That Browns game was one of the ugliest I've seen since Mangini's opening year. Shurmur had better start having the team better prepared than that.
The two rookie guards have been getting beaten with regularity all season, the WRs don't ever seem to run hot routes and I rarely see McCoy do anything to account for an obvious blitz before the snap. Teams simply stack 8-9 in the box and on passing downs rush most of them. Of course it doesn't help to have all top 3 RBs out and playing 2 scrubs off the street.
Easily the worst game of the year for the Defense. Allowing the Texans to run the ball at will and never showed the fire I'd seen in other games. They just didn't come to play. Except Joe Haden, he's awesome.
Colt to this point has not done enough to burn teams over the top to punish them for this style of defense. I will say that kid is really tough, I don't know when I've ever seen somebody take that kind of beating game after game and keep fighting like he does. I can't put the offensive problems on him since our #1 WR is a rookie who had only played 1 year at WR in the first place for NC before missing last season and Hillis hasn't done anything but create distractions and miss games.
I guess this is just an evaluation year for Holmgren/Heckert. They could have brought in a good FA guard or WR and did not. Good thing they have all those draft picks because there are a lot of needs. After this game I'll be paying more attention to draft prospects, it looks like my Brownies will have 3 picks in the first 40 or so.
I sure hope Colt shows something so we can concentrate on the other many holes. CB, WR, OL, WLB, FS, RDE, and maybe RB too. I do like the front office and think they are doing it right, they are signing the players they want to keep and keeping plenty of money available for the future. These last 2 drafts have been the best since the return and there is a lot of confidence in Heckert in particular. The Julio Jones trade was great. 3 starters plus their #1 & #4 this year.