Cleveland: The Mecca for Dropped Footballs

Old butter-hands, number 17, may be gone to light it up in the Big Apple, but the dropped passes continue to plague the Browns.  As an aside, what is with Braylon’s acrobatics since arriving in New York?  He made another stellar catch on Sunday to keep a late-game drive alive for the Jets on an errant throw by Sanchez.

http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?range=NFL&type=Receiving&rank=232

Click on the above link to see the unofficial statistics on dropped passes so far this season.  Just one team, the Bengals, has had more drops than the Browns.  Robert Royal is our worst offender at five.

This cannot be just a coincidence, and it cannot be all the fault of the receivers.  Or could it?  Royal was known to drop footballs when he played in Buffalo.  Harrison, who has three drops this year, has never been sure-handed in practice.

The best that I can speculate is that the problem rests partly at the feet of Derek Anderson.  I have thought about this a lot, and I do not recall other gunslinger quarterbacks having as much trouble as Anderson with drops committed by so many different receivers.  Watching highlights of dropped passes thrown by DA does confirm that Anderson never seems to take any heat off the football.  He rifles it at mach 10 whether the target is wide open or not;  60 yards downfield or five yards to the side.  Somebody on staff needs to speak to him about that;  it must be obvious to those who study the film.

This just cannot be tolerated.  We have created the perfect storm for a pathetically inept offense.  We have a quarterback who could not hit the broad side of a barn if his career depended on it, coupled with a tendency to throw interceptions and into double or even triple coverage, along with a consistent velocity that never changes and receivers who have hands oiled up for massage-artist tryouts.  What the hell happened to Furrey – is he still alive?  Is Brian Robiskie still on the roster?  Thank goodness for Massaquoi when he comes to play, and Cribbs who always plays.  And amen for Vickers who never gets any credit even though he is one of the few guys on offense who knows what he is doing and does it consistently on every down (and who can catch a missile from Anderson from 6 feet away for a touchdown).

I watch the press conferences of Rob Ryan and I get some vigour.  I watch Daboll and I get a headache.  The guy is like milk toast.  He makes Mangini look like Mike Ditka before the heart attack.

Oh  well.  Like the sucker I am, I will be back this Sunday to root for the home team.  Cheers,

GO BROWNS!

-Clayton

P.S.  How do we stop or at least reduce these drops?  And don’t say bring back Kellen Winslow – that guy has three drops of his own this season.