Browns MUST contain Ravens QB to prevent his scrambling
I see a big day for Lamar if he gets out in open pasture
Left side of OL must hold their blocks & line must keep Calias Campbell from disrupting
Seibert must match Ravens FG kicker Stover
Baker has to establish passing game and not in a one dimensional way. The more receivers the merrier.
A decent ground game without costly fumbles is a must. No turnovers. Ravens are a favourite to win it all again and we have to play near perfect game.
The game is going to be decided by which team controls the LOS the best and the most. jmho
I think I might have high-jacked this topic from Brooksie and I won't do it again and ask for his pardon as I know he liked posting on up-coming games before. Thought just came to me for some reason. Hope he is well and still with the forum.
My hope hangs on the fact that we shut them down in week 4 last year, when we had OV and MG both playing.
And they've really turned over their defense, and have lost some key players.
I watched a video showing how teams were able to slow Jackson down utilizing a double gap exchange front to help overcome their option sweep attack. What teams also started doing was staying disciplined to get to the edge and force Jackson back inside. Fine, you might gain some yards, but you're going to risk taking a thump.
One of the teams where this was best achieved? 49ers, so our DC knows this well. Ravens won a close one but Lamar was held to just 100 yards passing and 100 yards running with two total touchdowns.
I can see the Ravens trying to run him less. No disrespect to Jackson, but he's just not built to take hits. No quarterback is. You don't want to risk an injury to your quarterback early in the season.
I expect us to run a lot of outside stretch and crossing routes. It's already a staple of Stefanski's offense, but it's also smart to try and catch issues between their young safeties and young linebackers. Create confusion and get them moving off the spot.
The game plan will probably be similar for Baltimore. Ultimately, win the run to open the pass and play-action.
I'm nervous about this game. It's such a big one to get a win and then head in to two very winnable games against two of last season's worst teams.
I can see Lamar doing a lot of dumping off passes to his RBs & TEs during his scrambling. jmho
We have one of the best OL/DL combos in the NFL. I don't see us getting beat up by anybody all year and there isn't a game we can't win.
Sure as hell helps that there's no crowd.
@JSS What? You miss Ray Ray having all those muscle convulsions that got the Baltimore Dolts fans equally as spastic? 🤪
Here we go...
One thing not spoken of much, is that the Ravens have yet to announce who their starting Center and RG are. In other words, they are NOT settled on the OL, and that can play havoc on the running game. The Browns have the DL to take advantage of that situation.
Their official depth chart indeed has D.J Fluker starting at right guard, which was reported about a week ago based on their depth struggling. Powers apparently had a poor camp and Tyre Phillips, their third round rookie, apparently was as up and down as Wills.
D.J Fluker has long been pretty meh, gives up a lot of penalties and sacks among some flashes of why he was once such a high draft selection. Apparently he's ready for a big season. The Ravens website wrote some puff regarding cutting his body fat in half and is in the best shape of his career. The piece includes the following from John Harbaugh.
"He's looked excellent," Harbaugh said. "Moving very well. This is a big guy, and it's all muscle. I'm really impressed with him. He's done a great job. His attitude has been excellent. His work ethic, we had heard it was good. I would say it's been better than good. It's been A, A+. Everything's thumbs up with D.J."
Good for him but I'm not exactly buying it. As we've mentioned previously, they love to build up their players and get them confident. I don't know if you can really overhaul yourself at 29 just because you drop ten pounds and trim up. The chances are he's still a below-average, fringe starter.
In other good news, he and Richardson will have spent time playing against each other due to their time in Seattle, so hopefully Sheldon has some knowledge to help him know how to trouble Fluker.
Either way, Yanda is big shoes to fill and they're a worse team for his retirement. Last season he had a 87 PFF grade compared to Fluker's 60. Yanda gave up no penalties and one sack. Fluker had 7 penalties and 6 sacks.
Ooh, good one, DF. Unsettled line facing one of the scarier DLs in the NFL, that's gamechanging stuff.
They lowered the line to 7.5. It's high. We played them as well as anybody last year and we're definitely better now, and have a coach. Talent wise, we're both stacked. It really should be pretty even considering the lack of a crowd.
I'm nervous but just in a "what's gonna happen???" way. Not because I think they're now unbeatable. I never think that of anybody.
QB: BM is the better passer, but LJ has legs
RB: Browns have the best room in the NFL
WR: Browns have one of the best rooms in the NFL
TE: Browns have the better room
OL: Both have 2 positions with turnover, but Browns may actually only have 1 if JC is back
DL: Browns
LB: Ravens
CB: Browns
S: Browns
Not sure whey everyone is so down on us in this game.
Exactly how I see it. I look at the two teams on paper... and I see two really stacked rosters and smart coaches. Ravens are returning the same system so I get that edge in an age of Corona...
But I think overall we have the better players.
The biggest question is Jackson and Mayfield. It's boring to just point at quarterbacks but that's ultimately a large part of winning in the NFL.
If he's still an MVP caliber quarterback, god help us. He put together arguably one of the greatest seasons of all time last year. He was essential in shattering the rushing record, was one of the most effective passers in the league and helped them win 11 straight games - even if teams could stop him in the air, he thrived rushing. He just didn't have bad games. Even in our blowout win, he had three touchdowns and 300 total yards. The only truly bad game he played was against Seattle and they won by three scores.
Does he come crashing back down to earth? How much of his production is a result of the system? Can he be figured out and effectively defended?
On the flip side, who is Mayfield? Will he step forward from a record setting rookie season which once had people wondering if he'd be the guy putting together an MVP-type campaign or will he resume being a turnover prone, predictable and reckless?
This year is undoubtedly a question of how well you can run the ball, but you can't run the ball if you can't create havoc with your air attack. It's a difficult situation with a new system during a pandemic but Mayfield is going to have to learn quick and play well for us to be any chance of doing much good. We haven't made it easy on him but he's in year three. As Case Keenum said earlier in camp - Mayfield is a veteran himself now. This system only works with highly efficient quarterback play and still requires production.
My fear is we get the crap kicked out of us in a 42-10 type of performance. The Ravens resume their unstoppable play and Mayfield once again looks like juice not worth the squeeze.
There is so many questions about our team. As much as we can ask them about Baltimore, they answered in a big way last year. We've not done that yet.
Tretter is back
MJ Stewart is back
Kareem is signed
Mack Wilson not on the 3 week IR yet.
Greedy not on the 3 week IR yet.
Kevin Johnson not on the 3 week IR yet.
CBD hinting pretty heavily about the last 3, saying Mack, Greedy, and K-Jo are very close. Perhaps not Baltimore close, but they aren't IR worthy either.
Fact time: Browns Roster has average age of 25 yrs. and average experience of 4 yrs. If
we can keep most of this personnel around and coach them up right............then our future
is going to be awesome. Also, with the extra picks next draft, resulting in just some more icing on the cake as they say. The most important item is that we have Baker as our future QB for the next 8 to 10 years.
This is going to be a tough game to evaluate since we don't really know where either team is at in terms of preparedness with the limited offseason. The two teams stack up pretty evenly. What should be two high octane offenses and two decent defenses with some holes. This really might come down to which coaching staff is able to get their team better prepared for Sunday and unfortunately that edge goes to Baltimore. Not that I don't feel good about Stefanski and his staff, but it's a new head coach and a new system that he has to implement. That's difficult enough to do with a full offseason and I am worried it could be the difference in this game. Let's hope the Browns can put a lot of points on the board because I think this is going to be a high scoring game.
Pretty good point Tangelo.
That's why we need to steal the Oakland Raiders motto for this game....
Just win, baby!
Also, a strategy many coaches use when playing a high powered offenses is to TAKE THE AIR OUT OF THE BALL. Seems like that's our plan already.
Ah, BDU, you said it out loud: They are indeed stacked rosters. Coaches seem a little similar, not yellers, extremely intelligent. As always, comes down to the QBs.
But as we fear last year's Ravens, recall that we beat last year's Ravens. In Baltimore. With last year's team and coaches.
I've found the predictions of doom tough to swallow, honestly. The only real negative is the weird Corona lead-up with new systems. Totally get that, and it will be at its most vivid over the first two games prior to the mini-bye. Then it's more of an excuse.
But otherwise, ranking us 19th? With a roster I've seen ranked in the top 5 with some regularity? Really feels like a wrist slap for last season.
I'll admit my hope meter is being tampered down by last year's opener. That was a punch in the balls man.
It was not awesome. I had to be a therapist to my son. His soul died.
Scott Petrak ct @ScottPetrak
2m #Browns JC Tretter sounds as if he's going to play Sunday vs. Ravens. Says Week 1 was the goal when he decided to have knee scoped Aug. 13.
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John Harbaugh said #Browns "dominated" in handing #Ravens 40-25 loss at M&T last yr.
Seven of 11 Ravens defensive starters in that game no longer with the team:
DE Chris Wormley
NT Michael Pierce
ILB Kenny Young
ILB Patrick Onwuasor
S Tony Jefferson
S Earl Thomas
CB Brandon Carr
Ocon...that is a very important point...one the talking heads keep glossing over. The Ravens are NOT a team with minimal changes. They have 7 new starters on D, 2 new OL, 2 new TE's, 2 new WR's...that is 13 new starters.
I think our FB Andy Janovich is going to become very valuable to us in backing up rookie LT Jedrick Wills and thus giving Baker time to make reads and avoiding Calais Campbell, who I considered the most dangerous man on their defence. jmho