The Sports Mixer Looks Back - Lions vs. Browns

To say this past game was deflating is an understatement.

The Browns had a chance to go 4-2 and show that they could contend this year. Further, Brandon Weeden had a chance to show he could learn from his own play as well as the play of Brian Hoyer.  The defense had a chance to show it was a legitimate, top-ten defense.

The Browns did well for one half, then fell flat on their faces in the second half in losing 31-17.

How bad was the second half? The Browns were up 17-7 at halftime. The offense was moving the ball and the defense was shutting Matthew Stafford and the Lions down. It looked like the Browns had hit their stride and had a chance to run away with the game.

The Lions made some adjustments at halftime. They started to attack the Browns on both sides of the ball. Suddenly, pressure that wasn't there early on started to get to Weeden a bit in the third quarter. The defense was suddenly being exploited in the middle of the field. And the coaches did very little to adjust to Lions.

Let's start with the good in this game: Weeden started off well enough. He seemed to take a page out of Hoyer's playbook and was trying to get the ball out quickly. He showed decent accuracy and wasn't holding on to the ball as long as he had been in previous games. 

The running game, while not stellar, was doing a decent job of keeping the Lions offense. The receivers didn't always help Weeden (early drops by Josh Gordon and Davonne Bess seemed to hurt initially), but they fought for the ball when it came near them. Weeden made a poor decision on a wheel route to Chris Ogbonnya that was intercepted, but he threw two touchdown passes on short throws to Ogbonnya and Greg Little.

All in all, not bad.

Meanwhile, the defense was stuffing the run and making life difficult for Stafford. Calvin Johnson did play, but his impact was minimal, especially considering he dropped a few passes, including one sure touchdown. He seemed rusty and the Browns seemed to be catching some breaks there. The defense didn't catch any breaks from the officials, who decided to assist the Lions on their scoring drive by calling a phantom pass interference call on Joe Haden, who compounded things by earning a legit PI a couple plays later.

Overall though, the defense seemed to be playing well even if they weren't getting to Stafford that often.

The bad? Well, the entire second half. Stafford started throwing primarily to Reggie Bush and his tight ends, including 3 touchdown passes to Joseph Fauria, who decided to do a variety of dances afterwards. Craig Robertson in particular was torched in the second half and Stafford seemed to be targeting Robertson. Truth was, the defense overall wasn't as crisp in the second half. Missed tackles made things worse, especially from TJ Ward, who whiffed a few times in the backfield on what should've been losses on running plays.

The ugly? Well, the offense overall. No variety in playcalling (playaction passes dominated the second half) and bad decisions by Weeden completely stalled the offense out. As competent as he looked in the first half, he looked horrific in the second half. He started to hang on to the ball too long and the Lions began racking up sacks.

Then came the throw that completely sabotaged this game and perhaps the season. Facing pressure and for some reason unable to dump the ball off to Ogbonnya when he had the chance to, Weeden tried to do a shovel pass to Ogbonnya that never had a chance. Deandre Levy, who had the previous interception, picked this one off as well and the game was effectively sealed.

The Lions padded their lead, Weeden picked up some garbage yards to end the game, and you have your 31-17 loss.

The pass, well, words can't describe how bad it was. As soon as the ball left Weeden's hand, you knew it was bad. You knew it was going to be intercepted. You just couldn't believe a professional football quarterback threw that ball.

So a chance to prove to the rest of the league and country that you were for real was lost primarily by a panicked throw from Weeden, but helped out by a lack of adjustments and a defense that underperformed. They better put this one behind them quickly as they head to Green Bay to play the Packers this Sunday.

Brownie Bits

• If Gordon can remove the occasional drops he suffers from, he definitely can become a top receiver in the NFL. Unfortunately, he's dropped two potential touchdown passes to start each of the last two games. He has to clean that up. One Greg Little is bad enough.
  
• Jordan Cameron hasn't disappeared due to Weeden quarterbacking, but rather defenses keying in on him now. Torch a couple of teams and the rest start to pay attention to you more closely. Defenses are rolling a safety over the top to help the linebackers trying to cover him. A decent running game could help alleviate this problem some.
  
• On a positive note, Buster Skrine has absolutely turn his play around the last three weeks. His coverage has been as good, if not better, than Haden's and when he does get beat, he has tremendous recovery speed to get back to the receiver. He's starting to learn to look for the ball to make a play on it, not just throw himself into the receiver and pray. Chris Owens seems to be playing better as well. Suddenly the secondary doesn't look so scary.
  
• The linebackers had a rough game. Paul Krueger didn't have much of an impact in this game and we've gone over the struggles of Robertson already. Barkevious Mingo had a nice game though and clearly learned from the CJ Spiller run from last week. He held the edge much more consistently, preventing running backs from having that big cutback lane. D'Qwell Jackson was solid, but also had his issues in coverage. Might be time to re-evaluate coverage schemes. Jabaal Sheard coming back next week should help though.
  
• Travis Benjamin doesn't get the ball enough. Sounds like what was said about Josh Cribbs, right? End around went for 45 yards and if not for a spectacular chase-down by Levy, he could've gone the distance. Aside from a long pass attempt from Weeden later on, he was largely absent from the field from that point on though. There are concerns about how frail he is, but I certainly feel like they could utilize him a bit more.
  
• There have to be concerns about Weeden at this point, but there also aren't many options out there either. Rumors have been flying about Tim Tebow, but it's highly unlikely the team would pursue him. Jason Campbell seems to be the forgotten man for some reason on the roster and Rob Chudzinski has already stated Weeden is the guy. Just how long the team can stay with him remains to be seen. Have to believe that another sideways flip-pass would be the end of it for Weeden.
  
• Finally, this week will be interesting to watch. The Browns are playing the Packers, but the receiver situation in Green Bay is dire and Clay Matthews Jr is out with a broken thumb. There's an opportunity to win, but Weeden has to play better and the defense has to get to Aaron Rodgers.