2018 Cleveland Browns...Rising from the Ashes (This time we mean it)

[GAC]

Gotta get me these T-shirts (LOL) ...

[puca]

Great season for the Browns. If not for some real atrocious officiating mistakes, they could well have been in the playoffs. Of course the same could be said if they had a competent kicker.

Dorsey and company made great strides with the franchise. I can't wait until next year.

[GAC]

OK. The season is over for the Browns. Brown fans are simply ecstatic in so many ways over this season and what occurred. A lot of positives to say for sure. Especially from the offensive perspective, and the vast improvement/development under Kitchen's auspices. I go back and look at this team over the last 3-4 years and this team was pretty much devoid of talent offensively. We couldn't run the ball, we couldn't pass the ball, we couldn't put points on the board, and we turned it over like crazy. We were the Browns! LOL

Funny what happens when you actually fill those key offensive voids with actual talent, whether through the draft or the market. But first you have to know what you're doing.

So we feel the offense is on the right track going into '19. Things are definitely looking up for the Brownies. But this team did finish 7-8-1. Yeah, plenty of room for celebration after an 0-16 season, but what negative "factors" contributed to that record that needs to be addressed going forward into '19 (besides bad officiating, which ain't going away)? Lets start with .....

DEFENSE

To me it's somewhat baffling because if you go back and look at the Brown's drafts over the last several years they really emphasized the defensive side. And we saw some improvement defensively. Last year they were 14th in Total Defense and 7th vs the Run. But this year it's been a completely different story (below). Yes, we can't discount the elements of inexperience and gelling together as a unit. I realize some are still learning, so that kind of eases my "worries" to some degree. And they also fought through some injuries too. But the bottom-line is, it has to be addressed in the off-season. Here are some defensive numbers from this season ....

TOTAL DEFENSE 30TH
YDS ALLOWED/G 30TH (393)
P YDS/G 25TH (257)
R YDS/G 28TH (135)
PTS/G 21ST (24.5)

But here's a question I'm asking myself ..... is it due to inexperience, need to be more patient with growth or is it coaching to a certain degree? Look what happened with the offense with the coaching changes. I've heard criticisms of Williams as a defensive coordinator. Here's one example ...

https://waitingfornextyear.com/2018/...w-linebackers/

Biggest Question Mark: Gregg Williams

I think the biggest question mark for the linebacker unit is Browns defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. The linebacker corps is loaded with talent and has the talent to be really good. But, they had a lot of this talent last season and the group overall did not play well. I believe a large part of that was because of Williams. Williams blitzed all the time and put the linebackers in some vulnerable situations. The blitzes were easily seen, so the surprise was not there. Williams also put the linebackers in bad positioning, especially Schobert. For a lot of the season, Schobert could be seen playing ten yards off the line of scrimmage, making the linebacker have to cover more ground to make a play on the ball. Williams has to be better at putting these guys in the best position to be successful.

I want Kitchens back .... but I'm not so sure about Williams who recently stated that if he didn't get the head coaching job he'd come back as the defensive coordinator. I'm hoping Dorsey passes there.