Four Things I Have Learned
Aug 26, 2008
Author: Jason Ice

With 3 pre-season games in the books site contributor Jason Ice took time to analyze some things he has learned. Here are 4 of those things that have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the QB position.

1. This offense doesn’t function without Jamal Lewis. Take out ANY other player from our offense and it will not make as big of a difference as if you take out Lewis. If we lose Edwards, we’d be hurt badly. Lose Winslow and we would be hurt badly. The same goes for Joe Thomas and Eric Steinbach. All of them have a replacement on the roster that can at least hold the position down. It might not be pretty, but it would work. However if you remove Lewis from our offense we immediately lose all credibility in the run game. Our QB would be blitzed all day. Our best receivers would be double covered. We would become a pass only offense, and as we saw from Detroit last season it doesn’t matter how well you pass the ball if you can’t run it.

2. Kellen Winslow does not block. I’m not saying he can’t block, I’m saying he doesn’t. There’s a reason we lined up Jurevicious as an inline blocker occasionally last season while K2 was split out wide…. Winslow doesn’t sustain a block. Watching him in preseason it looked like he had about as much interest in blocking as Romeo Crennel has in weight watchers. Against the Lions, in what was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for the season, Winslow missed blocks, and failed to sustain blocks all day long. Several times the person he was blocking made the tackle in the run game. The effort was truly lacking, and I hope the coaches ride him on it when they look at the game film.

3. The right side of our O line is a weakness. Hopefully it’s a temporary issue until Tucker returns. Having the same 5 players on the line is critical. It’s a bit obvious that the chemistry we had last year on the entire line is missing. I’m not saying Hadnot is not a quality guard, what I’m saying is that he doesn’t have the communication with the line that the rest of the guys have. We struggled running right all preseason, and most of the pass rush issues we had were also on the right. Little things like picking up the wrong blitzer can really make an OC’s day hell.

4. Crennel is handling the preseason like a veteran coach. Many new coaches are so excited to make a splash in the NFL that they gameplan the opponents they face in the preseason. That means they evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the team they’re going to play, and put in packages to oppose the formations they expect to see. In other words, they try to win these games. The worst example ever was Steve Spurrier when he coached the ‘Skins. Not only did he have a gameplan to win each preseason game, but he also kept his starters in until they were assured the win. Too bad he tipped his hand a little too well, and his perfect preseason record quickly turned into a regular season nightmare. Coaches with more experience use these games as a tool to evaluate players. That is what Crennel has done. ‘Vanilla’ is an understatement. Our offense and defensive packages are straight out of the high school playbook. I saw many times where the Lions used intricate blitzes and had no problem whatsoever getting to the QB. The reason is because we probably didn’t have an offensive package in place to handle it. You can bet that in the regular season those blitzes will be picked up. You can also bet that in the regular season our defense will be much more effective as we put the vanilla playbook in a crate until next preseason. While other teams are busy game planning to stop the Browns during the preseason, the Browns are busy installing a potent offense and an attacking defense that we’ll use in the regular season.

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