Joe you and Marino need to have a sit down. Let him know you are in the market for a new team, and remind him about the John Daly incident. I bet if you spend some time, you guys will get along well. Try on the Dolphins, you might like them.
Before the Browns did it on Sunday, the last team to lose when leading by 13 points in the final two minutes was . . . the Browns in 2001 (Week 9 vs. the Bears).
They didn't lose because Chubb scored a TD. It should've given them a 14 point lead with less than 2 minutes left. That should've been plenty. They lost because of the defense, special teams, and coaches. Period.
See, here's the thing with the thread on IBB the other day. Something loke kneeling with time running out strikes me as so much more egregiously anti-competitive than intentional walks it's insane to me to spend the slightest bit of time worried about them while kneeling not only passes without, people actively complain when their team doesn't do it.
The worst part about kneeling, and I mean by a lot, and the biggest difference between it and intentional walks is that kneeling *works*. It's a "good," effective strategy that wins games. See, that other thread was full of people clamoring that teams be penalized for issuing IBB's, but wasn't everyone's whole point that team are already penalized, in that it's a bad strategy that hurts more than it helps? Why should we care if teams want to give up runs and lose games issuing free passes. Because they don't think they're worse off for it? They're punishing themselves.
Meanwhile, kneeling is literally as much of an afront to the spirit of competition as anything I can imagine. People would actually, in the case of this game, prefer the game have artificially less scoring, less excitement, and less chance of an interesting result.
I have always felt the kneel down IS the most anti competitive, anti climactic, anti exciting play in sports. I understand why people do it, of course, because it works. It doesn't make me hate it less. When I was first watching football, it was not as common, then the Herm Edwards/Joe Pisarcik play happened. (And guess what - it is still exciting. There are probably people young enough that they don't even remember Herm as an NFL coach, but they have seen a replay of that play.)
There is nothing more exciting that a close ending or a comeback, and nothing kills that excitement more than a kneel down. They, of course, will never do this, but I have always thought there should be a rule that if you don't advance the ball beyond the line of scrimmage in the last two minutes, the clock stops, just like it would for an incomplete pass.
The only thing worse is trying not to score. Actually it's the same thing but I mean a RB going down on purpose like some here wanted. Is there anything more ridiculous than when a defense is trying to push a running back into the end zone for a TD?
If Stefanski really wanted to bleed time, he should’ve called three kneel downs. Otherwise why risk a fumble by running an actual play?
Leaving aside whatever Chubb was thinking on the TD run, in order for him to not score but get a first down, he would’ve had to dive down somewhere between the one and a half yard line and the goal line, making sure he got close enough to get the first down without letting his momentum take him into the end zone, or somehow, after sidestepping a defender on the sideline at the three while running full speed, cut back to the sideline and gone out of bounds at the right spot, all while being pursued by other tacklers.
That seems more than a little ridiculous to expect even if you were facing the 2007 Patriots offense, much less the Jets led by the 83 year old Joe Flacco.
They have a call for that - they used it for the one last year when Nick stepped out before scoring, and Stefanski said today he didn't think to call it. So, Nick being who and what he is, saw end zone and went in. Even so, the Browns literally had a 99.9% chance of winning the game - and the defensive backfield forgot how to play.
My wife and I were at the 1987 Browns-Jets game that you remember so well. Half the stadium had emptied late in the game. We stayed. I've watched it many times on YouTube just to relive the exhilaration!
i'm no Browns fan- and certainly no Jets fan either (i'm many things, but a zealous masochist i'm not!), but nothing prepared ANYbody for what happened in the final (less than) 2:00 of the Browns-Jets game!!!
Joe, i empathize w/your exasperation re your Browns; often, my Niners have failed me (but not too often)- meanwhile, us 49er faithful have to completely rewire our brains cause (hopefully not disastrously) for better or worse, once again it's Jimmy G's team through the end of the year (as i go off to a hill to scream about Shanahan treating Lance like a RB and having him power run through the line repeatedly...
I feel bad for Lance, but it is probably a piece of luck for your team. Shanahan is now 9-29 in games not started by Garappolo, and he won one of those 9 in relief. He is 31-14 when Jimmy G is the guy. It is Jimmy G that makes the team go.
trouble is, Jimmy G doesn't seem to get the whole job done! but it is looking like a masterstroke that they signed Jimmy as backup instead of trading him...
What, because he hasn't won a Super Bowl? He is 4-2 in the postseason. (Making him 35-16 overall with the Niners.) That is a total of a .686 winning percentage (That is 11.66 wins per 17 games) with him starting, and a .237 (4.03 per 17) without him. There is seriously not another player in the league that has a difference like that. Zero, Zip, Nada.
yes, he hasn't won a Super Bowl, and he makes boneheaded decisions prior (for instance, last year's NFC Championship game against the Lambs, the stupid pick in 4th quarter)...
my grandma can throw a longer ball than him (and she's been gone since '75)
we'll take him, at least he knows the offense, but he's NOT an elite QB, never was, never will be!
There are only 3 active QBs with a better lifetime winning percentage than him. Brady, Mahomes, Lamar Jackson. Those guys teams have a combined .527 winning percentage when they don't play. Even if you add in the 2 wins he got for the Pats, and the 15-2 the Pats went without him (including the post season - it was a Super Bowl year.) still he has a .698 winning percentage and even with the benefit of that Tom Brady year, still his teams are .436 without him.
You guys don't know what you have, and it seems like no one there has any idea just how shitty a coach Shanahan is. Jimmy G is the only reason he is not unemployed.
I wish you would quit trying to be the bigger man and just stick with the Browns like your heart wants. You write so well about them it's obvious. When you write about your family, Buck, or the Browns you are on a whole other level than other writers.
I’m sure you’ve heard people praising singers by saying “I’d listen to her sing the phone book” or words to that effect. Mr. Posnanski can write about the Browns every week and I’d read it as soon as it dropped. All fans who live and die by their favorite teams can appreciate the emotions you convey in columns like these. Thank you and keep ‘em coming!
When I was a young Browns fan I had an irrational hatred of Bob Trumpy, who I was convinced was biased against the Browns. He probably wasn’t, or if he was it was probably that he was sick of having to go to the Cleveland Stadium press box in December, so I can’t blame him much. But just seeing his name raised my blood pressure ten points.
I was in Cleveland this weekend to see the Guardians - you remember the Guardians, the good Cleveland team? Anyway, on my way out of the hotel garage Sunday, which is a site for football tailgating, I naturally saw large numbers of middle-aged men wearing jerseys and playing cornhole and getting drunk at 9:30 in the morning. It was like the world’s worst costume party. I don’t imagine that’s different from any other NFL (or major college) city, except that in other places there might be an expectation of football competence, and in other places the fans aren’t dressing up like sexual predators. I have no sympathy for the people of Cleveland who keep supporting that team - that’s their choice, and I wish them an entire season of crushing losses like yesterday’s.
Maybe I’m just noticing more, but how did ‘cocky kicker’ become a thing? That’s like 2 or 3 just in one division. Do these guys not realize every other player on the team would crush them in pretty much every other aspect of football?
Joe you and Marino need to have a sit down. Let him know you are in the market for a new team, and remind him about the John Daly incident. I bet if you spend some time, you guys will get along well. Try on the Dolphins, you might like them.
Before the Browns did it on Sunday, the last team to lose when leading by 13 points in the final two minutes was . . . the Browns in 2001 (Week 9 vs. the Bears).
They didn't lose because Chubb scored a TD. It should've given them a 14 point lead with less than 2 minutes left. That should've been plenty. They lost because of the defense, special teams, and coaches. Period.
https://youtu.be/UPw-3e_pzqU
See, here's the thing with the thread on IBB the other day. Something loke kneeling with time running out strikes me as so much more egregiously anti-competitive than intentional walks it's insane to me to spend the slightest bit of time worried about them while kneeling not only passes without, people actively complain when their team doesn't do it.
The worst part about kneeling, and I mean by a lot, and the biggest difference between it and intentional walks is that kneeling *works*. It's a "good," effective strategy that wins games. See, that other thread was full of people clamoring that teams be penalized for issuing IBB's, but wasn't everyone's whole point that team are already penalized, in that it's a bad strategy that hurts more than it helps? Why should we care if teams want to give up runs and lose games issuing free passes. Because they don't think they're worse off for it? They're punishing themselves.
Meanwhile, kneeling is literally as much of an afront to the spirit of competition as anything I can imagine. People would actually, in the case of this game, prefer the game have artificially less scoring, less excitement, and less chance of an interesting result.
I have always felt the kneel down IS the most anti competitive, anti climactic, anti exciting play in sports. I understand why people do it, of course, because it works. It doesn't make me hate it less. When I was first watching football, it was not as common, then the Herm Edwards/Joe Pisarcik play happened. (And guess what - it is still exciting. There are probably people young enough that they don't even remember Herm as an NFL coach, but they have seen a replay of that play.)
There is nothing more exciting that a close ending or a comeback, and nothing kills that excitement more than a kneel down. They, of course, will never do this, but I have always thought there should be a rule that if you don't advance the ball beyond the line of scrimmage in the last two minutes, the clock stops, just like it would for an incomplete pass.
The only thing worse is trying not to score. Actually it's the same thing but I mean a RB going down on purpose like some here wanted. Is there anything more ridiculous than when a defense is trying to push a running back into the end zone for a TD?
If Stefanski really wanted to bleed time, he should’ve called three kneel downs. Otherwise why risk a fumble by running an actual play?
Leaving aside whatever Chubb was thinking on the TD run, in order for him to not score but get a first down, he would’ve had to dive down somewhere between the one and a half yard line and the goal line, making sure he got close enough to get the first down without letting his momentum take him into the end zone, or somehow, after sidestepping a defender on the sideline at the three while running full speed, cut back to the sideline and gone out of bounds at the right spot, all while being pursued by other tacklers.
That seems more than a little ridiculous to expect even if you were facing the 2007 Patriots offense, much less the Jets led by the 83 year old Joe Flacco.
They have a call for that - they used it for the one last year when Nick stepped out before scoring, and Stefanski said today he didn't think to call it. So, Nick being who and what he is, saw end zone and went in. Even so, the Browns literally had a 99.9% chance of winning the game - and the defensive backfield forgot how to play.
Agreed on Chubb. Never want to fault a guy for scoring a TD. Defense and special teams (and coaching) should've taken the Browns home.
My wife and I were at the 1987 Browns-Jets game that you remember so well. Half the stadium had emptied late in the game. We stayed. I've watched it many times on YouTube just to relive the exhilaration!
i'm no Browns fan- and certainly no Jets fan either (i'm many things, but a zealous masochist i'm not!), but nothing prepared ANYbody for what happened in the final (less than) 2:00 of the Browns-Jets game!!!
Joe, i empathize w/your exasperation re your Browns; often, my Niners have failed me (but not too often)- meanwhile, us 49er faithful have to completely rewire our brains cause (hopefully not disastrously) for better or worse, once again it's Jimmy G's team through the end of the year (as i go off to a hill to scream about Shanahan treating Lance like a RB and having him power run through the line repeatedly...
I feel bad for Lance, but it is probably a piece of luck for your team. Shanahan is now 9-29 in games not started by Garappolo, and he won one of those 9 in relief. He is 31-14 when Jimmy G is the guy. It is Jimmy G that makes the team go.
trouble is, Jimmy G doesn't seem to get the whole job done! but it is looking like a masterstroke that they signed Jimmy as backup instead of trading him...
What, because he hasn't won a Super Bowl? He is 4-2 in the postseason. (Making him 35-16 overall with the Niners.) That is a total of a .686 winning percentage (That is 11.66 wins per 17 games) with him starting, and a .237 (4.03 per 17) without him. There is seriously not another player in the league that has a difference like that. Zero, Zip, Nada.
yes, he hasn't won a Super Bowl, and he makes boneheaded decisions prior (for instance, last year's NFC Championship game against the Lambs, the stupid pick in 4th quarter)...
my grandma can throw a longer ball than him (and she's been gone since '75)
we'll take him, at least he knows the offense, but he's NOT an elite QB, never was, never will be!
(and i'm a lifelong 49ers fan, sixty+ years!)
There are only 3 active QBs with a better lifetime winning percentage than him. Brady, Mahomes, Lamar Jackson. Those guys teams have a combined .527 winning percentage when they don't play. Even if you add in the 2 wins he got for the Pats, and the 15-2 the Pats went without him (including the post season - it was a Super Bowl year.) still he has a .698 winning percentage and even with the benefit of that Tom Brady year, still his teams are .436 without him.
You guys don't know what you have, and it seems like no one there has any idea just how shitty a coach Shanahan is. Jimmy G is the only reason he is not unemployed.
Shanahan a sh*tty coach?!?!?!? he's the only reason Jimmy G is not unemployed!
he's really not that great of a QB, despite the winning percentage, which is mainly due to Kyle's often brilliant game plans
Shanahan a sh*tty coach?!?!?!? he's the only reason Jimmy G is not unemployed!
he's really not that great of a QB, despite the winning percentage, which is mainly due to Kyle's often brilliant game plans
I wish you would quit trying to be the bigger man and just stick with the Browns like your heart wants. You write so well about them it's obvious. When you write about your family, Buck, or the Browns you are on a whole other level than other writers.
Because his heart isn’t in it anymore. That’s why this browns diary pales in comparison to prior years.
Were these two paragraphs two drafts of the same idea?
“And somehow, during this little break in the action, Kosar and the Browns got it together. The magic was about to begin.
And, I don’t know why, but that was the thing that turned on the magic.”
I’m sure you’ve heard people praising singers by saying “I’d listen to her sing the phone book” or words to that effect. Mr. Posnanski can write about the Browns every week and I’d read it as soon as it dropped. All fans who live and die by their favorite teams can appreciate the emotions you convey in columns like these. Thank you and keep ‘em coming!
I signed up to read your Browns stuff. Guess I gotta let this Substack go
oh, don't worry, something tells me he's still gonna write about his (once?) beloved Browns...
I don't know who the "undersized, overachieving receiver from Boston College" was, but I'm going to guess he's white.
?? It says, right there: Brian Brennan.
Who was indeed a white Wide Receiver.
When I was a young Browns fan I had an irrational hatred of Bob Trumpy, who I was convinced was biased against the Browns. He probably wasn’t, or if he was it was probably that he was sick of having to go to the Cleveland Stadium press box in December, so I can’t blame him much. But just seeing his name raised my blood pressure ten points.
I was in Cleveland this weekend to see the Guardians - you remember the Guardians, the good Cleveland team? Anyway, on my way out of the hotel garage Sunday, which is a site for football tailgating, I naturally saw large numbers of middle-aged men wearing jerseys and playing cornhole and getting drunk at 9:30 in the morning. It was like the world’s worst costume party. I don’t imagine that’s different from any other NFL (or major college) city, except that in other places there might be an expectation of football competence, and in other places the fans aren’t dressing up like sexual predators. I have no sympathy for the people of Cleveland who keep supporting that team - that’s their choice, and I wish them an entire season of crushing losses like yesterday’s.
Trumpy had reason to not be enamored of the Browns - he played for the Bengals.
I was feeling like he had a Bengals connection - thanks for confirming.
Aren't you special?
Maybe I’m just noticing more, but how did ‘cocky kicker’ become a thing? That’s like 2 or 3 just in one division. Do these guys not realize every other player on the team would crush them in pretty much every other aspect of football?