them come out fired up, repeat- and throw this division into a state of late-season chaos.


________________


I watch football because it's one of the very last unscripted dramas that play out on weekly TV.
The march to the playoffs is a 17-week story arc with only the most minimal of episodic scripts. Anything can happen, week-to-week ("On any given Sunday"). Past performance is no guarantee of future production. Every year's trajectory is unique.


Jameis Winston makes my Sundays (...and my most recent Monday) worth the time and commitment.


Browns scored over 30 on Monday- against a top-ranked D that was predicted to shut them down.


I'm ready to watch the Cleveland Browns play the Pittsburgh Steelers (0-1 v. CLE, 2024). And if they play well, (win or lose), I'll remain committed to watching for another week, going forward.

Unlike so many years in the past, I don't dread this upcoming date with PIT.

It's December.
The Browns are last in the divisional standings.
And I still want to watch them play football.

That in itself, is different from all those years where "fans" treated Draft Day like The Best Day Just South of The Super Bowl.

It's 2024. Not 20something.

Even if the Browns lose the next game/season, they are soooo much better to watch than they were.

I hated the way CLE lost that game, but I loved the way they played that game.


.02,
clemdawg.

There was no other choice in the matter and all of the above is exactly why. But what Pit said was valid as well -- because now he's talking about next year.

If this group has an ounce of intellectual integrity, they'd keep Winston and start next year with a QB competition.

Watson has spent his entire time here hovering around The Mendoza Line. Literally, playing either poor or just a little better than poor. I don't think a single fan would object to the outright insanity of paying someone 50M to ride the pine if he can't show up and earn it in the summer.

I don't disagree.

If we have a QB competition, we will need to bring in another vet. It won't be a rookie..I hope not anyway. I'd like to see a rook get some bench time to age a bit in to the position.

Forget DTR, the guy is a scrub.

I get that. I understand the reasoning. But as with everything in life, results matter. I think even by the end of last season they knew their future rode with watson. They went 230 million dollars all in. With their careers in the balance I believe they felt they had no choice but to ride with him for at least another season and having a QB controversy out of the gate would not have been productive.

But we see the results of what happens when desperation sets in. We see what happens when they are more concerned about a possible controversy and how the watson decision looks to the public rather than having a good contingency plan in place. Flacco already knew the O, had chemistry with the coaches and players.

So yeah I get what you're saying. But let's face it, when all is said and done, for better or worse, we are judged by the results of the decisions we make and not for the motivation on which those decisions were made.

I concur with those sentiments… with Watson the only question became how badly were the Browns going to lose.

Jameis is a different story… you may lose, but you may win, and the bucket of popcorn will be empty.

The replacement for Watson (Flacco/Jameis) basically average double the yards as Watson…. Yeah that does not bode well because 2 players have done it now.

I gave up on the Watson games.. I can stick around for the current games.