First of all, having two RB's rush for over 800 yards is not conventional in 2020/2021.

Second, they run a combination of wide zone, misdirection, and power sets.

I wasn't looking for an argument before but I am now.

You're wrong. Their running game is NOT conventional. It's the same running game Stefanski used in Minnesota and it's a lot more complicated than just running the ball into the center's ass.

Exactly this.

Listening to the Browns podcast "Orange and Brown Talk", they were already talking about Mahomes as being the most talented QB that's ever played. One more example for that douche bills fan to show that sports analysts of other teams are already talking about this.

They said the same thing before the Titans and San Fran games too. Still got behind. No worries. They are two games away from another SB. They will bring their “A” game.

And it's not like coming from behind for the win is any different for the Chiefs, anyways.

The Browns are a good football team and I expect them to put up a good fight, but I'm not too concerned. Reminds me of the 2019 Colts Divisional game.

That's why I like the Browns....years of futility has made them honest. If they are perennially successful with multiple play-off appearances...they will become d-bags like every fanbase does.

That said....they were the beneficiaries of 5 turnovers yesterday...had the Steelers gone for the 4th and one, with the momentum...it might have been a one score game.

The Browns also weren't the recipients of any backbreaking penalties at crucial moments...which was surprising. They rival the Lions in getting ****ed over.

They made some plays...but lets be honest....Pittsburgh played about as terrible as they possibly could have. Ebron has the worst hands I think I've ever seen...he's dropped multiple passes in every game I've watched this year.

The Browns just got beat by the Jets two weeks ago... and KC has had two weeks to prepare. Teams that rely heavily on the run dont fare well...Chiefs just put up too many points...quickly. One stalled drive and you're down by 2 scores...

Well, Chubb is the best running back in the NFL, so, that’s not a bad thing. But the Browns are not doing that because Baker is bad.

We lost to the Jets because not 24 hours before the game we had our top 4 receivers placed in Covid close contact protocol. Unfortunately, that loss meant we play at KC, and not Buffalo.

I forgot that...but they still had Chubb/Hunt.

No hate on the Browns...but they would have to get 3+ turnovers to be close at the end.

Their defense isn't talented enough to handle the unscouted plays KC has been squatting on all year...been coasting on auto-pilot for weeks.

No he isn't. Baker Mayfields played with a lead, against a shell of a Pittsburg team with Will Farrell at qb. Truth - Baker Mayfields' is going to get Burnt all crispy in the ends with some of that molasses heavy on the smoke plus a lot of tomato sauce. You saw what Chris Jones did to Tom Brady, Brees, and many other qb's this season. Dude is healthy. He is gonna get at least three sacks.

Absolutely correct. The Chiefs are so unique in their play calls, personnel, and formations. The game will not be particularly close. As a Browns fan, it’s just a part of the learning process. A year ahead of where I thought they would be.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

KC saw a good chunk of the Brown's offense last year when we played the Vikings.

After chatting with others, I expect them to roll out a similar defensive gameplan.

Clay Martin is reffing this game. He just got out of the hospital from Covid. Between the Clowns and this guy I think they’re trying to infect us

Id say the Browns offensive line is much better, receivers much worse, qb much better. The Browns do not throw down field much if at all because we just do not have speed at the receivers spot.

They have two #1 RBs so they have no issue swapping the two out. They don't often run two-back sets, or split one of them out wide, or run wildcat or any weird shit- it's a straight-up, conventional ground game.

They're good enough to just line up and beat you. They don't have to rely on a ton of misdirection and exotic plays (like KC) or the threat of their QB taking off on any play (like BAL). Run left, run right, trap, zone, dive, sweep.. doesn't matter.

I would expect Cleveland to work their RB against our safeties/LB group as the big play threat in the pass game, in the open field they are a problem.

I think this game will be relatively close until late in the 3rd quarter. Then the CLE defense will be a little tired of chasing PMII and the WR group, then PMII puts up 2 quick scores to put it out of reach.

KC needs to do what they tend to do against running teams. Score fast and pressure the other team to keep up forcing them to make decisions they might not normally make. The best way for KC to stop Chubb/Hunt is to force Mayfield to beat them with his arm.

It's not just if the Chiefs score early. If the Chiefs offense is on, they're gonna KEEP scoring. Not just early, but often. Thats what stresses the running games.

You can find yourself down 14-3 quick and another stop against your run game and this sucker could be over.

The old AFL days, what a joy. The Chiefs lining up and the question would be "will the other team score"?. Warpaint running around the stadium.......... but the best line of all was "we couldn't stop the Chiefs, but we damn dear killed their horse" [I]John Madden/I]

I have heard that quote before. LMAO. I am just glad KC is finally good again. All I could do is listen to stories about the glory days but never lived it. Before Mahomes, the Chiefs had won four playoff games in my lifetime and two were the same year with Montana.

They split out the rbs quite a bit. They want to get Chubb, or Hunt matched up with a LB.

The Chiefs have stopped the run much better this season.

Before anyone starts posting stats otherwise; what I am specifically referring to is situationally. Early in the game, or when the score is close. Some of the teams we played would still run late in the game and pile up some stats when our emphasis had shifted to the pass.

We don't rush the passer all that well which has been frustrating, but we're pretty good against the run and we cover well other than LB'ers. This is especially true with Sneed in the slot.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Based on early ticket data - Cleveland Browns fans are absolutely storming Kansas City this weekend <br><br>Will bet dollars to donuts there are more Browns fans there than Chiefs fans</p>&mdash; Patrick Ryan (@PRyanTexas) <a href="https://twitter.com/PRyanTexas/status/1348648224610021379?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

While I'm sure many tickets on the secondary market are going to Browns fans, and I don't deny that many Browns fans will be in attendance, tweets like this don't really make any sense. Most of the tickets were sold a month ago. The only ones changing hands right now are the handful that are being resold.

And the ugly truth is, that the Browns the past 5 weeks havent run the ball particularly well. I expect the Chiefs to do the same thing. And I am okay with that.

looked pretty good to me on Sunday.

As crazy as it sounds, I feel like Reid has been relatively conservative in a lot of situations this year—outside of the Ravens game. I think we are gonna see a full-on onslaught here.

Reid + Mahomes after a bye = 4-0 and no fewer than 31 points scored.

It was okay in the red zone, but really wasnt anything special. A lot of that having to do with Bitonio being out, and Conklin going out in the second quarter. This misconception is that if you take away the run game the Browns are going to fold.

Would you say that considering the Browns rushing attack as conventional is a fairly accurate assessment or completely off the mark?

Its extremely conventional. They deploy more 2 and 3 tight end sets with a fullback than any other team in the league. It is not complicated in the least, its the execution and getting everyone including the receivers to take pride in blocking that makes it successful.

Ok, then you and I are in agreement. I'm not sure how anyone could watch the Browns play and think their ground game is anything but conventional.

And two top tier backs running behind arguably the best O-line in the NFL (when healthy). They have the offense to play keep away from Chiefs, but easier said than done. And our defense.. well that’s a different story.

Playing keep away from the Chiefs isn’t a thing.

The Browns gave up a ton of points to the decent teams they played this season. All three of their division opponents hung 30 on them twice. 8 games in all giving up more than 30 against one of the league's easiest schedules. 5 of 7 games against playoff teams by my count? (Colts and Washington being the exceptions). Ball control with the run didn't seem to work during the regular season. Not against decent teams anyway.

healthy is the key, our O-line has been beat up most of the year, we should be as healthy as we've been for this game in a while. What are you hearing on Conklin and Dunn, you may be able to play with those injuries, but not nearly at 100%?

Also Brown Fans, what is the best message board for Cleveland? There seems to be a plethora to choose from...

To be fair, playing keep-away isn't really a thing at all. I really despise conversations about "time of possession" and "keeping (insert QB) off the field."

The only thing that those accomplish is reducing the sample size. That does help to create more weird situations where a mistake by the better team can sink them, but otherwise it's damn near irrelevant.

The only thing that really matters in a game is points per possession (and, relatedly, turnovers since those turn the figure to 0 for a drive instantly). You can hold the ball all day long, but if you end up settling for field goals while the other team gets TDs, you're still going to lose the game like 28-12 even if you run 10 minutes off of the clock per drive.

I’m really happy for you Browns fans, BTW, and I do think the arrow is pointing way up for the years to come.

The answer to beating the Chiefs is putting up TDs, not FGs. While also playing good to great defense, because odds are they are going to score at least 30.

People talk about ball control a lot but it means nothing if the drives don’t end with 7 points. If the Chiefs and Browns both only have a low amount of let’s say, 8 possessions, and Cleveland really controls the clock... they still have to score more points per drive than Kansas City and that is just really hard to do. It’s why a lot of teams go for 4th downs when they normally wouldn’t against most teams.

Insane that we basically typed the same post simultaneously.

Our O Line vs their D Line is still my biggest concern if we are still beat up.

I used to be on DawgBones, but it never had many people, most of my talking browns related is done on GroupMe, or on twitter.

They had their top 4 WR's out and decide to throw the ball 50 times.

That's poor coaching, at least for that one game. You can't blame the loss on COVID when the team did NOTHING to make up for it. Instead they played to their weakness and got beat.

Quinnen Williams wasn't even playing and they didn't even try to run the ball.

They DO have a ton of misdirection plays. They run the Shanahan/Kubiak WCO. There's not a ton of MOTION but there's absolutely misdirection. They also don't run the same blocking scheme from play to play - sometimes it's inside zone, sometimes it's stretch zone, some times it's power.

You're confusing razzle dazzle with unconventional. There's no dazzle dazzle in what they do, as compared to say the Chiefs, but there's only 3 or 4 teams in the league that mix up the running game the way they do.

It absolutely is unconventional.

If they do something more than any other team in the league or do something no other teams do, that's the DEFINITION of "unconventional".

You guys know that, right?

I thought the Chiefs played relatively well against the run the last part of the season. Same as last season. The LBs are a weakness but they were in 2019 also.

I didn't say Baker was bad....

Conklin went out with a hamstring issue, I’m hoping he’ll be good to go Sunday but never know with hamstrings. Will depend on how serious it is.

Dunn was replacing our pro-bowler Bitonio for COVID and Bitonio will be back for Sunday’s game.

The 247 board for the Browns is pretty active. The “Watercooler” forum is where you would want to go.

The other strange thing about ball control is that usually these teams have outstanding defenses and TOP leaves them fresh in the second half. BAL and TEN want a close game at halftime then they beat a tired defense with their running game. CLE's defense can't reliably make stops. What we saw in NYJ and BAL and I suspect it's what we'll see Sunday is CLE fall behind early. Unlike BAL and TEN, CLE has the offensive firepower to catch up. But their second half defense doesn't make stops whether they're protecting the lead or catching up. And that's gotta be CLE's biggest concerns. Even if they manage to keep it close by halftime, their defense can't close.

There’s a thread over there talking about this thread. lol


https://247sports.com/nfl/cleveland-...ely-159013839/

Zing!:LOL:

The one thing I learned is they're all about fixing the thread title.

I harbor no ill will towards Browns fan. Both of our franchises were in NFL hell for far too long.

My Browns don't have the horses on defense, no doubt about it. We may surprise you guys a little Sunday because we will actually be relatively "healthy" for the first time in weeks. Down the stretch, before a few dinged players and the Covid nightmare, we were playing much better. Having Ward back is huge, our secondary has been patchwork and we would have no hope without him. Hopefully he's not huffing and puffing as badly as Myles (still not quite right) after his Covid experience.

On top of that, we are NOT ball control, and have a hard time faking it. Only one or two games this season where we really imposed our will with the run game. We have two great backs and the numbers are inflated because of a lot of "chunk plays", not "three yards and a cloud of dust". Not that all that really matters, if you can move the ball down the field and score the point is moot. Problem this Sunday (for the Browns) is that we can't ride out a lead even if we have one, not too many 8-10 minute drives in our repertoire... And if Mahommes is back on the field it will just mean the scoreboard keeps ringing like a '70s pinball machine.

I don't really harbor ill will for ANY fan unless they come here and shit all over the place and then pretend they "just wanna talk football".

I think what we're talking about, at least I know I am, is that CLE doesn't seem to put both Chubb and Hunt on the field at the same time. Chubb in the backfield, Hunt split out (or vice versa), which I felt like would be a very dangerous scheme since they acquired Hunt.

But for whatever reason I haven't seen that in the CLE games I've watched.

Well. Maybe Pats fans who have never even been to the northeast. **** those guys.

The bandwagon fans are fun to laugh at but other than that, meh.

It's the ones that invade our board and act like they can tell us how to be fans that bug me.

I couldn't possibly agree more, felt the exact same way when we still had the Bell/CEH duo

hi guys wanna talk some football LMAO

It's not a big part of the scheme. They're really running the Shanahan offense for the most part.

With Cleveland coming in, I don’t even know why there is a thread about those dominant Bills.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/dvOwFmfbzmAsI9v2IV" width="480" height="355" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/dvOwFmfbzmAsI9v2IV">via GIPHY</a></p>

If you REALLY wanna talk football, we're here bud.

If you wanna tell us we're terrible people for thinking the Chiefs will win or any number of other things fans of other teams do, then take a hike.

:thumb:

i wouldn't really call the browns ball control. they have scored 30+ points in 9 games just like the chiefs also 40+ 4 times while the chiefs have 1.

i would guess its going to be a shootout. The browns defense banks on turnovers they don't really stop anyone. they just give the ball to the browns offense so they can score more points.

For me, it's really a matter of hyperbole. If you want to come here and discuss the actual strengths and weaknesses of the Browns vs. the Chiefs, we're capable of acknowledging that "any given Sunday" applies and that the Browns have a very real chance of beating us.

But come in here spouting nonsense about how Mahomes is overrated and how the Chiefs are gonna get stomped (ahem...Bills fans), and you're gonna get a lot of hyperbole thrown right back at you.

We've seen it more over the back half of the season. Usually both in the backfield and Hunt splitting out. So much of our scheme involves two, sometimes even three TEs, they've come a long way in their blocking assignments and execution -- which is probably much more responsible to our success on the ground than trying to make anyone play a guessing game with both backs behind center.

I'd expect a few wrinkles Sunday. We've been pretty vanilla down the stretch... and kept any creativity under wraps against the Steelers. Didn't need to pull any rabbits from the hat against the Steelers once Pig Pen started handing out game balls to the wrong team.

Does this not describe every team in the league?

No, not at all. Running a two or three TE set and/or using a FB is conventional! Lol. The fact that they do that frequently is exactly what makes them conventional.

Standard, regular, ordinary, orthodox, traditional- those are all synonyms for conventional and they all describe the Browns rushing attack.

Vegas doesn’t seem bothered by the Chiefs streak of recent close victories with that -10 point-spread.

No. Look at the eagles for example. I am still scratching my head about why they didn't design ways to get Wentz out of the pocket where he started to become a sitting duck. The way they use baker reminds me a lot of how Shanahan used to use Jake plummer except baker has much more talent. You can roll him left of right and he throws a pretty good ball in either direction. As I've said before, I feel like baker has mostly thrived under Stefanski off that script or improvising on the scramble drill.

No. It actually doesn't.

Definition of conventional

- according with, sanctioned by, or based on convention
- lacking originality or individuality
- ORDINARY, COMMONPLACE

The Cleveland Browns running game is NONE of those things. Their running game is unlike all but 3 or 4 other teams in the league. You see "running game" and think conventional. It isn't. You're wrong.

Chiefs coasting into a comfy 14-2 record will have zero negative ramifications. This team adapts to the big stage. They're that good.

Well at least they started doing it then. I saw (probably plenty of people did) the potential of having Hunt split out with Chubb in the backfield pretty much from Day 1. So it was puzzling to not to see it.

It looks like Shanahan's offense because it largely is. Shanahan's offense was innovative in the mid-90's, had some success, became more accepted and then fell out of favor. There's only a few teams that still run it the way the Browns do, like the 49ers and Vikings.

i think browns fans are just happy to be here with a shot. the last 3 weeks have been terrible. with most of the coaching staff and 15+ players getting covid.

the browns are a year a way from being a real contender. the whole starting secondary has been injured or out most of the year it should be greedy williams, denzel ward, grant delpit and ronnie harrison.

they have been playing backups and practice squad players back there most of the year.

I don't recall if KC had some pull and sway on where he went, but if they did this is Andy saying he should shut the **** up and be grateful, asshole.

I don't think most people realize that most of our recent games have been double-digit leads with 5 minutes left to go. Andy's just been an expert clock milker this year.

real question for the chiefs fans what about the raiders gave the chiefs trouble this year. they dont have a ton of talent but they played the chiefs tough this year.

KC didn't have any say but Dorsey's connection to KC probably had a lot to do with the Hunt signing.

My gut says it's mostly about CLE D not having answers for Mahomes escaping the pocket, Hill's speed, Kelce exploiting their LBs, Watkins doing evil to any CB they have not named Ward, etc.

Their secondary simply doesn't match-up well against KC's offense, and we just watched a bad Big Ben with a noodle arm throw for 500+ and 4 TDs on these guys. In basically just 3 quarters.

If Ben, who's a shadow of his former self, can chuck it for 5 bills and 4 TDs, what's Mahomes going to do? With the fastest WR, best TE in the game? Sammy, Hardman, DRob, and an actual run game? 600? 700? 7 Tds? 8 Tds?

The formula to beat the Chiefs offense:

1. Get consistent pressure on Mahomes with your front four
2. Have a secondary who can hold up in man coverage

The Raiders and Chargers have both built their teams with that in mind.