How bad was it for you in the Browns’ 34–10 loss to the host Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in the regular-season opener?
We all have our own stories, but here is mine:
I got so upset in the first half that I just got into my car and drove around and did some errands. I have never done that in my life, that I can assure you. I listened to the game on the radio as I drove. I came to an intersection in a subdivision. It is a four-way stop. But I was so focused on my anger, that I looked about a half-mile ahead and thought I was actually sitting at that intersection, which has a traffic light. So I just sat there and sat there and sat there looking off into the distance until the light turned green. Then, when a car pulled up behind me, I realized that I was at a four-way stop and really needed to get going so that driver could proceed.
I have been driving for over 54 years, and I can assure you that I have never done that before, either. But then again, games like Sunday’s can make you do that — to do that particular stupid thing for the first time in your life.
But were you really surprised by how the game went? I certainly wasn’t, and I don’t think you guys were, either, because you’re great fans and you understand the game better than any other fan base in the NFL. I told you last week that the Browns were going to lose the first two games and quarterback Deshaun Watson was going to struggle mightily, making the offense struggle and the team overall to struggle. That’s exactly what happened. The defense wasn’t much better, but it was suffering because the offense kept putting the defense back onto the field with its inability to run time off the clock
Thus was one of the worst openers in Browns history. If you want to call it the worst, then I probably wouldn’t argue with you.
The Jaguars, who are a little bit above-average, but certainly no juggernaut, toyed with the Browns. It was like the freshmen going up against the varsity. It was horrific. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. It was disappointing to the nth degree. It was disheartening. It was an unmitigated disaster.
Did the Browns hire the wrong head coach in Todd Monken? Would it have been better had Jim Schwartz gotten the job? We’ll never know, but that team wasn’t prepared to play in any way, shape or form. The game was as poorly coached as it was poorly played. Monken was awful, and his assistants were just as bad. They were all asleep at the wheel.
Monken said that Watson gave the Browns the best chance to win.
OK, I hear you, Coach
But to win against who? To beat who? Berea High School? One of those new girls flag football teams? The pee-wees over in Lynhurst?
I don’t know, but the way Watson played certainly didn’t give the Browns any chance at all to defeat the Jaguars. He was pathetic from the get-go, just as we all knew he would be. That early interception told the whole story of what was going to happen the rest of the day. As pointed out by the Jaguars radio broadcasting crew, the offense during the preseason had no flow under him, and he looked shaky at best in the pocket. That was the case again on Sunday.
Was that the worst opening day performance by a Browns quarterback in their history? If it wasn’t, then I shudder to think what was.
Shedeur Sanders, the man Watson beat out for the job, could have played better than Watson did left-handed. And he is right-handed. If Monken thinks that Watson is better than Sanders, then I have some swamp land in Florida, great for development, that I want to sell him. He is delusional.
I like Monken. I really, truly do. I want him to succeed, and think he will. But his picking Watson, and then coaching that team so pitifully on Sunday, really make me question the opinions I have of him.
I don’t want to hear any junk about the fact that it was the first game, or it was too hot down there or any other excuse. The Browns have been practicing since way back in the spring, and that’s the best thing they could come up with?
If it is, then, Coach M, I also question your practice rituals. I question what you were teaching, and I question how much you really know about the game.
Because, even by the lowest possible standards, that charade you carried out was totally, totally, totally unacceptable. And if it doesn’t get better, then I would have no problem at all in making some changes in the coaching staff, maybe even the head coach, if it continues to drag on like this through the middle of the season. And I mean that sincerely. I don’t want to see the Browns change coaches, but I can tell you, that was not NFL-caliber by any measure.
Monken and his assistats are getting paid a whole heckuva lot of money to coach this team. As such, then, if there is any justice in the world, then they will give the money back for what they earned for the week leading up to the game.. You could have just walked out onto the field Sunday afternoon, without having done anything at all in preparation, and played as well — or, as it were, as poorly — as you did against the Jaguars.
Come on, guys, what in the world is going on?
And I bet you that owner Jimmy Haslam is asking the same thing, if not out loud, then in his head.
Steve King
