Written by Brian McPeek

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So much for those two winnable games to start the season for the Cleveland Browns.  

Once again on Sunday the Browns played just poorly enough to lose, being shut out completely in the second half of a 16-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. 

This isn’t a situation where you pay attention to teams starting 1-1 or 2-0 having a better chance to make the playoffs. The Browns weren’t making the postseason regardless of their record after two games. This is about verification that the Browns are on the right path in terms of development and improvement. 

Part of that development and verification is to beat mediocre teams when they line up across from you on Sundays. And for the second week in a row Cleveland failed to get it done against clubs that are in the same boat as they are. 

Sunday’s loss was a case of the Browns being unable to pressure Chiefs QB Matt Cassell and, subsequently, not being able to get off the field on 3^rd down all day. Mix in a poorly thrown flat pass from Seneca Wallace that was picked off and returned for a touchdown by Brandon Flowers and you have that thin margin upon which NFL games are decided. 

For his part Wallace was okay. Certainly he’s worthy of the backup job as he did hit a couple big throws to move the Browns to their scores, including a long 65-yard TD pass to Joshua Cribbs. He also missed some throws and threw the pick 6 but he didn’t get much help all day from his running game. Jerome Harrison, coming off a 286-yard performance against KC last season, rushed for just 33 yards on 16 carries and looked tentative all day long. 

And despite it seeming to be the perfect time to bust out the ‘Cyclone’ or ‘Flash’ package with Wallace under center and Cribbs more a part of the offense, it was rarely seen and never a factor. 

0-2 is bad. What’s worse is that the Browns start will now threaten to creep into the teams’ collective conscience and wear on them. And over the course of the next seven games the Browns face a murderous schedule, starting next week in Baltimore. Eric Mangini will have to work hard to make sure this season does not slip away from his team and he may very well (again) be coaching for his job starting next Sunday. 

Mike Holmgren may have a longer fuse with Mangini simply because firing him would be a poor reflection of Holmgren’s decision to keep him in the first place. But make no mistake: Mangini likely started the season on thin ice and this disappointing start is turning up the heat underneath him already. 

The status of Jake Delhomme and who will line up at QB will be a hot topic in Cleveland all week but regardless of who holds the reins to the offense the Browns need to make some progress against the Ravens.  

If you want to show you’ve improved and are on the right track there’s no better way to do it than slapping the ‘Birds in the face. 

You’re not alone if you’re skeptical about that actually happening.   

That’s Not a Slump 

I was coming home from somewhere really important (because everything I do is really important) on Wednesday or Thursday night and listening to the Tribe game on the radio. 

Jayson Nix made his first appearance of the evening at the dish and Tom Hamilton said, “Nix comes to the plate in a 4 for 33 slide.”  

I said to myself, “That’s not a slide. 4 for 33 is pretty much just Jayson Nix.” 

For me Nix epitomizes the 2010 Tribe season.  

That’s because he’s just not very good to the point of being pretty damn bad. 

Even the guys in the lineup that are put on a pedestal like Asdrubal Cabrera and Shin-Soo Choo are really just pygmies amongst midgets. They’re not bad ball players but neither are they the guys you’re going to build your club around. I hate to be the most negative man on the planet but look at the numbers for these guys. 

Choo is hitting .294 which is good for 28^th in the league. His OPS is .866 which is good for……..28^th in the league. He’s hit 19 HRs (65^th in the league) and has driven in 80 runs which is tied for 41^st in the league. 

Nice numbers.  Add in his ability to throw and you’ve got a solid player. What you don’t have is a superstar like the midgets around him in the lineup and the fans still following the team might have you believe. And yes, those midgets in the lineup probably reduce Choo’s numbers across those statistics I gave you about 5%. There aren’t many guys getting on ahead of him or scaring opposing pitching behind him so his numbers would be improved in a better lineup (as would anyone’s numbers). 

Cabrera is even more ‘blah’. That’s a .264 hitter with 3 HRs and 24 RBI on the season. His OPS is .649 y’all. That’s damn near Lou Marson. Well, it’s not quite that bad but Sweet Lou has the same number of HRs and a similar number of RBI. And it’s not like Cabrera is doing all of his damage by stealing bases and scoring runs. He’s scored five more runs than Marson and has 3 fewer stolen bases than the Tribe’s light hitting catcher. 

The decomposing corpse of what used to be Travis Hafner is leaps and bounds a better offensive player than Asdrubal Cabrera and Hafner is vilified and the butt of many a jokes from Tribe fans. 

Why do we elevate the Choos and Cabreras to a status they probably are not worthy of? Because on a roster loaded with guys like Jayson Nix and Andy Marte they stand out not so much because they rise above others on the major league landscape but more so because the landscape in Cleveland is a couple thousand feet below C-level. 

That’s what this club is facing right now. They’re bad and their best players are mediocre. Add in the fact that they don’t even have enough of those mediocre players to force dregs like Jayson Nix out of the lineup and it’s just downright depressing. 

I’m trying to look down into the minor leagues and see where the kids are that will pull the Indians out of this death cycle but I can’t find them. They’re going to have to find them if they want to be relevant anytime soon. And it’s clearly not something that can be addressed by this club in free agency. 

Hmm….maybe the Mariners are interested in making another deal? 

Speaking of ‘Blah’ 

Quite the disparity between last week’s Buckeye game against ‘The U’ and Saturday’s game against ‘the u’. Hard as a fan to get up and get excited for a matchup against the Bobcats of Ohio University and it couldn’t have been easy for the players and coaches either.  

But the coaches had the Buckeyes ready to play and play hard right from Jump Street Saturday afternoon and before the Bobcats knew what hit them it was 34-0. Apparently OSU learned a lesson from the rotten performance a couple years ago from the Buckeyes when they nearly spit the bit against OU at home before rallying to win. 

No such issues Saturday. OSU scored early and often, took the ball away from the Bobcats like they were their big brother and dominated the first half of the game.  

It was a (thus far) typical 2010 Buckeye game: they won big, got a nice game from Terrelle Pryor, got a great effort from the defense and they wet the bed a couple of times on special teams. Yes, once again the #2 team in the country had a punt blocked and gave up a kick return for a TD (which was ultimately called back for a block in the back). While I understand that the return was called back and that a TD may not have resulted but for the illegal block, it’s really disheartening to think that every single kick return comes down to one Ohio State player making a tackle or doing the job or the kick being returned for a TD. That’s just not realistic and there’s more going on there than one blown assignment or tackle. 

Ohio State is one of the elite programs in NCAA football. They’ve actually had three seasons worth of special teams’ mistakes in three games. Let me say this again so that maybe it’s heard and understood in Columbus: That shit needs to get fixed right freaking now if not sooner.  

The other puzzling part of the game Saturday was Jim Tressel busting out the wildcat offense for a few plays against the Bobcats. Not sure I understand the rationale of taking the ball out of Pryor’s hands and flanking him out so that a mediocre running back can take the snap and try to create.  

I can understand it if there is the thought that if Pryor is out of the game then maybe the wildcat has some value. But if that’s what you’re looking at then why run it with Pryor in the ballgame and not while Joe Bauserman is getting some snaps. 

Just an odd thought when you employ a QB who’s still more dangerous running the ball than throwing it, despite his improvements in actually throwing it. 

Still, at the end of the day, it was a perfect game for the Buckeyes. They won convincingly, played a lot of kids and still have many areas of opportunity to address before they tee it up again against Eastern Michigan next week.