@orion said:

But beyond Johnny there were so many more 1st rounders whiffed upon.  You don't get to suck as bad, or for as long as we had without being bad at the draft.  It took a herculean effort by our owner to make sure he hired a litany of bad coaches and GMs.

You think Tannehill is better than Baker?  I can't argue that, as I'm not sure how good Baker really is....but I really wouldn't want to have to count on either of them having to take the team on their back to win games.  I think they both need the running games that they've got.

Your owner is well known in these parts. It's amazing that he was a pretty good at the truck stop business....well, federal indictments not withstanding. His brother was a much better governor.

Tannehill isn't Mahomes, but who is? But he's proved his mettle around here and I'll take him against most opponents we face. Having Henry in the backfield does make his life easier. But you still have to connect with receivers and make good decisions. His TD/INT ratio is still excellent.

He's still not the most physically talented in the AFC south....that honor still goes to Deshawn Watson who is having a good year now that their coach was fired. But it's probably too late to sneak into the playoffs considering their start.

One thing about our defense....every now and then we make opposing QBs look like they belong in Canton, regardless of their skill level. I'm hoping it's not going to be one of those games.

@orion said:

Sucks to have a pick wasted like that.  We been there.  We done that.

Yes, you have. And it was bigger news since it was your star QB. At least no one is talking about our whiff at the draft outside of Nashville.

@typicalbrowns50 said:

I just think the Titans are objectively slightly better than us. Better more physical players mostly across the board.

Rb is a push. I’d say our O line is better by a small margin and D line is better. I can’t say we are better anywhere else. Maybe that will make the difference in the game. We win in the trenches ! Sucks not having Denzel 

A lot has been said that the Browns haven't had many wins against quality teams. That being said, 8 wins at week 12 is still 8 wins in the NFL.

On paper, the running games are a push. But I'll still take Derrick Henry any day of the week.

Our O-line is very banged up. We're on our third left tackle. Our center plays hurt. Saffold at guard is great...when he's on the field. Nate Davis is better at the other guard than last year. Kelly is a quality piece at RT but Jack Conklin was better when he played in Nashville (Kelly was his backup).

Our D-line has had its problems but continues to improve, even without some splash players that never materialized for us. We still don't have a good edge rush. Jeffrey Simmons is one to look at for in the middle....he's a wrecking ball.

Our secondary has had to learn not to get torched after having a better last year and have made some improvement in recent weeks.  Still, our fastest corner hasn't seen the field all year due to an unknown knee injury.

Mayfield is good but Tannehill is better. And our receivers are better.

@gumby73 said:

LT	71	KELLY, DENNIS T/Phi
LG	76	SAFFOLD, RODGER U/LAR  ? ankle		no depth
C	60	JONES, BEN U/Hou	62	Brewer, Aaron CF20
RG	64	Davis, Nate 19/3	75	Douglas, Jamil SF18	72	QUESSENBERRY, DAVID SF18
RT	79	Wilson, Isaiah 20/1----WILL BE OUT		no depth

Practice Squad? bring up to play RT*? Marshall Newhouse ? ? **protected 

PS	00	Kizer**, DeShone QB  ?	83		66	Kemp, Brandon OT	00		95	Brown, Miles DT
PS	16		00	Adams, Paul OT	80		89		57	Ray, Wyatt OB--former Brown
PS	52		72	NEWHOUSE**, MARSHALL OT	00	Daniel, Trevor PT	00		59	Skipper**, Tuzar LB

We played Marshall Newhouse last season at New England.. started & took all 69 snaps at RT..

Quessenberry is playing LT right now....did pretty good last week. We wish we still had Jack Conklin but he was too expensive after we didn't pick up his 5th year option.

 Dennis Kelly is a reliable RT but not the same talent as Conklin. But Kelly is easily the best trade (from the Eagles, for a WR who is out of the league now) that the Titans have gotten in recent memory.

As I said before, Isaiah Wilson will probably never play another snap as a Titan. Too much trouble, on and off the field.

We need Saffold to play...if not, it may be a long day on the O-line.

@vambo said:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/nfl/titans/2020/12/05/titans-isaiah-wilson-suspended-browns-game-first-round-pick-2020-offensive-lineman/3843743001/

Not even close to being important.  Isaiah Wilson is well on his way to being the biggest bust in Titans history. He's only seen the field once, and that was in the last game in the last few garbage time plays.  He's had two car wrecks, a DUI, COVID list twice including one where he was caught at a college campus party and nearly jumped out of a second story window. And then he's never been on Vrabel's good side in terms of actually playing football. He's well on his way to being cut.

@sdbacker80 said:

Quessenberry stepped in at a tackle spot I believe and had a good game for them.  They ran right a lot too

Borders is playing in place of Adoree Jackson and there has been no drop off whatsoever.

They are strangely just like us...pound the rock and play action.  This is a Obi earn your next contract game and Sheldon earn your keep game.

Mayfield needs to be mistake free opposed to his last meeting against the Titans. 

But This could also be a Myles Garrett takeover game.  Let’s hope the Titans make the mistake and single him up on these tackles and we get a big turnover.

PSA to Joe Woods.  Bring pressure...the guys you have available now in back 7 can’t communicate, find zones or play man when they have to.  So you may as well hurry Tannehill and maybe expose his decision making. 

Quessenberry spent three years fighting cancer before coming back to the NFL last year and coming off the practice squad this year as two LTs ahead of him went down. He played well and hopefully continues.

Borders is continuing to get better but he's no Adoree Jackson. We miss his speed but Jackson hasn't played this season due to an unknown knee injury right before the first game. Not sure if he appears for this game although he's not been on IR for three weeks now.

Myles Garrett vs Derrick Henry will be an interesting contest. Right now, I don't think Henry cares who he lines up against. And Henry isn't known for coughing up the football. Right now, Henry is playing HOF football.

Jeffrey Simmons on our D-line is fast becoming a guy you don't want pushing the pocket interior if you're Mayfield. They call him "Big Jeff" around here for a reason.

This is certainly not a trap game....the trap game was our loss to a 1-win Bengals squad. Despite a lot of people thinking the Browns are a suspect 8 win team, they are still an 8 win team. The Titans certainly don't think they are suspect.

We hope that Tannehill has Adam Humphries back as a slot receiver target after being out the last three games from a concussion. But the concussion was so nasty that nothing is assured there.

A.J. Brown is the best in the league on yards-after-catch but don't sleep on Corey Davis who is having a career year.

Tannehill is less effective when the pocket isn't clean but our O-line has played better in the last couple of weeks versus that three-losses-out-of-four games stretch.

@mike-h said:

Waiting to hear how all the good plays Manziel made today weren't really good plays. I'll be back later

Actually, I'll be the first to say they were good plays.

You guys beat us fair and square today. We began the game extremely undisciplined, committing penalty after penalty. That led to two quick scores on your part, and we never were really in the contest again. But the real story was your defensive line, which imposed their will on our O-line and made what looked like a solid group last week into a bunch of stiffs. Mariota got hit enough for four NFL games back there. Seven sacks? 11 QB hits? All recipes for disaster. It's amazing he still got the two TD passes he did.

And even Johnny Freaking Football managed to beat us, which was our plan all along. Make him actually beat us and he did. He did what he does best which is improvising and our D-line never really caught up with him when it really mattered...on the big play.

So congrats and here's to a good season.

@diehardbrownsfan said:

With our top 5 rated defense we will collapse your OL and destroy your rookie.

Maybe. The O-line is still a work in progress with late pre-season changes. We certainly have to run the ball with authority. If not, Mariota won't have good passing lanes and it'll be a long day.

@the-gipper said:

Well....here is how Johnny should view this: Mano a Mano vs. Mariota. Heisman winner vs. Heisman winner.

Well, CBS certainly got the game it wanted. Another Heisman battle. The problem is that I'm sure that this was the contest the Titans actually wanted this week. Manziel is still learning basic quarterback discipline. The Titans were awful on defense last year but Manziel has never played against a Dick Lebeau led defense. I'm sure that he will have some interesting things dialed up for him. I'm sure he'll try to flush him out of the pocket which Manziel likes to do, making him likely for the big play...or the big mistake.

Mariota can take off like Manziel...but he's shown he won't until he goes through his reads or if the pocket completely collapses. He has shown he can move with the pocket...Manziel tends to run from the pocket. Mariota should have a harder time against the Browns defense, which is much better than the Bucs. But Mariota doesn't seem to make a lot of mistakes, limiting his chances of turning the ball over. Mariota likely won't have the leading receiver on the Titans, TE Delanie Walker who still has a sprained wrist. And our best corner Jason McCourty is still out with a groin injury.

Should be fun to watch.

@tour2ma said:

Great greeting... hopefully our lava-lava lad will get to hug your island boy...

Dick's D looked good Week 1. Even tho Johnny has not seen it up close, our O-line has and if we get the line calls right, then it can be exploited.

It would not shock me to see our respective QBs emerge as our leading rushers.

If Mariota ends up being a leading rusher, then it's a pretty bad day for us. The point of his rushing ability is to keep the defense honest, not feel he has to be the guy to move the sticks every time. In all of last week's game, there was only one designed run executed for him....again, something to remind the defense that it could happen.

As for the rest of the backfield, I'm sure your coaching staff is looking to take away the run game for us. First because it would probably make us one dimensional and put more pressure on Marcus and maybe get him to make some throwing errors. But also that your run defense was league worst last year so it has to improve, right? And our highly drafted running back from last year, Bishop Sankey didn't exactly set the world on fire in 2014. He seems to be running more with a purpose this year, in part because he probably feels pressure that if he doesn't get better that he may not be "the guy" anymore. And the o-line may actually be blocking better for him now.

Of course the real story will be the return of Terrence West. You guys jettisoned him after last year to us for a sixth round conditional pick. Players often play with a chip on their shoulder against their old team, especially since the trade was only two weeks ago.

And I'm sure that in our market somebody will bring up the whole thing about Jimmy Haslem, the Browns owner and brother of the governor of the state of Tennessee. Jimmy Haslem made news in the last couple of years for his company defrauding their customers and he's done a masterful job of staying off the federal indictment list.

Greetings from Nashville, or as we say lately, "Aloha, bitches!"

Yes it will be a pivotal game for both clubs. Cleveland has to get off the early season mat and see if the Johnny Football thing is truly going to work. He's certainly better than last year but the big question is will be be good enough. One interesting story will be the Titans defense. You guys play the Steelers twice a year but last season both games were early (weeks 1 and 6) and I don't think Manziel played in either game. So he's not seen Dick Lebeau schemes yet.

As for Mariota, his first week was better than anyone predicted. We're still trying not to get ahead of ourselves in the Music City. We were a 2-14 club last year. The defense is still likely a few pieces away from being solid. The o-line was rejiggered at the last minute during the pre-season. We still have receiver questions and our top tight end Delanie Walker will likely miss the game after banging his wrist (fortunately not broken).

Still we won on the road last week. Yes it was against another 2-14 team with high hopes but road wins are always tough to get, especially for middling teams. Sunday should be interesting.