having Grahm back will help

As the #Browns are getting ready for their first game of the year vs BLT, we're looking to see what defensive similarities we'll find between the Ravens and the #NYJets And how those might translate to the game on Sunday.

As usual, this is a 'rough draft' session, hosted at the RT9 discord linked below. All are welcomed to come in, talk shop, ask questions, say their piece or just quietly watch along. But it's a sort of 'behind the scenes' on how the work is done when I chart.

But most importantly it helps to build that 'hang out' community that I think is so important and built around the game of Football.

https://discord.gg/YMhVcH9jE

Unless you can find a way through or around it, this offense is going to stall out mid drive or redzone like last week. Friendly elements might mean SOME better play, but likely not winning difference better. If Lamar is back, Baltimore -4.5 Likely the same even if he isn't.

Thanks! I didn't realize how sloppy I was with all the typos so I went back and edited it some to make it more readable. Not only that, the R key on the laptop doesn't work half the time so it looks like my posts are coming from Elmer Fudd...

I'll work on a piece for Wypler sometime this weekend. Right now I've got The Browns offense vs Baltimore DEF on deck, a mid-season review for Julian Sayin & then Makai Lemon coming down the pipe. But I'll sneak in some Wypler time and report back.

Depends on the gun formation. Mostly spacing/timing issues. Under center your running game has a bit more dynamic direction as well. In gun, 95% of runs begin by opening laterally and the bulk of coaches know that offset SC means you want the (we call it) flow side B gap. There's also the penchant for wanting a more athletic QB if you're focusing on a ground based shotgun game. The last is desire to get defenses into nickel/dime as gun pairs well/most often with 11p. If defenses don't oblige, or with what we're seeing lately - callling/stemming into more odd fronts, it has a disproportionate effect against gun based offenses.

When it comes to OL, love takes time. We turned a wide eyed rookie that played LT at Florida last year into a RG this year. We've already seen 2 different guys starting at Center albeit due to an injury to the starter 1 week. At LT, we took a guy in the 1st round that his college team prefered to play him at RT (the guy that started there at LT is only a rookie backup for NE at this time). Now we have 3 veteran starters from elsewhere that we brought in during the off-season: RT Tytus Howard, C Elgton Jenkins and LG Zion Johnson. I'm not impressed yet and I don't think they offer a lot of upside. That said, it

I'll give eveyone the same excuse though - time is needed to gel. Here's where it gets tricky to me as a fan that played OG in high school back in BC (Before Cellphones). If someone isn't pulling their weight to make a good chemistry possible - do we start a Dawand Jones over a Tytus Howard at RT? Is it too early? This is where Warhop and Monken will make thei experience-based decision and live with the results. Another option, Barber was a LT because he's a great athlete (that also played basketball in hs) - would RT be wok better for him than Tytus (who also played OG in on his last team). OG puts Tytus in tighter space that might not be nearly as troublesome.

Not for nothing, I thought Luke Wypler looked outstanding vs Pittsburgh filling in at Center. Having said that, I was also drinking cold beers from frosted mugs so maybe @tiamat63 or someone else has a more accurate summay than I did. Wypler's biggest problem to date as a 6th round pick was reliable vetean Ethan Pocic was brought here with a much heftier contract; so any opportunities to fill-in for an injured starter meant he couldn't afford to get injured (but he did more than once). That all makes it no surprise Browns used a 5th round pick to draft Alabama C Parker Brailsford; so by all means stay tuned

What we're going through is an inevitable combination of growing pains in that we have 5 band new starters at each position here on the OL. The challenge is when is it time to replace an ineffective starter or move him to another position? I'm no help here - I'm just sharing my thoughts. All this said, the team is 3-2 so we'll soon find out what fate determines here.

What’s that old saying about old dogs turning tricks?

There was a news story down this way about Joe Burrow having the same problem. It was a matter of formation vs. success rate, and he does way better out of the shotgun formation. It could be that it’s the best bet when it comes to passing play value.

I’d be real curious what the stats say league wide on this.

I'm looking forward to having a QB who can play under center again. Watson never figured it out, and it doesn't appear he ever will.

It's almost as if they give up on the run game too soon, or they realize that this new line just isn't capable of running the ball at the pro level consistently. They aren't so hot in the passing game either.

I figured the O line would take time to gel but perhaps it's just not going to be good enough. They still have 5 games to go before the BYE, against some good defenses.

The Jets exposed the reality of Watson that for some reason teams weren't implementing (or didn't have the personnel) to do. Simply, blitz the dude and he's not, and never has in a Browns uniform, seen the field well enough to recover. This was his problem in Houston too, but he was hyper athletic to make it look okay. You can still see in small flashes, but not enough to overcome. The guy runs into more sacks than any other QB in the league. The ravens have the personnel to do exactly what the Jets did.

Don't feel great about this one, but happy to at least be competitive. Thought for sure they'd be 1-4 going into this game. To be honest, if the Browns show competitive spirit and Watson clearly shows no long-term impact (i.e. trading up for a QB), I'm glad to at least be able to have hope and a reason to watch past week 6 this year. Got a lot of winnable games before the bye week.

yikes