I'm still pissed

The loss to the Raiders is still burning me. I think having everyone at work know that I am a loyal fan to the Browns doesn't help. It is now 8:18 as I write this and countless people have already come by to take their jabs at me. Bunch of band wagon hopping a-holes. I guess I wasn't as loyal of a guy as I am. It would make things easier.

As I look back on that game, I still place 95% of the blame on the players. The one coaching move I didn't understand at the time, and I still don't, is on our second to last drive. There was approximately 4 minutes left in the game, and we are down by two scores. Why were we not in a hurry-up offense? In the end, it worked out that we had enough time to drive down for a makeable fieldgoal for the win... however, it is a big risk when we hadn't had good luck stopping them all day. I would think you would want as much time on the clock as possible. That is the one coaching move I did not get.

More rants on the players...

I picked on D.A. quite a bit yesterday, and he deserved every bit if not more. He did lead a pretty nice 2 minute drill at the end of the game, I'll give him that. However, for 3-1/2 quarters he was the pre-season D.A. that cost him the starting job in the first place. He made some real nice throws to the Raiders. Hit them right in the numbers. The first one, Oakland's LB took two steps back after the snap and D.A. put it square between the numbers. Nice throw, MORON!

I'm getting tired of seening Andra Davis and our other DB's getting run over. Yesterday, I thought the gravy boat (Ted Washington) did a good job of keeping the linemen off of the linebackers yesterday. I saw many occasions where they were free to hit Jordan at or behind the line of scrimmage. However, they would carry our LB's, especially Davis 3-5 yards down the field. His TD run was a prime example. Davis hit him about a yard behind the line of scrimmage, promptly buckled and let him in for the score. Why do opponents LB's run through the tackle but we seem to enjoy getting rolled over. MORONS!

This game should not have been close. It should not have come down to a last second field goal attempt by Dawson. Speaking of which... we acted surprised that Oakland called a timeout. Hello! Did anyone realize they had TO's available, or what happened to them the week before? Then on the actual kick, Dawson may or may not have left it too low, it was hard to tell. However, who ever #68 is, I believe it to be Seth McKinney, got blown up. Pontbriand did a better job of blocking with his head between his knees than McKinney did. The defense got up under him, stood him up, pushed him back and had a nice clear lane to jump and block that kick from. It was so bad that he was turned around and looking Dawson in the eyes when he kicked the ball. That is not good. Morons!

I even called Braylon Edwards a Moron at one point yesterday. However, he made up for his bone-headed drop on 3rd down. Edwards made excellent catches the rest of the day, including an unbelievable catch down around the 5 yard line where he out jumped the defender and came down in bounds. It was a nice grab.

One note of awesomeness from the game.... our Punter. Not only did he punt well... eh hem, Mr. Ernster, but he wore the single bar face mask, pulled down around his chin. Awesome. Then he had the Hulk Hogan blond moustache. That rocked.

Everyone else on the team is a Moron.

And now after coming in to work and listening to the radio, I now understand how teams that are bad stay bad for so long, i.e. the Cardinals, the Bengals, the Saints, and now the Browns. Unless a coach comes in and has immediate success (i.e. Sean Peyton or Marvin Lewis), they are run out the door. Then they whole cycle starts again. I am very depressed to think that we are going to blow this up again. Get a new coach... have to wait 2-3 years for him to get his players, implement his schemes... then do it all over again, because he hasn't had any success either. The teams with the most success have some stability. The Patriots have had Bill Beli-cheater there for a while. Coordinaters have changed, but the scheme hasn't. The Steelers keep their coaches longer than a decade at a time. And when they bring in a new coach, they keep as much the same as possible, especially things that work, like a Dick Lebeau defense. If the fricking Ravens... yuck, gag, puke. Brian Dickhead has been there since '99.

Speaking of the Ravens. I am not looking forward to this week. I almost don't want to go or even watch the game. The fans will be chanting for Quinn within the first two minutes of the game. I'll be surrounded by Baltimore fans in the stands. I'll have to watch a defense that can tackle and intimidate people. And I'll watch a crappy offense look like the Niners of the 80's against our defense. How depressing.

With that all of that said... here is some positive spin.

As bad as we played, we had a chance to win that game yesterday. They seemed to get their crap together for the most part after the 1st quarter and compete, taking a lead at one point 17-16.

There are signs of hope. We have to put it all together, and in a hurry, to keep this season alive.

Baltimore is a beatable team. Hell, the Bengals beat them. I want to see someone break Ray Lewis. Kick him in the groin or something.

If we don't act like Morons, we can beat them. If we give the Raven defense any boost by playing like Morons, it will snowball and we're done.

Watch the film today of the Raiders game... take notes, fix the problems... and forget about it. Start getting ready for the Ravens.

PS> Quinn starts against Miami.

Jubilation to Anger and frustration

I was joyous today at about 4:00. The Indians clinched the Central Division against the Oakland A's. They were the first team to clinch a division this year. They were tied (at the time) for the best record in baseball. All things were good.

The Browns were about to start in a game I thought they should win. They were coming off a big performance against the Bengals.

However, things got ugly quick. They are a bunch of morons playing... I swear it to be true. Most of the problems the Browns had were bad mental mistakes.

There is no excuse for Wright getting toasted for that TD on 3rd and short. He bit hard on the play action, and his guy ran right by him.

Giving up a 3rd and 26 is inexcusable. This lead to the field goal that would be the difference in the game.

Then giving up a 3rd and 10 to allow Oakland to burn more time off the clock.

The real Derrek Anderson came out today. He was off target and made bad decisions.

In reality, this game shouldn't have been close. If Anderson hits a couple passes most NFL QB's hit 99% of the time, the game really isn't close.

I was disgusted and frustrated with this game. This loss is right on the players. I thought the coaches put together a good game plan, but the execution was horrible. Good play calling, bad execution. Good defenses called, bad tackling and coverage. MORONS!

The Browns turn me into a person I do not like being, and I really don't like my son seeing me act that way. Right after this game I took his little Browns 'one-sie' off and threw it away. He does not need to go through this torture... I'm not sure why I subject myself to it.

A day to remember...

I owe an update on my thoughts on the current state of the Browns, especially after the pathetic outing that was the Steelers game this past weekend, however, that is not appropriate for today.

Today was the 6th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country.

I could use this as a diatribe for/against the current war or the way the government and country are harshly divided. But I won't. It isn't worth it.

I spent a lot of today thinking about that day. As most Americans do, I vividly recall where and what I was doing. I was working in Ravenna Lamp Plant. I remember the first reports were "a plane" hit the trade center, described as a little Cesna. Then more and more information came in. It was clear that his was no Cesna, and probably was not an accident. In the cafeteria of the plant, they turned on a TV. I saw the second plane hit the the tower live, this was no accident. It was a state of disbelief. I remember people openly crying and were just in a state of shock. It was very surreal.

It is hard to explain all the emotion that goes through me when thinking back on these events; anger, sadness, desire for vengeance, fear and even pride. I don't ever remember a time, albeit brief, when the entire country pulled together like that. In that respect, it was wonderful; just horrible that it took such a tragedy to do it.

Even today, six years after the fact, I still found myself with a tear in my eye and a little choked up when thinking about it. I think about families losing loved ones; or the fear people had to have if they were trapped in the Towers. For someone to jump from higher than 80 stories up, had to indicate the horrors that were happening in that building. I reflect that back into my own life and think about losing one of my parents, my wife, my son, a friend or leaving them behind because something happened to me, and it is hard to deal with the thought. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims, survivors and their families. I have a hard time imagining that happening to my family, let alone actually having to go through it.

My thoughts and prayers are also for our country as a whole. We need it. We need a bold leader to provide some inspiration, ignite new hope and dreams, aspirations of greatness. We, as Americans, are looking for this, can anyone provide it?

9/11/01 - We'll never forget.

God Bless the USA.