FanPost

Closing the Book on the Cleveland Game

I finished (late) reviewing the game against Cleveland. I took an immense amount of notes and accidentally deleted them all. I was just going to post them for you to read through, but this may be better... I am just going to post several key takeaways from that game in no particular order. Feel free to take issue with all or none of these, but they were pretty accurate observations.

- Barrett Ruud had an excellent game. The stat-line will show that he had a descent amount of tackles and a forced fumble...but he filled holes nicely all day long. That fumble was a result of him plugging a hole and putting his facemask on the ball. Textbook. He had nice lateral movement and was average in the pass game.

-Carnell Williams is a stud at picking up blitzes. Because Cleveland runs a 3-4, you see a variety of blitz packages. Williams did his homework was able to see where blitzes were coming from and at the very least get a sizeable chip on the rusher.

- Tanard Jackson was terrible against the pass, but excellent in run support. He made countless of tackles at the LOS or behind the LOS. He did, however, take terrible angles on receivers and went for the ball before the tackle twice.

- EJ Biggers was awful against the run but incredibly solid against the pass. He had a tremendous 4th quarter which sealed a game for him in which he was able to stick to receivers and disrupt routes. Biggers couldn't get off a block or make a tackle when called to. He was one of two players who essentially gave up the Peyton Hillis TD.

- Kyle Moore was bad. Very little to no penetration, useless against the run.

- Josh Freeman has great vision. When it comes to running the ball.

- Josh Freeman lacks patience. He went to his first option countless amount of times and stared down receivers.

- Jeremy Trueblood made a couple nice plays, but the bad ones he made negated it all. When will he be upgraded?

- Davin Joesph was no better. That side of the line was embarassing. As good as Joesph is, he didn't show it this game. Miscommunicated several times with Trueblood. Hard to tell who it was on, but got Freeman crushed on a few plays.

-Jeff Faine. I'm a big Faine fan. Always have been. I got to watch him play against my high-school Varsity team when I was a freshman. He's very good at directing the line. He's not good at blocking oversized DT's. BucWild talks about our line being grossly overrated. Faine is a key example of that. The perception is that he is an elite C. Truth is, he's average.

- Graham has a terrible day statistically. That fumble was inexcusable. However on all of his runs, he stood no chance. I was constantly notating that he was hit behind the LOS and struggled not to lose yards. It happened to Williams a lot as well so it's hard to tell if it was the playcalling or just a lack of repitions that kept him from looking productive. He did a good job of lead blocking and picking up blitzes as well.

- Mike Williams is a stud.

- Connor Barth is good.

- The punter, while his yardage is nothing to write home about, was key to keeping Cribbs quiet. Plenty of air underneath the ball.

- The coverage teams are still the best in the league. I am confident that you could put 12 men on the other side of the ball and we'd still be good. Bisaccia should be lauded and highly sought after in this league. Best in the NFL at his job. Return teams are consistently good and coverage teams are spectacular. This is a result of coaching, as most special teams have equal talent.

- Stroughter got open a few times, but Freeman struggled to find him.

- Kellen Winslow can't block. At all. Awful display of blocking the entire game. I guess that's not how he makes his millions though. That's what Gilmore is for.

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