Week 1
CLEVELAND, O.H. - Starting this year, the Plain Dealer will publish a weekly column during the regular season called "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly." Here, we will give you exclusive and candid hometown coverage of the Browns' triumphs and travails on the football battlefield.
Reprinted from Inside the vNFL to give the Browns some much needed motivation
Week 1 of the 2009 season subjected Cleveland fans to a familiar and distressing sight; the Browns traveled to Heinz Field and got clobbered by the Steelers for the 7th time in a row since the inception of the vNFL. Cleveland has the dubious distinction of being the only professional football franchise without a single division win. Though Cleveland and Pittsburgh fans are often at odds, in this they are united: bring back the Turnpike Rivalry!
Next week, the Browns host the Vikings in Cleveland. Head coach Jesse McGrew laughed, and not very kindly, when we told him that the scouts were calling this an even game.
"Did they actually watch the game at Heinz Field? We embarrassed ourselves on Sunday. Those spreads are garbage, you know that? Who cares if the scouts think your front seven are better than their O-line, or vice versa? None of that matters if you can't handle the basics. A coach much smarter than me once said that football is only two things - blocking and tackling. We failed at those two things on Sunday, and if we can't get those two things right, we're never going to win a game."
At least one person on the team is fired up about this loss. We're just glad we're not going to be in the Browns locker room on Tuesday morning.
The Good
Halkin picked off Big Ben for his first professional Int
- Rookie George Halkin (SS) lived up to the promise he showed in training camp. Late in the 4th quarter, he picked off Ben Roethlisberger at the Cleveland 1 yard line for his first professional Int. Though this turnover came too late to change the outcome of the game, it saved the Browns from losing by an even more embarrassing margin.
- Joshua Cribbs (WR/KR) continues to be one of the more dangerous return men in the league, averaging 32 yards on 5 kick returns and starting most of Cleveland's drives near midfield.
- Devin Fox (RB) and Kenneth Darby (RB) proved to be an effective one-two punch from the backfield, rushing for a combined 136 yards on 24 carries (5.67 ypc). The few Cleveland fans who bothered making the trip to Heinz Field could be heard cheering these two backs about as loudly as they were booing Quinn.
The Bad
- Cleveland made five trips to the red zone and came away with only 1 TD and 2 field goals. The red zone offense stalled twice inside Pittsburgh's 10 yard line, and the Browns had to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns. A first grader could tell you that trading field goals for touchdowns won't win you any games.
- Ty Warren (DT) and LeCharles Bentley (C) looked a little sluggish on the field, perhaps because we didn't see much of either in the exhibition season. We expect (or hope) that both Warren and Bentley will return to form next week against Minnesota, but it's a little disconcerting that the coaching staff would allow two of their key starters at the line of scrimmage to accumulate so much rust on the sidelines.
The Ugly
Cleveland lost the battle on both sides of the line
- Cleveland fans are rapidly losing patience with Brady Quinn (QB). If he's not throwing interceptions (he threw 7 during the exhibition season), he's fumbling the ball. Two of those fumbles came deep in Pittsburgh territory and cost Cleveland at least 6 and maybe as many as 14 points.
- Where was the blocking? Where was the tackling? A porous offensive line allowed 8 sacks (that's 8, not a typo), tying a franchise record set last year in a game against Baltimore. The line on the other side of the ball had just as many holes, allowing 203 rushing yards on 32 carries (6.34 ypc). Most of the key off-season additions were to the line of scrimmage, but the Browns might as well have lined up uniforms stuffed with straw for all the good they did in Week 1. The Browns spent a lot of cap room and draft picks to remake the offensive and defensive lines, so if those overhauls don't pan out, Cleveland could find itself in a deeper hole than before.
- This is the 7th consecutive loss to Pittsburgh and the 19th consecutive division loss since the inception of the vNFL. That's ugly.
Injury Report
Arnaz Battle (WR) - Out (pulled quadriceps muscle)
Brodney Pool (SS) - Probable (compound leg fracture)
