Browns: 3 takeaways as team falls to 0-6 in loss to Texans
By Thomas Moore
The Cleveland Browns are 0-6 and a complete mess. Here are three takeaways from another loss, this time to the Houston Texans.
The Cleveland Browns dropped Sunday’s game to the Houston Texans in a game that was never really close.
The loss drops the Browns to 0-6 on the season for the second consecutive year. As bad as things have been for the franchise, the Browns had avoided opening a season with six consecutive losses since the expansion season of 1999.
That is appropriate in a way as the current Browns have intentionally turned themselves into an expansion team in an attempt to finally break the cycle of continual losing and even more continual turnover among the coaching staff and front office.
Even knowing the situation, it is growing increasingly frustrating to watch this team as it flounders its way through the game each weekend. And make no mistake, there has been a lot of floundering with no end in sight.
Here are three takeaways from another frustrating Browns Sunday.
The quarterback situation is as bad as it gets
Head coach Hue Jackson turned to second-year quarterback Kevin Hogan to give the offense a … spark? energy? purpose? … or something like that. Needless to say it did not work that way.
Jackson benched rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer at halftime a week ago after seeing Kizer go eight-of-17 for 87 yards and a quarterback rating of 38.1 That one half of play did not doom Kizer, but it did help set the bar for what is acceptable and what is not for the quarterback position.
Hogan rewarded Jackson’s decision by going seven-of-13 for 51 yards and two interceptions and a quarterback rating of 23.7 in the first half. That set the tone for a day when Hogan would finish 20-of-37 for 140 yards, three interceptions, four sacks and a quarterback rating of 38.1.
All told, the Browns scored just three points and 247 yards of total offense.
Kizer is not very good right now, but Hogan is not any better.
The Browns have been bad at the quarterback position for a long, long time. But watching today’s game it would be hard to blame anyone for believing the current situation is as bad as it has ever been.
The Browns don’t do anything well
The Browns offense struggling to get anything done is not a surprise. They have a rookie and a second-year player as their quarterbacks, a raw group of wide receivers and a starring running back in Isaiah Crowell who is more interested in getting paid than he is in putting up the kind of numbers he needs to get paid.
But the defense was supposed to be a different story.
Injuries have hurt – Sunday’s game was the first of the season when the first-team defense was on the field together — but that shouldn’t excuse the unit for continuing to look like it has no idea what to do.
It was more of the same on Sunday against the Texans as rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson passed for three touchdowns as the Browns were continually out of position or generally just messing up.
The offense is bad, the defense is inconsistent at best, and the special teams is nondescript. If the Browns can’t have at least one unit playing at an acceptable level, things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.
Hue Jackson’s mystery text
During the broadcast, CBS announcers Andrew Catalon and James Lofton casually dropped the tidbit that head coach Hue Jackson sent quarterback Deshaun Watson a text message on draft day telling Watson to “be ready.”
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The implication, of course, is that the Browns were planning to take Watson when they were on the clock at No. 12. The Browns traded that pick to the Texans, of course, and Watson is now busy setting records for touchdown passes by rookies.
This bit of “news” is of course being positioned as another failure by the Browns front office to support Jackson in his quest to fix the Browns quarterback situation. It also contradicts previous reports that the Browns had no intention of drafting Watson after he “snubbed” the Browns by not participating at the Senior Bowl.
It could also be another case of Jackson working his friends in the media to cover his own behind. Let’s not forget the article that Mike Silver, Jackson’s personal mouthpiece in the media, wrote on NFL.com after being with the Browns on draft weekend:
"Garrett, in Jackson’s eyes, was the difference maker the defense desperately needed. And while he saw positive attributes in each of the quarterbacks regarded as the top three draft prospects — Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and Trubisky — Jackson didn’t believe any of them would make nearly as big an impact."
"After the Kansas City Chiefs traded up to 10th and selected Mahomes, the quarterback who Jackson felt had the biggest upside, that left Watson as the highest-ranked QB on Cleveland’s board. Watson, in Jackson’s eyes, was the passer best suited to play right away, but he was not the man he hoped the Browns would select with the 12th pick."
Isn’t that interesting? Jackson was not hoping the Browns would draft Watson, but texted him the day of the draft to say that Watson should “be ready?”
Honestly, it is difficult to keep track of all the “reports” about what the Browns should have done, intended to do, or somehow screwed up by not doing.
At this point, with the Browns having lost 21 of the 22 games with Jackson as head coach, people can write or say anything about the team and people will accept it as undisputed fact.
Next: Browns keep getting worse, fall to 0-6
The only thing that should not be in dispute is what the Browns have to do to finally quiet all the noise that envelopes the team on a weekly basis.
When that will happen, of course, gets harder and harder to see as the losses pile up.