Thursday, October 12, 2017

Hogan's Heros: You See Nnothhink!

Here I am, standing next to Sherriff Coffee with a shotgun.  Here they come, from the saloon, with their torches.

"What's going on?" Hue asks from his cell.

"Never you mind!" the Sherriff yells over his shoulder.  

"Questionable playcalling" is the new "thing".  "People get stirred up", Coffee says aside to me.  "Good folks, most of 'em, but when things go bad, they need somebody to blame.  Get a little crazy."

What a crock!  What lunacy!  A run gets stuffed, it's Hue's fault.  A pitchout gets fumbled--Hue did it.  Interception--Hue made him do it!  Hey, did Hue miss those two field goals too?  What the hell are you people talking about?

Doesn't Hue get credit for vastly improved playcalling starting when Kevin Hogan took over🤔?

I wish I could be like you guys.  You know, wait til a play is over, and say "I wouldn't have called that!", or "That was perfect" depending on the result.

It's really getting into the Twilight Zone when "poor execution" is considered an "excuse" for a given play-call.

All of you need to just go home and sleep it off.  He is innocent until proven guilty.  Somebody mighta accused you of something you didn't do, and that could be you in thar.  You let the law decide what to do with 'em.

Yeah, that's what you are.  A lynch-mob.  

The playcalling was fine.  The guy who wrote the article you're all parroting didn't know what he was talking about.  The players screwed up, period!  It's right there in front of you!  

Simmer down, now, and go home.

While you folks are flopping around throwing temper-tantrums, I'm feeling optimistic.  While you've been caterwalling and hollering about Armageddon and stuff, a real quarterback took over the team, and looked great.  Didn't you see it?  How could you look right at it and not see it?  Amazing!

And how 'bout that "playcalling" in the second half?  Got a lot better for some strange reason, at least the way you pretend to think.  You know what I mean: How many times did you say "I wouldn't have called that" after halftime, huh?

Hmm 🤔 I wonder why....

This Houston writer previewed the upcoming game vs the Browns.  This is a very smart, objective guy, but at this point he needs to work on his analysis.

James Mastrucci says the Browns are not a good offensive unit.  Through five games, you can't argue with their rankings in various categories, but here's the thing:

The Browns vs the Jets...in their most RECENT game...dominated the Jets defense statistically in both halves, with both quarterbacks.  They forked the ball over twice inside the five yard line, cancelling 6-14 woulda-coulda-shoulda points AND missed two field goals.

To be accurate, Jim should have said the Browns offense has sucked.  He could even accurately say that they choke a lot.

Jim cites a bunch of statistics and rankings through five games, and that's superficial and lazy.  I get lazy myself about other teams, so I'm not throwing rocks from my glass balcony.

However,  I would at least have separated Kevin Hogan from Kizer, and used stats the offense racked up with Hogan under center...and yeah, at least weighed the box-scores from the most recent game more heavily too.

James also obviously paraphrases the bizarre bashing of Hue Jackson's playcalling, and his research here clearly consisted of skimming several articles by yokels.

"The wrong plays at the wrong time, every time" is a clever sentence, but this just sounds to me like "No we should skin him afore we haing him -pant-pant-" to me.  Jimbo, you're too smart for this kinda crap.  You should be standin up here with me and the Sherriff!

However, as I said, this guy is at least objective.  He expects his Texans to win, but wouldn't be shocked by an upset now that his defensive line has been...well, kinda cut in half.

He sees Myles Garrett coming after Watson, too.

That's going to be fun!  James admits that the Texans' offensive line is less than elite.  I have no idea how this will turn out, because Watson is a great athlete who can improvise when stuff breaks down around him, and O'Brien lets him run around some too...

Everybody kind of forgets about Ogbah, Coley, et al because of Garrett, but O'Brien won't, I don't think.  I don't expect Watson to just stand there like a Manning.

Dan Labbe wrote a really good piece on how Garrett was used vs the Jets, complete with stills and tapes.  He stunted several times, and might have even lined up between the left tackle and right guard more than he did outside.

In one shot, he was one of only two defensive linemen!  Gregg Williams does that stuff.

As Labbe pointed out, on several of those plays, Garrett didn't make the tackle, or even get a pressure, but sucked in an extra blocker to clear the way for assorted teammates.

Uh...some of these plays coughed up yardage, ergo Gregg Williams should get somebody else to call plays for him, right?

I want to point Garrett's second sack out to you:  He was stonewalled by a double-team, but Josh McCown was flushed by (I guess) Ogbah, and ran by him.  Myles turned around and ran him down in two steps.

Check that one out!  Garrett turns his back to those two blockers, leaning against their hands, before doing his zero-to-fast enough thing and getting 100% of McCown.  That is RARE.  I'm not sure even Von Miller could do that, because those two blockers would probably have knocked him off-balance as he tried to turn around.

The first sack was impressive too, because I had to watch it like seven times before I realized how the hell he got inside...I mean it looked like...damn he's just so quick and fast!!!

In the fullness of time, we'll see how Mitch Trubisky turns out, and we can compare him to Myles Garrett.

By the way, analysis says this:  THE most important positions in professional football are quarterback, (passrushing) defensive end, and left tackle, in that order.  I'll dig back into that more and get back to you with more specs on that.

Jamie Collins is back now too, and I'm kinda stunned that I seem to be the only Browns fan who has noticed this.  I guess once he became a Brown, the "best player" in the Patriots defense forgot how to play football or something.

Or maybe he and Burgess are interchangeable?  This is just sad.

Well, DeShaun Watson will notice Jamie Collins!

Buzzkill Bill Polian on NFL Radio addressed the Browns two or three weeks ago.  This is a Hall of Fame General Manager, but he sounds more like a cranky old man.  

He's always hated this new front office, and can't refer to it without saying "moneyball".  He was prejudiced against it the day Jimmy Haslam announced it, and hasn't been objective about it since.

He says "there's a reason" why Belichick "got rid of" Jamie Collins.  That's amazing!  Bill had three key players he needed to re-sign or lose, and he could only afford two of them!  He had a young upcoming linebacker about ready to "emerge" behind Collins, Collins probably did freelance too much, and he opted for the two other players, and got what he could (while he could) for Collins!  It's called a "buyer's market", Bill!

Bill liked Kizer a lot until the Browns drafted him.  Not anymore.

He says Njoku can't block and never will block, which contradicts all but a couple scouting reports I've seen on him.

According to Buzzkill Bill, Joe Thomas has "noticeably" declined, the offensive line is...a little above average, the wide receivers all suck (Corey Coleman is a big disappointment already wow)...

Garrett (he audibly struggles with this...you can hear it in his voice)...is a great prospect and...possible...future Pro Bowler...eventually but oh! Oh! Injury-prone (yeah, that's the ticket!)

At least "Get off my lawn!" backed off from his "lack of talent" earlier statement and said "lack of proven veteran" talent at the skill positions instead.

I swear, this guy is struggling to bash the Browns as much as he can while maintaining as much credibility as he can!

Naturally, he calls Hue Jackson a great Head Coach, no matter what.  It's all the Front Office's fault, inflicting all these rookies on him and getting rid of great players like Joe Haden and stuff.

Sashi and company are just SO much dumber than he was!

It's actually pitiful.  Polian drafted Peyton Manning (and Jim Kelly before him) because they were right there in front of him.  When Sashi and company traded down from a quarterback he himself said could be "above average eventually", he had his smoking gun.

In my life, I have dealt with a lot of extremely intelligent people who were also neurotic and irrational.  Many stalkers are Mensa candidates.  Intelligence has little to do with objectivity, or even rationality.  Bill Polian is a "moneyball"-stalker.  I honestly think he feels threatened.

Anyway, as I've said before, the value of a franchise quarterback is extremely high, but NOT INFINITE.  In four (no FIVE) years, we can try to figure out who did best.  It's not going to be as easy as you think it is, because those draft picks total up to over one third of a freaking NFL roster!

Ok, so the Kizer-led Browns are 0-5 and Hogan's Heros are walking into murderer's row.  It looks gloomy.

Personally, I look forward to seeing if Kevin Hogan continues to make this offense look pretty damn good.  Unlike everybody else, I remember nodding my head when Sashi and Jimmy said this would take some time.

THIS JUST IN: Kenny Britt is back!  We got our vedderrunn back!  Watch this: He'll start!  Between him and the power/man blocking scheme...killll meeee....




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