The Opening Drive 10/18: Frustration is Fair
Two things can be true at the same time and Joe Flacco's night on TNF is another example in a long list of examples.
Thursday Night Football was rough. It was the type of night, filled with Browns punching bag jokes, that I didn’t think writing about it the next day was worth doing.. I figured the loyal fans who follow this website and care deeply could just use a day off entirely on the subject. My opinion being there for you in the morning was not going to help it — no matter what side of the trade you aligned yourself with.
Flacco put on a vintage show of quick throwing, calculated downfield darts, and some of that bravado that has made him a league darling in the final years of his career. It was magical for Bengals fans, and the NFL audience, in the same way we experienced in late 2023. The pass chart was a thing of beauty.
You don’t have to be a football savant to recognize what the Bengals offense has that the Browns offense does not. Explaining how this could happen is quite simple and we don’t need to waste our time on it. But the reaction from the Browns Friday during the media session was the most important thing to notice.
“I think Joe looked like Joe.” Myles Garrett noted. “I mean, I’m happy that he went out there and got a win. He played how we know he can, and so he made plays when they needed him to. Got the ball out quick, put on the money down the field, looked great.”
Kevin Stefanski was passive on the question, which is to be expected from him, but there is not outcome from this now that helps the Browns leadership look any better on the surface. There will be ways to bend this for the draft, making the Steelers record worse, and hurting the Bengals high-pick potential that folks will want to cling to here, but that totally misses the human element of it all.
While the talent doesn’t run as deep in the passing game, the Browns aren’t trotting out players without any talent. The job is to raise the talent through the process and that process has clearly failed. Something is missing.
The players inside the Browns locker room watching Flacco have the spotlight on national television and perform that way. Get that moment. Guys in the trenches need those moments, even when we want them to lose for a hhigher pick, you have to remember what winning feels like more often than the team has experienced over the last 365 days.
Grant Delpit echoed the issue on Thursday. “Obviously it’s frustrating. You do all you can do to stay together as a team and try to get that winning feeling back. I don’t even know what consistent winning feels like anymore. I forgot that feeling.”
“It’s a matter of coaches putting guys in position to make plays. Guys making plays when they’re put in position, doing their job. Don’t expect anything to come easy. That’s not the name of the game in this sport. But we’ll just keep grinding on it.”
We can understand the Browns can perhaps win the “long game” here on paper getting some draft capital increase but the human element of that is totally ignored. Players want to believe in the process, they need to believe in the reason for their efforts, and when Flacco adds to the long list of frustrations, it doesn’t help an already delicate situation. The same sentiment for fans who have grown in frustration. It’s another punch in the stomach for fans who don’t have much left in the tank. Every time these things happen the expectations should be for this type of reaction from the general fanbase. It’s just the bed the organization has made for themselves. It’s only rectified by consistent winning. Something they want to find but continues to elude them.
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I feel bad missing our usual Friday special teams review so I wanted to touch on that from Week 6 before I set you off on a lovely Saturday morning. It was a pretty bland overall performance from both sides, to be honest. Average kick returns, field goal and block efforts, but the punt team left us with another breakdown to cover. The 2nd quarter long return was the product of poor lane distribution and over pursuit — which is the theme of these failures. Luckily, the play was called back for a blindside block. But it doesn’t change the failed process here and the penalized block wasn’t the one that sprung the play open.
The coverage got better as the game wore on and they were more disciplined in pursuit lanes but one failed effort can swing an entire game and that almost happened.
At this point we know the special teams unit is collectively among the league’s worst. Poor attention to detail has been crushing. They’ve had some solid moments of late but the collective slip ups are hindering the total EPA process. It’s frustrating to watch and all it takes is one play to ruin a game.
Overall Special Teams Grade: (B) The big play almost happened, so they get docked, but the rest of the day was clean across the board.
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I think you said it a few years ago, Jake, but I just want the Browns to a regular franchise. Im so sick of the hindsight and LOLBrowns narrative on every social media platform. Ive always loved this team no matter what but every day the jokes get louder and louder