Displaced Cleveland Fan

I was out for a few hours this afternoon and this evening. I left right after this game started. When I got home and saw the score, I thought to myself, “it’s probably good that I wasn’t home following this game.”

Last week the Browns lost to the Vikings by 14 points. The Vikings are a good team on both sides of the ball. On the other side, you have the Broncos beating the Cincinnati Bengals last week on a fluke play in the final seconds. This game should have been close. It wasn’t.

The Denver defense was tough, only giving up two field goals. They sacked Brady Quinn four times and came away with three turnovers (2 fumbles, 1 interception). Cleveland only managed to get 54 yards on the ground. The running game has to be effective for the passing game to have a chance. That should be obvious from the result in this game.

The Browns defense on the other hand was not so tough. They gave up 186 yards on the ground, couldn’t manage to get a sack, and ultimately gave up 27 points.

I blame the brown pants.

So now we’re two games into this season and there are some serious questions about this team.

• Can Brady Quinn be the starter? I’ve been calling for him to start for a long time. While it isn’t nearly the time to replace him, there is no denying that he has had a less than stellar beginning to this season. Maybe if he would have gotten more work as the #1 QB in training camp and preseason he’d have all the kinks worked out with the offense. Hopefully he and the rest of the guys can get it together.
• Do the Browns have a running game? They’ve averaged just over 70 yards for the first two games. Jamal Lewis is getting older. The other two running backs, James Davis and Jerome Harrison, have 13 yards total between them. Can this group put a decent running game together?
• Is the defense going to improve? This Broncos team scored two field goals and a fluke touchdown against Cincinnati last week. When the Browns come to town, Kyle Orton leads them to a 27-point game.
• Is this head coach any better than the one who was fired? Last season, Romeo Crennel coached the Browns to a pathetic 4-12 record. He got canned. Eric Mangini was brought in. Was he the best option? Maybe not. But I really believed that he would be an improvement. With the (supposedly) better coach, and an easier schedule, I imagined the Browns winning 6-7 games this year. Now? Who knows.

It’s going to be a long season.

-dcf

Tags: Brady Quinn, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, Eric Mangini, Jamal Lewis, James Davis, Jerome Harrison, Kyle Orton, Romeo Crennel, scores

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Cleveland Browns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.