John is back, and he is a little mad about today’s Browns game. John the floor is yours.
It’s bad enough that the Browns’ secondary couldn’t cover a high school receiving corps, but when your coaching crew wastes 2 valuable timeouts to review a play that was an obvious catch it might be time for Savage to line up some interviews for some new coaching. Harsh? Maybe, but when the game is close it comes down to coaching and the Steelers with rookie head coach Mike Tomlin out-coached the Browns staff to beat Cleveland when it counted.
Kudos to Roethlisberger, Tomlin and the Steelers for playing 60 minutes and pulling off the comeback. Down 21-9 at the half, the Steelers made the defensive adjustments that stymied the Browns’ offense in the second half. Pittsburgh’s D didn’t even give up a first down in the second half until there was less than 2 minutes in the game.
So why do I blame this loss on the Brown’s coaching staff? Fundamentals, plain and simple. The Cleveland defense allows teams to pick apart their secondary consistently week after week. What have they done about this problem? I really don’t know because there has been no obvious adjustments being made. Penalties: while they are not one of the most penalized teams in the league, the penalties always seem to come at the critical times in the game destroying drives and extending the opponents’ drives at just the wrong time. And how does a defense give up a 30 yard touchdown run up the middle to the quarterback? Arm tackles and blown coverage are becoming the norm for the Brown’s late in games. And that’s bad coaching when it comes to fundamentals. Continue reading
Halftime Adjustments 