@furious-styles said:

Are you Johnny's personal weenie puffer?

@furious-styles said:

You guys may want to keep johnny warmed up.

LET'S GO BENGALS !

Carefull, you might put your eye out

LET'S GO BENGALS !

chance to buy a guy's ticket because he couldn't go. So, we'll be there.

Or, maybe that won't be enough to avoid a disaster....

GO BROWNS ALWAYS !!!!!!!!!!

@diehardbrownsfan said:

A lot of stupid mofos on here. Thinking its good Austin starts. Thinking Pettine is a good coach, Farmer a good GM. They all are horrible. Get your head out your ass fools.

I'm not sure I could name one person in this board that is a fan of all three. So not sure you have a point..

@the-cysko-kid said:

@mudfly said:

yup, and we are now back in preseason mode...err, lets see what austin can do....err, next week, lets see what johnny has. following week, errr, me thinks i'm putting austin back to start...and the show continues. Had to laugh, during the week mike and mike had brian billick on line and the question was asked. What do the browns do with johnny. He answered, they still have him.?.hahahahahaaaa...

@tour2ma said:

Third down: The pinnacle of this fail...

Pre-snap I was doing the formation notes and box count...

I-formation, 2TE-right, 1WR-left... 9 in the box...

What's wrong with this picture???

Did you catch it? Yup... OAK had only 10 on the field. I told you this was bad...

Our next and last look at the play is after the handoff at Crow's decision point. He has two holes before him. Bottom to top we have:

• Thomas driving Aldon Smith out;
• Bito escorting his opposite out of the play altogether;
• Mack and MJ (to this side) in a double-team that drives the NT into the endzone.
• Greco sealing off two in the endzone; and
• Mitch reverse sealing the right side of the D.

One D is unaccounted for... an LB that is stacked behind the NT being double-teamed. Which hole do you choose? Crow chose to cut into the right-hand hole where the ILB can meet him head on... which he does, standing Crow up until help comes from the right side's mosh pit.

The left hand hole not only provided an angle to power through the ILB it was away from almost all potential help. It seemed to me to be the better choice. Might even burrow in behind the double-team.

At any rate Crow went right... I put this one on him. This was not the only questionable vision displayed Sunday by our RBs.

The full series analysis is here: http://thebrownsboard.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=38152&hl=anatomy

I remember the Crow run you described. The hole was off-tackle to the left of where Crow burrowed into the line. Pretty sure it was the subject of one of my photo, play breakdowns this season, but can't find the pics.

As for MJ's lead blocks... there were more times that MJ picked the wrong hole than the RB following him did.

I forget the specific game, but we had it first and goal at like the 2 yard line. We ended up turning it over on downs (a theme with us), and on the 3rd down play, I remember a writer providing some still shots that showed Crow simply not following the lead blocker. The author stated, as did Pettine later, that Crow would've "walked in" for the score, but as Mud and others have pointed out, he slams right into the wall and misses the grand canyon.

Apparently Mack hasn't been playing well this year, at least not to the high standard we were accustomed to. From what I heard on our radio show, Adam Schefter or another national guy stated Mack was playing at such an unbelievably high level before his injury, and that was the leading reason for our early rushing success. Still, Mack is one player, and that doesn't excuse why we can't get ANYTHING going on the ground. How many times do our backs get hit in the backfield? Are we too predictable? Do defenses know we are running when they see specific personnel groupings? Something is very wrong here, and it's not fair to whichever QB is in the game to know they have to do everything in the air. Especially when you consider we don't have elite targets to throw to.

@tour2ma said:

Downhill runner is a great description....though this years hill is so steep, he keeps falling down(it).....

I see a lack of patience to wait for the opening.....to my eye, he runs up the backs of his OL too often and there is often a glaring hole that he's not filling....a little "wait and see" might allow him to find those openings....

Reminds me a bit of a Richardson pic that was circulating a while back.....him ramming into his line, just right of the grand canyon...

@bringbackbrownie2 said:

To my untrained eye, crow is all power and 0 vision. Every week I scream at the TV hoping he somehow hears me telling him to cutback to the other side of the field for a big gain.. I would rather go Johnson/Winston at this point..

Not too much power though....as he's so downhill he falls forward, rather than breaking tackles....(I scream at the TV too)

Zombo said:

Crows stats are just horrendous...... Time to start Duke and Winston.

Right,,,,they are.....

Last 6 games Crows average gain is 1.8 yd per carry.......Dukes is 3.2 yd per carry.....seems Duke can get a lil more out of nothing...

@tour2ma said:

we have produced ZBS "holes" (creases really) that have been missed including full on cutbacks like you may have seen CJ Anderson hit vs. the Pats this past Sunday.

Then there are other factors discussed other places... poor FB blocking... poor TE blocking.

Bottom line: I don't think Crow's game is off much from last year.

To my untrained eye, crow is all power and 0 vision. Every week I scream at the TV hoping he somehow hears me telling him to cutback to the other side of the field for a big gain.. I would rather go Johnson/Winston at this point..

@jiggins7919 said:

So what has changed about Crow? That guy had a serious nose for the end zone last year, and this year it's been ANYTHING but. Hell, we used to run the ball into the end zone with frequency.

Working off recall here, which is always dangerous for me, but last year I think or tendency was to run ZBS between the 20's (excepting short yardage) and power runs everywhere else. Not absolutely, but I remember that being the tendency. Amazingly an OG trap play was at the heart of our goal-line offense. Certainly pre-Mack injury, we ran both schemes at about the same, fairly high level. Anyway Crow's nose was in serious sync with our tendency.

To my eye Crow was our best power back running downhill to the predetermined hole... perhaps adjusting slightly and occasionally bouncing an inside run all the way outside. But he was close to, if not, the worst ZBS which requires a patient, unhurried gear and great vision as the OL sorts things out on the move.

This year we aren't running either blocking scheme all that well. Designed power run holes are often simply not there. But we have produced ZBS "holes" (creases really) that have been missed including full on cutbacks like you may have seen CJ Anderson hit vs. the Pats this past Sunday.

Then there are other factors discussed other places... poor FB blocking... poor TE blocking.

Bottom line: I don't think Crow's game is off much from last year.

Infintite sampling, Bay-Bee...

Also, not going to deny there were/are "haters", but the brush was very broad.

WSS