Line Calls
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Where the fuck is Pokey?
Where the fuck is Pokey?
Explained in "Whats messin up the Brns". Now go play with "Your Man Zel."
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Toothless gummer.
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Toothless gummer.
Toothless gummer.
Nope got all mine. Find your own Pokey
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Sure thing gomer.
"You planning on having a long relationship with that glass or are you going to drink it? Drink up, man. Maybe we can get another.” - Janis Joplin, 1970. -
Admire and appreciate your diligence with this each week!
I wish the line would gel more as a unit. As we've seen ever since Eric Steinbach went under the knife prior to 2011 - it never mattered HOW GREAT Joe Thomas was if our LG was sub-standard. That's why we needed smoke and mirrors to run inside of LT before we found a gem like Bitonio. To be honest, we had a similar situation shaking out on the right side in the sense we never struggled running outside of Schwartz but needed creativity to find success running inside of RT. In 2014, Greco proved to be the mirror image problem solve that Bitonio provided. It was easily the best season of his career. Our line became as fun to watch as it was in 2007 or during the 1 shining season of Peyton Hillis.
Like you, I didn't find it clear who was making the line calls. That said, this small time has been-big time never been - used to make line calls as a RG on my side of Center exactly like our LG had to do on his side. Lucky for me, the RT was one of the most reliable linemen I ever played next to so I trusted everything. On any given play, I had my choice of the following:
1. Drive Block (straight ahead and ideal when facing guys headup)
2. Reach Block (reach block on playside, reach and hinge block on backside - used primarily on sprint-option pass plays w/intention of selling run)
3. Loop Block (Guard takes DT and OT seals off LBer)
4. Roll Block (OT blocks down on DT and Guard rolls around to seal off the LBer)
5. Fold Block (similar to the Roll except both the Guard and OT are blocking D-line w/OT going first)
6. Cross Block (similar to a Loop except both the Guard and OT are blocking D-line w/Guard going first)
7. Trap Block (misdirection, not to be confused w/ missed erection, backside Guard usually became the trap blocker to the playside. My fave!)
8. Guard pulls (37 and 48 quick pitches as well as power sweeps and QB bootlegs all had a Guard pulling)
9. Cup Protection (Anytime our QB was to perform a straight dropback - this was an easy call).
10. Wedge block - (often dictated by a short yardage situation with everyone blocking down to their inside)
All these had a number where the first digit was a dummy and the last digit was the number you see above. Anytime we ran an ISO- it was a double-team from G-OT on the closest dlinemen to the hole so we never had to assign a number to that blocking strategy (ie; 42 ISO - our lightning quick FB who was 5'7" - 215 lbs was well trusted to John Deere tractor the LBer with his running start. Physics at it's best).
If we wanted to keep starting jobs or refrain from running 15-20 hills after our sprints to close practice - we worked on Guard-Tackle tandem scenarios in our pre-practice sessions daily. On a roster of 60 guys - that kept our fannies auto-lit. This was never difficult so I have no patience when I see Pros messing this up.
This might be wrong; but the biggest difference I see jumping out at me between this year and last year overall (on both sides of the ball) is in our team leaders are MIA in that role. That matters quite a bit especially when Pettine is the type of guy that likes to coach through his team leaders. On top of that, some well paid veteran FAs are laying eggs. To say such a thing I better give examples:
1) Whitner (It looks like arguing with Twidiots on Twitter is getting in the way of his weekly preparation)
2) Dansby (Looks like we need to get Craig Robertson healthy asap)
3) Kruger (loved him last year but his solution to our eye ball test today is "we're too predictable?")
4) Dwayne Bowe ("I'm gonna" might put a tuxedo "I Still Haven't" but this version of "Bowe knows" is how to cash paychecks without sweating)
5) Desmond Bryant (Hasn't been the same player since he had that minor heart valve surgery)
There's more but those are the first 4 names jumping off my dome.
The best thing Pettine said this last week is football games always boil down to what team is willing to do more of the little things. When I see a vet lined up closest to the football jumping offsides - that isn't O'Neil's fault. When our defense holds an offense to a 3 and out - and we had 4 vets roughing the punter - hard to blame O'Neil for what extended that drive. Another time we forced the Raiders to punt - our veteran return guy fumbled it back to the offense our defense had just stopped. There's a lack of focus getting contagious and going viral. MUCH of this is on the players and it IS correctable. When a team gets flagged frequently - they're getting busted taking shortcuts like when someone doesn't hustle to be in position to block for a punt return, guess who gets busted for holding or blocking in the back? Nope, not Jimmy O'Neil folks. When I see a lack of urgency getting contagious on Sundays, I'm disappointed in the coaches - but I'm WAY more disappointed in the players. Growing up in Western NY, Buffalo lost an opener to the Miami Dolphins 30-0/30-3. 1-2 days later their team leaders held a behind closed doors meeting with the team before they went onto another one of 4 straight Superbowls. They pretty much took it out of Marv Levy's hands and empowered themselves to a will to win on Sundays. The key? Team leaders had to intervene and hammer down that a lack of urgency there was unacceptable. Who's doing that in Cleveland today?
I welcome the only Defensive Coordinator to earn a Superbowl Ring in New Orleans while understanding Revenge of the Nerds is a sequel. "Come get some!" -
Good post flugel
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Great post flugel. That lack of sense of urgency is troubling to me. We knew going into this season how the schedule favored us early and how critical it was to get off to a good start but here we sit at 1-3 and we should be 3-1. If this team gets it act together later on in the year when we are out of play off contention it will be a hollow victory for me because we started the season not ready to play football. We have an opportunity right now to turn this around and It will be interesting to see how the Browns play Sunday. Will we finally get a good defensive perfomance only to see the offense struggle or will we get a complete game out of the Browns?
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Admire and appreciate your diligence with this each week!
I wish the line would gel more as a unit. As we've seen ever since Eric Steinbach went under the knife prior to 2011 - it never mattered HOW GREAT Joe Thomas was if our LG was sub-standard. That's why we needed smoke and mirrors to run inside of LT before we found a gem like Bitonio. To be honest, we had a similar situation shaking out on the right side in the sense we never struggled running outside of Schwartz but needed creativity to find success running inside of RT. In 2014, Greco proved to be the mirror image problem solve that Bitonio provided. It was easily the best season of his career. Our line became as fun to watch as it was in 2007 or during the 1 shining season of Peyton Hillis.
Like you, I didn't find it clear who was making the line calls. That said, this small time has been-big time never been - used to make line calls as a RG on my side of Center exactly like our LG had to do on his side. Lucky for me, the RT was one of the most reliable linemen I ever played next to so I trusted everything. On any given play, I had my choice of the following:
1. Drive Block (straight ahead and ideal when facing guys headup)
2. Reach Block (reach block on playside, reach and hinge block on backside - used primarily on sprint-option pass plays w/intention of selling run)
3. Loop Block (Guard takes DT and OT seals off LBer)
4. Roll Block (OT blocks down on DT and Guard rolls around to seal off the LBer)
5. Fold Block (similar to the Roll except both the Guard and OT are blocking D-line w/OT going first)
6. Cross Block (similar to a Loop except both the Guard and OT are blocking D-line w/Guard going first)
7. Trap Block (misdirection, not to be confused w/ missed erection, backside Guard usually became the trap blocker to the playside. My fave!)
8. Guard pulls (37 and 48 quick pitches as well as power sweeps and QB bootlegs all had a Guard pulling)
9. Cup Protection (Anytime our QB was to perform a straight dropback - this was an easy call).
10. Wedge block - (often dictated by a short yardage situation with everyone blocking down to their inside)
All these had a number where the first digit was a dummy and the last digit was the number you see above. Anytime we ran an ISO- it was a double-team from G-OT on the closest dlinemen to the hole so we never had to assign a number to that blocking strategy (ie; 42 ISO - our lightning quick FB who was 5'7" - 215 lbs was well trusted to John Deere tractor the LBer with his running start. Physics at it's best).
If we wanted to keep starting jobs or refrain from running 15-20 hills after our sprints to close practice - we worked on Guard-Tackle tandem scenarios in our pre-practice sessions daily. On a roster of 60 guys - that kept our fannies auto-lit. This was never difficult so I have no patience when I see Pros messing this up.
This might be wrong; but the biggest difference I see jumping out at me between this year and last year overall (on both sides of the ball) is in our team leaders are MIA in that role. That matters quite a bit especially when Pettine is the type of guy that likes to coach through his team leaders. On top of that, some well paid veteran FAs are laying eggs. To say such a thing I better give examples:
1) Whitner (It looks like arguing with Twidiots on Twitter is getting in the way of his weekly preparation)
2) Dansby (Looks like we need to get Craig Robertson healthy asap)
3) Kruger (loved him last year but his solution to our eye ball test today is "we're too predictable?")
4) Dwayne Bowe ("I'm gonna" might put a tuxedo "I Still Haven't" but this version of "Bowe knows" is how to cash paychecks without sweating)
5) Desmond Bryant (Hasn't been the same player since he had that minor heart valve surgery)
There's more but those are the first 4 names jumping off my dome.
The best thing Pettine said this last week is football games always boil down to what team is willing to do more of the little things. When I see a vet lined up closest to the football jumping offsides - that isn't O'Neil's fault. When our defense holds an offense to a 3 and out - and we had 4 vets roughing the punter - hard to blame O'Neil for what extended that drive. Another time we forced the Raiders to punt - our veteran return guy fumbled it back to the offense our defense had just stopped. There's a lack of focus getting contagious and going viral. MUCH of this is on the players and it IS correctable. When a team gets flagged frequently - they're getting busted taking shortcuts like when someone doesn't hustle to be in position to block for a punt return, guess who gets busted for holding or blocking in the back? Nope, not Jimmy O'Neil folks. When I see a lack of urgency getting contagious on Sundays, I'm disappointed in the coaches - but I'm WAY more disappointed in the players. Growing up in Western NY, Buffalo lost an opener to the Miami Dolphins 30-0/30-3. 1-2 days later their team leaders held a behind closed doors meeting with the team before they went onto another one of 4 straight Superbowls. They pretty much took it out of Marv Levy's hands and empowered themselves to a will to win on Sundays. The key? Team leaders had to intervene and hammer down that a lack of urgency there was unacceptable. Who's doing that in Cleveland today?
Like you, I didn't find it clear who was making the line calls. That said, this small time has been-big time never been - used to make line calls as a RG on my side of Center exactly like our LG had to do on his side.
There were a couple plays where I, the RG, got to determine if the prescribed X-block with the RT was off.
What bothers me is we used to regularly see Alex begin a pre-snap "point-fest" as soon as the D approached the LOS. Other O-line would often join in as would the QB. Everyone seemed to get on the same page. Now? Not seeing it... instead seeing mismatches and free-runners.
"When you have a shared vision it is a lot easier to make unpopular decisions." - Paul DePodesta "When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less." - Paul Brown Complete 2017 Browns Board Mock: http://thebrownsboard.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46196 -
I think he checked out also.
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Like you, I didn't find it clear who was making the line calls. That said, this small time has been-big time never been - used to make line calls as a RG on my side of Center exactly like our LG had to do on his side.
There were a couple plays where I, the RG, got to determine if the prescribed X-block with the RT was off.
What bothers me is we used to regularly see Alex begin a pre-snap "point-fest" as soon as the D approached the LOS. Other O-line would often join in as would the QB. Everyone seemed to get on the same page. Now? Not seeing it... instead seeing mismatches and free-runners.
There were a couple plays where I, the RG, got to determine if the prescribed X-block with the RT was off.
What bothers me is we used to regularly see Alex begin a pre-snap "point-fest" as soon as the D approached the LOS. Other O-line would often join in as would the QB. Everyone seemed to get on the same page. Now? Not seeing it... instead seeing mismatches and free-runners.
That's a good observation that could be emphasizing this timeless statement: "If you fail to prepare - then you should prepare to fail."
If I'm on this line with a passion to succeed - I'm not showing up to Sunday hoping we can just light switch it on especially when that's only worked 25% of our games. I'm going to our designated leader (Joe Thomas) and sharing my frustration that I feel others on the same line are feeling as well so we don't relive it 1 more week. Then he can either take it to our line coach George DeLeone or even up to Flip if he agrees. There's enough experience on this oline to the extent I'm wondering why this hasn't happened. Like you noticed, it's gotta be pretty blatant on film. If this keeps getting a blind eye in the film room or a church mouse silence at team meetings - one has to wonder how many players are here just to cash pay checks while dreaming of greener grass elsewhere. If they want to be different than recent years past - they need to be. Seeing many of these guys reach a 7-4 record last year around a much bigger injury volume tells me it's doable - my question is becoming is that desirable?
It's getting so I can tell what dawg has the bigger fight in it by the end of the first quarter foreshadowing a scoreboard that makes sense after 60 minutes. And when we add something like 12 penalties, we're telling them "don't worry if you're not capable of beating us because we can take care of that for you." The difference between David and Goliath wasn't a sling shot. It was the inner-chest.
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Sure thing gomer.
Sure thing gomer.
Listen, I may be a dick...but at least I contribute here and there.
Why is it that clear trolls like DieHard, who are completely useless and offer absolutely nothing to this forum, still get posting privileges...yet people like Mike H get a monster ban enforced on them?
Call Mike whatever you want (which I did), he at least makes this place better because he understands football.
This fuck does absolutely nothing.
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Like you, I didn't find it clear who was making the line calls. That said, this small time has been-big time never been - used to make line calls as a RG on my side of Center exactly like our LG had to do on his side.
There were a couple plays where I, the RG, got to determine if the prescribed X-block with the RT was off.
What bothers me is we used to regularly see Alex begin a pre-snap "point-fest" as soon as the D approached the LOS. Other O-line would often join in as would the QB. Everyone seemed to get on the same page. Now? Not seeing it... instead seeing mismatches and free-runners.
There were a couple plays where I, the RG, got to determine if the prescribed X-block with the RT was off.
What bothers me is we used to regularly see Alex begin a pre-snap "point-fest" as soon as the D approached the LOS. Other O-line would often join in as would the QB. Everyone seemed to get on the same page. Now? Not seeing it... instead seeing mismatches and free-runners.
It seems like uneasiness in the system, still. Switching from zone back to power back to zone back to power is hard enough. Add pre snap calls, and someone who isn't fully versed could screw that up. Not that it's Mack per se, but maybe another member of the line.
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Great post flugel. That lack of sense of urgency is troubling to me. We knew going into this season how the schedule favored us early and how critical it was to get off to a good start but here we sit at 1-3 and we should be 3-1. If this team gets it act together later on in the year when we are out of play off contention it will be a hollow victory for me because we started the season not ready to play football. We have an opportunity right now to turn this around and It will be interesting to see how the Browns play Sunday. Will we finally get a good defensive perfomance only to see the offense struggle or will we get a complete game out of the Browns?
Great post flugel. That lack of sense of urgency is troubling to me. We knew going into this season how the schedule favored us early and how critical it was to get off to a good start but here we sit at 1-3 and we should be 3-1. If this team gets it act together later on in the year when we are out of play off contention it will be a hollow victory for me because we started the season not ready to play football. We have an opportunity right now to turn this around and It will be interesting to see how the Browns play Sunday. Will we finally get a good defensive perfomance only to see the offense struggle or will we get a complete game out of the Browns?
This seems to be a chronic problem with the Browns- We've treated the opener (a league record 11 losses in a row,& counting) like it was the third preseason game.
Thanks to Tour for showing exactly how McCown was getting killed on a regular basis against the Chargers.
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Great post flugel. That lack of sense of urgency is troubling to me. We knew going into this season how the schedule favored us early and how critical it was to get off to a good start but here we sit at 1-3 and we should be 3-1. If this team gets it act together later on in the year when we are out of play off contention it will be a hollow victory for me because we started the season not ready to play football. We have an opportunity right now to turn this around and It will be interesting to see how the Browns play Sunday. Will we finally get a good defensive perfomance only to see the offense struggle or will we get a complete game out of the Browns?
Great post flugel. That lack of sense of urgency is troubling to me. We knew going into this season how the schedule favored us early and how critical it was to get off to a good start but here we sit at 1-3 and we should be 3-1. If this team gets it act together later on in the year when we are out of play off contention it will be a hollow victory for me because we started the season not ready to play football. We have an opportunity right now to turn this around and It will be interesting to see how the Browns play Sunday. Will we finally get a good defensive perfomance only to see the offense struggle or will we get a complete game out of the Browns?
Thanks OBF and TypicalBrowns in the post before. I'm sick of reading it's everyone's fault but the well paid players here. This team needs veteran leadership from within it ain't gettin. That group of guys that got us off to 7-4 start playing like a Brown in 2014 had the desire I'm not seeing from the group of guys we're watching this year. We can pretend all we gotta do is bench McCown or fire O'Neil; but aren't we really seeing entitled vets looking like the glacier that sunk the Titanic? Think about when the ship started to sink. We were 6-4 and here comes an entitled Josh Gordon all ready to take plays off and refrain from learning the playbook like a starter should. We won the Atlanta game before the shit hit the fans... What should have become game on became game over.
We're at the point we have enough talent to win football games. When Pettine got his NFL diapers and potty training in Baltimore - he saw team leadership from veterans trumping B. Billick's leadership all the way down to breaking down film and showing teammates how to win on the practice field before Sunday. Those bastards didn't play fast by accident folks. The 4 Time AFC Champions in Buffalo had a similar core of team leaders trumping helping Marv Levy look Harvard smart on Sundays, which didn't always happen in his previous football career in KC (with a wing T offense) or up in Canada. When you have the right veteran leadership - you don't see a consistent lack of urgency every week or even worse a team full of guys accepting that level of play.
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