I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, as we did. I stuffed my face with mom's famous vegan turducken, Alex got into a huge political argument with Marxist Uncle Leopold, and Cousin Ahtyba reprised last year's puppet show about the first Thanksgiving (now with laser effects!).

Anyway, this will be another short "Born and Raised," but then, it was a game we all want to forget as quickly as possible. Take it away, hermano:

Idiot of the Week

Alex says: My biggest problem with Romeo Crennel this week—besides the fact that on every single play, it seemed that every Texans receiver was open—is his decision to bench Brady Quinn and reinsert Derek Anderson as the starting quarterback. If it had been a matter of Quinn's finger injury, that'd preclude all of my complaints and I'd have to find something else to complain about. But no, during the post-game press conference, Crennel came out and said it, he thought playing Anderson would give the team their best chance at winning.

If that's true, and Crennel really did believe Anderson would give the Browns a spark, he knows less about football than I'd ever imagined. He may know even less about football than me. To think that changing quarterbacks in the middle of a game can inspire a team to completely remake itself is to get all of your football knowledge from SportsCenter and Remember the Titans. There is so much more complexity and nuance to why teams win; it's simply astonishing to hear supposedly one of the thirty two best football coaches in the entire world say that he thinks going back to Derek Anderson would lead to victory.

(And if it's not true, then I can't help but question Crennel's absolute lack of judgment. Why lie like that? Just come out and say Quinn was injured, for God's sake! It would save you a heap of trouble.)

It's obvious that Crennel knows his job is on the line and that he's doing everything in his power to keep from losing it. Crennel has a bunch of levers in front of him and he's started pulling wildly on all of them to see which combination works best. This will only become more exaggerated as the season mercifully draws to a close. Unfortunately, Crennel doesn't seem to see the actual, significant levers right in front of his face. He's going to town on the ones that an unsophisticated football mind would think matter. And he's ignoring the ones that could actually matter—hence another week of both disgusting offensive and defensive performances. That's not change. That's more of the same!

How else could someone think that going back to Derek Anderson was the solution? The city of Cleveland had very recently seen Anderson quarterback the 2008 Browns for eight games and the verdict was unanimous: he stunk. That's why it was so great (and so un-Crennel-like) when Anderson was replaced by Quinn in the middle of the season. So when Quinn is having a bad week and the offensive is spinning its wheels, you mix up some other aspect of the offense. Maybe it's not a personnel issue. Maybe you try attack more vertically. Maybe you throw to your running backs more often (an actual team strength). But going back to the very same guy who put your job in jeopardy in the first place... that's not change. That's more of the same!

Now that Quinn is done for the year with a broken finger and the Browns are stuck with Anderson as their starter, Crennel has no choice but to find some other levers to mess with. It's still possible he'll find the right combinations and the team will start clicking. But even if that happens, it's clear beyond a shadow of doubt now that Crennel isn't just overly cautious when it comes to coaching, he's just not good. In fact, I'd say he's pretty bad, and incompetent to boot.

Other, and Lesser, Idiot of the Week

Alex says: Normally I would let my Crennel rant stand alone for rhetorical power, but I can't forgive Rich Gannon for making the most unforgivable (and in this case, stupidest) sin of statistics: confusing correlation for causation. CBS threw up a graphic early in the game that any reasonable person should immediately have recognized as ridiculous. It showed that, since 2006, Jamal Lewis's team was 20-1, or something like that, when he had twenty or more carries in a game. I had always assumed that these kinds of stats were whipped up by someone in the graphics department who doesn't actually know anything about football, so thegraphic's idiocy was forgivable. But, later in the game, when Gannon suggested that the Browns just needed to give Lewis the ball more often to win, I was hoping Kevin Harlan would slam Gannon's head into the desk for saying something so idiotic. There is no such thing a "magic number" of carries for a running back. I shouldn't even have to explain why; in fact, I refuse to do so on principle.

Corey adds: You can't explain it; it's a magic number! You hit that 20th carry, and maaaagiiiic occurs! (But seriously, read that article Alex links to. You won't regret it.)

Something Else of the Week

Corey says: The Browns have had a serious problem with receiver depth this year, as we all know, but this week, I felt like I was taking crazy pills (especially in the secondhalf) as they forced pass after pass in to Braylon Edwards, not even looking for any other open guys. Quinn's first interception, for example, was just a horrible decision; Braylon wasn't even close to being open, whereas other men (Heiden and/or Harrison, maybe?) seemed to be wide open. Between Quinn and Anderson, Edwards was targeted 16 times, accounting for exactly half the Browns' pass attempts. If Edwards were having much success, that would be okay, but he only caught 5 of those 16 passes, and was the target on all three intercepted passes.

Not to suggest that Quinn and Anderson are blameless in this, but to me, it's another example of poor coaching, weather the blame rests with Crennel or Rob Chudzinski. Sure, Donte' Stallworth, Syndric Steptoe and co. have been awful as receivers this year, but so has Edwards. Receivers are hardly as interchangeable as running backs, but in a good system, they are somewhat interchangeable. Stallworth may stink, but if he's wide open, pass to him. Anyway, it's not like the Browns don't have some alternatives. I pointed out in last week's Browns preview that while the Browns are the worst in the league when passing to their wide receivers, they're the best in the league when passing to their running backs, and as if that weren't enough, Houston is also the worst in the league at defending passes to running backs. Sure enough, on many of the cringe-worthy Edwards incompletions, Jerome Harrison or Jamal Lewis was open in the flat. All told, the Browns only targeted their running backs on 4 passing plays.

On balance, I feel the Browns' coaching problems are much more urgent when it comes to the defense than the offense. During the Chudzinski era, the offense has been more good than bad (and way better than previous Browns offenses). But this was one game in which the offensive coaching stood out as especially bad, and that's with the defense playing about as poorly as they've played all year. It's definitely past time to get rid of Crennel. But I don't think it's time to start calling for Chudzinski's head. Yet.

This Week on Josh's Cribbs

Josh and teammate Mike Adams partake in the predictable, if noble, pro athlete tradition: showing up at less fortunate people's houses to deliver Thanksgiving dinners. Adams has the screen presence of a jelly doughnut, but still, I'm intrigued by his pitch for the next reality show on Fox Sports Ohio: The Adams Show (Josh promptly suggests The Adams Family; Mike gets a little too excited over that idea, realizing that would be a better title, but oh snap, it would have to spelled with only one 'd' instead of two...). Anyway, this might have been the most boring Josh's Cribbs of the season; I'm all for charity, but there just wasn't much going on in this one.

Next week:

The Browns welcome the Indianapolis Colts to town for the 2007 AFC Pro Bowl Offense Ten-Month Reunion party, followed by a quick football contest. We'll recap all the action (eventually), on the next "Born and Raised"—don't miss it!

Oh, hello, didn't see you there. I was just previewing this Browns game. Care to join me?

En tant que toujours, the stats in this preview are taken from Football Outsiders; click here to read about how DVOA works.

Browns offense vs. Texans defense:

           CLE offense  HOU defense
total DVOA    -0.5%        26.9%
passing       -2.3%        28.6%
rushing        1.4%        25.4%

The Browns offense took another positive step last week, and now ranks 22nd (22nd passing, 18th running). So far, Brady Quinn's passes (4.1% DVOA) have been more efficient than Derek Anderson's were (-7.0%). Meanwhile, not a single Browns WR or TE has a receiving DVOA above average, whereas not a single Browns RB has a receiving DVOA below average. Check out this pass-catchin' posse and tell me if you detect a pattern:

player    pos  passes  rec. DVOA
Harrison   RB    11      59.2%
Lewis      RB    20      41.5%
Vickers    FB     8      32.3%
Wright     RB    14       8.8%
Heiden     TE    27      -4.1%
Winslow    TE    73      -5.9%
Edwards    WR    86     -19.3%
Cribbs     WR     7     -21.4%
Stallworth WR    24     -40.7%
Steptoe    WR    27     -42.7%

The Houston defense, it should be pointed out, sucks. They rank 30th overall; 27th against the pass and 32nd against the run. Yes, they're the worst run defense in football, and they're also very consistent in their suckiness (they rank 2nd in defensive variance, with 2.2%) but the best news—and the reason I showed you that table of individual Browns receiving DVOAs—is that Houston ranks dead last in defending passes to RBs (47.0%). Now I say the Browns better try to exploit this, dagnabbit. Otherwise, why am I even writing these previews? Advantage: Browns

Texans offense vs. Browns defense:

           HOU offense  CLE defense
total DVOA     8.9%        13.1%
passing       11.1%        19.6%
rushing        6.2%         7.6%

A mixed performance in Buffalo has the Browns defense ranked 24th in DVOA, up one spot from last week. They rank 22nd against the pass and 23rd against the run. And they won't have it so easy this week, as the Texans rank 12th in offensive DVOA; 15th passing and 8th rushing. Quarterback Matt Schaub is very efficient, holding the 4th-highest completion percentage (68.8%) among qualified QBs. A large portion of his passes are going to go to WR Andre Johnson, who has been targeted 107 times, the 2nd-most of any player in the NFL. But Johnson, with his receiving DVOA of 18.1% (to rank 13th among qualified WRs) isn't even the most efficient pass catcher on the team. WR Ken Walter (21.6%, targeted 61 times) and TE Owen Daniels (20.4%, targeted 67 times) are equally dangerous. Also, here's an interesting fact from Football Outsiders' weekly Numbers Crunching column:

Houston throws up the middle 33 percent of the time, more often than any other team. Cleveland's defense faces passes up the middle 31 percent of the time, more often than any other defense in the AFC.

That's the kind of thing the Browns defensive game planners are supposed to know (from studying game film, if not from looking at numbers—that would be too much to ask). But we'll see. Advantage: Texans

Special teams matchups:

                        Browns    Texans
total DVOA                6.2%      3.9%
FG kicking                7.8       4.3
CLE kickoff vs. HOU KR   -3.3      -6.9
CLE KR vs. HOU kickoff   10.1       6.6
CLE punt vs. HOU PR       6.4      11.3
CLE PR vs. HOU punt       2.0      -1.2

The Browns took a big hit in this week's special teams rankings. They now rank just 3rd in overall special teams DVOA, and their legendary kick return team now ranks just 4th. Meanwhile, the kickoff team took the biggest plunge; they now rank just 24th. The field goal kicking of Le Fils d'Awesome continues to impress; the Browns have risen to 2nd in that category. Also, the punt team has risen to 4th. Meanwhile, the Texans are quite solid on special teams (5th overall), all thanks to a 2nd-ranked punt return team and a tied-for-3rd kickoff team; of course, those two units will have to face a pair of the Browns' strongest units. Advantage: Browns

The Browns edge the Texans in overall team DVOA (-7.4% to -14.1%) and in overall weighted DVOA (-4.5% to -12.5%). That plus the home field advantage means the Browns should rightly be expected to prevail in this one. Enjoy, everybody!

That was an ugly game. It's late, Corey's next preview will be dropping soon, so let's just get to it, right? Great!

Play of the Week

Alex says: How about Brady Quinn's interception incompletion late in the fourth quarter? Thankfully replays made clear that the nose of the ball touched the ground, because otherwise I would've thrown my TV out the window. Challenging that call may have been Romeo Crennel's most inspired coaching moment of the week. That the Browns then went on to do absolutely nothing on that drive and and punted only 1:31 later and then the Bills immediately and easily drove for a touchdown shouldn't cast a shadow on that wondrous challenge.

Corey says: Mercifully, there's a handful of plays that could qualify for this honor, but predictably, I'm going with the obvious one: Jerome Harrison's 72-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. Normally on a long running play, I would endeavor to assign most of the credit to the various blockers who cleared the ball carrier's path, but this run only really required two blocks (from Steve Heiden and Charles Ali), and both of those were at the line of scrimmage, and anyway, I'm not even positive that both of them were necessary for Harrison to reach the open field. Rather, what made the long run possible was the fact that much of the Buffalo defense was focused on the other side of the field, either because of misdirection or just bad planning on Buffalo's part. Either way, it was an awesome play, and maybe it will convince the Browns coaches to give Harrison a slightly larger role in the future.

Player of the Week

Alex says: We all knew he'd be Rubin of the Week when he snatched up a fumble in the second half, but who'd have thought Ahtyba Rubin would be Player of the Week, too? I mean Obscure Brown of the Week, sure, but just happening to be in the right place at the right time during a mildly important play... that's not Player of the Week material. Except this week! Save one badly underused running back (who Corey covers), there wasn't much individual accomplishment this week. Benefitting from others' mistakes, that's how we Rubins do it!

Corey says: Several Browns had good games, albeit with limited opportunities. I would go with Phil Dawson, whose field goal kicking continues to dominate beyond our wildest predictions, except that a few of his kickoffs were embarrassingly short, wind or no wind. So I'm going with Jerome Harrison, even though he only got four touches, because three of those touches resulted in highly successful outcomes: a 9-yard run, a 72-yard run, and a 21-yard catch. All in all, a highly efficient performance for Harrison. While he doesn't have enough carries this year to qualify for the main RB rankings, Harrison's rushing DVOA of 91.3% is now the highest of any RB in football, and his receiving DVOA of 59.2% is pretty awesome, too.

Ryan Pontbriand Honorary Special Teams Moment of the Week

Alex says: Right before Rian Lindell's potentially game-winning field goal attempt, I'm sure most Browns fans were feeling pretty pessimistic—or at the very least anxious. But not me, because I knew that the Browns have excellent field goal defense. And I'm not just talking about just blocking them—as Shaun Rogers did against Jacksonville—but also creating an atmosphere of missing. Which is precisely what they did on Sunday, and of course Lindell missed. I only have the number updated through this week's game, but the Browns now rank third in special teams DVOA. If you include things like "opponent field goal efficiency, opponent kickoff length, and opponent punt length" then they would rank first!

Corey says: All things considered, this was probably the worst special teams performance the Browns have had all season, especially for the kickoff and kickoff return units, but even so, the Browns didn't the lose the overall special teams battle by much, thanks to Phil Dawson's amazing field goal kicking and the yeoman's work done by the punt team. My Special Teams Moment of the Week is the Browns' second punt of the game, a 65-yarder (!) that Mike Adams gracefully downed at the Bills' 1-yard line (!). If you had to pick the most perfect punt of Dave Zastudil's career (independent of context, of course), you'd be hard-pressed to do much better than that.

Damion Cook Memorial Obscure Brown of the Week

Alex says: As is my wont, I'm going to fudge my Obscure Brown this week. Donte, excuse me, Donte' (seriously, what the hell?) Stallworth has made such a miniscule impact this season as to be relegated to Obscure Browndom. Symbolically, at least. He played absolutely Stallworthian this week: losing four yards on an end around and catching none of the three passes thrown his way. And like most great OBs, he's got an extensive official website.

Corey says: This week, Romeo Crennel accomplished the impossible: making me, the Obscure Browns guru, think to myself, "Who?" while perusing the starting lineups. That's right, Obscure Brown Travis Daniels was listed as the starter at cornerback in place of the recently-demoted Brandon McDonald. It's rare that a real, live Obscure Brown gets the start at an offensive or defensive position, let alone a player that I only vaguely recall having heard of before, and who had to have played pretty well, since his name hardly came up during the game itself. Congrats, Romeo!

Idiot of the Week

Alex says: It's hard to believe that there are Browns fans who read this blog yet haven't heard about this yet. Not to pile on, but seriously, fuck the heck?

Something Else of the Week

Corey says: Like most of you (I suspect), I was thrilled to watch the Browns grab three interceptions early in the first quarter, but later dismayed to watch the same defense surrender long runs (and runs after the catch) to Marshawn Lynch and co., due to what looked like an inability to execute basic tackling. With those three early interceptions, the Browns basically took a large chunk of the Bills' playbook off the table (so to speak), as Trent Edwards showed he was going to limit himself to short, safe passes. (I was reminded of last year's Browns-Bills game, when the blizzard conditions caused Buffalo to impose essentially the same restriction.) This should have been a much greater advantage for the Browns defense than it turned out to be, and it makes the second-half tackling woes all the more frustrating.

That said, I'm not [as] convinced [as most Browns fans] that "lack of fundamentals," e.g. proper tackling, is the real root of the Browns' problems on defense. The Browns defense has been ineffective since the start of the Crennel era, and it hasn't always been possible for us to point to missed tackles as the culprit. A truly great NFL defense makes those tackles in the open field when such is required, sure, but more importantly, a great defense doesn't allow its opponent to get the ball in the open field in the first place. And I think this has more to do with game planning than with personnel. At the least, it has a lot to do with designing a gameplan (or scheme) that fits the personnel on hand. Ultimately, I think Romeo Crennel and his defensive coordinators have failed to design a scheme that works, and they've failed to show signs of adaptability. When the Bills came out with their watered-down, no-interceptions offense, the Browns defense should have adapted better, taking away all of those short dump-offs to Marshawn Lynch; forget about tackling him once he gets the ball in the open field.

Numb3r of the Week

Alex says: 30.8%, or—surprisingly enough—the Bills' success percentage on passes to a running back. A success, you should remember, is 45% of needed yards on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third and fourth downs. My impression immediately following the game, and all the way until I compiled the numbers, is that the Browns defense was absolutely butchered by Marshawn Lynch and Fred Jackson in the passing game. Turns out Jackson was targeted just once, on a play that was nullified by penalty, and that only four of the thirteen passes to Lynch were successful in the end. Shows what I know. Still though, there were some near misses, like three yards on 2nd-and-6, and the successes were really brutal, like first downs on 3rd-and-10. I definitely don't want to compliment the defense, but we may be able to step away from the brink a bit.

This Week on Josh's Cribbs

Corey says: This week, Josh visits the Lake Erie Monsters' training facility in Strongsville, where he's given a crash course in all things hockey. Josh is amazed to learn that minor league hockey players have to prepare their own equipment, which apparently includes doing something to their sticks requiring a saw and a blow torch. Later, Josh is "privileged" to hitch a ride on a Zamboni machine. Later still, they let Josh suit up in his own #16 Monsters jersey (plus about 145 pounds of pads) and head out onto the ice. Josh doesn't don skates, however; he walks out on the ice in his regular footwear (supposedly to avoid an ankle injury). The Monsters players good-naturedly rib Josh for his absolutely pathetic stick skills. Then Josh puts on a few goalie pads and casually deflects a couple of slow-moving pucks. Finally, in an attempt to humiliate Josh even further, the Monsters players (or possibly the Josh's Cribbs producers) grab a young figure skater who happens to be practicing at the other end of the rink, and tell her to attempt a few shots on Cribbs' goal. Sufficed to say, neither the figure skater nor the Pro Bowl kick returner comes out looking especially good.

Next week:

The Houston Texans return to frozen Cleveland, Ohio as the Browns once again feast on the one team in the N.F.L. they've been able to consistently beat since 1999. (Besides Cincinnati, but they're not technically in the N.F.L.) We'll be here, copying and pasting bits from our Week 12, 2007 post in the next zany edition of Born and Raised on the Cleveland Browns!

Are you ready for some pancakes? Well too bad; it's another Browns preview. As always, the stats in this preview are borrowed from Football Outsiders; click here to learn how DVOA works.

Browns offense vs. Bills defense:

           CLE offense  BUF defense
total DVOA    -3.5%         9.3%
passing       -5.3%        12.0%
rushing       -1.6%         6.5%

The Browns enter this game ranked 23rd in offensive DVOA. They're 23rd with the pass and 18th with the run. As we've seen, the Browns have their share of weaknesses on offense, but it's worth pointing out that the offensive line has been quietly solid, especially in pass protection, as they now rank 5th in Adjusted Sack Rate, having allowed a sack on only 3.7% of pass plays. That's obviously good news for Brady Quinn, who should have no trouble staying upright this week, as Buffalo's defense ranks 29th in Adjusted Sack Rate (4.3%).

Speaking of the Buffalo defense, they rank 20th in DVOA (19th vs. the pass; 22nd vs. the run). And while they also rank 20th in weighted DVOA (11.2%), they actually have the largest discrepancy between their actual and weighted DVOA. In other words, their defense has been getting worse lately. If the Bills do have a defensive strength, it's probably the run coverage of their D-line. They rank 8th in Adjusted Line Yards (3.75), and are the 3rd-best team at stuffing runs for a loss or no gain (doing so 30% of the time). The flip side of that is, in order to rank just 22nd in run defense DVOA, they must struggle to contain the runs that don't get stuffed. Slight advantage: Browns

Bills offense vs. Browns defense:

           BUF offense  CLE defense
total DVOA    -2.7%        16.6%
passing        2.8%        26.5%
rushing       -8.9%         7.7%

The Browns have fallen to 25th in defensive DVOA. They rank 22nd against the pass and 23rd against the run. The pass defense, once a strength, has really gotten worse in the last few weeks. While the Browns still rank #1 at defending passes to RBs (-32.3%), it's worth noting that teams have thrown to their RBs less against the Browns (4.4 times per game) than against any other defense in the NFL. And the Browns struggle to contain most other types of receivers, especially #1 WRs (14.6%, to rank 26th), #2 WRs (41.2%, 28th), and TEs (16.5%, 22nd).

Meanwhile, the Bills offense is nothing special, either. They rank 22nd in regular DVOA (18th with the pass, 25th with the run), and 24th in weighted DVOA (-3.5%). QB Trent Edwards is a high-percentage passer (completing 66.9% of passes, to rank 7th among qualified QBs), but ranks just 19th in DYAR (239), suggesting he may not be connecting for many long passes. It's also possible to knock him down; Buffalo ranks just 25th in Adjusted Sack Rate (7.9%). Other than that, the Bills offense, while unspectacular, doesn't have many glaring weaknesses. Advantage: Bills

Special teams matchups:

                        Browns     Bills
total DVOA                8.8%      4.4%
FG kicking                4.0       0.4
CLE kickoff vs. BUF KR    7.1       2.6
CLE KR vs. BUF kickoff   10.8       1.6
CLE punt vs. BUF PR       5.4       7.4
CLE PR vs. BUF punt       2.0       2.5

This might be the best showcase of special teams talent in any NFL game this year. The Browns rank #1 in special teams DVOA, while the Bills rank #3. The Browns have had consistently good special teams across all categories, but the best unit is clearly the #1-ranked kickoff return team. For Buffalo, it's all about the 4th-ranked punt return team. In general, the Browns will have the advantage whenever either teams kicks off, whereas the Bills will have the advantage whenever either team punts. In other words, let's root for a high-scoring game, with lots of kickoffs and no punts! Advantage: Browns

The Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times' own Doppler 25000000 is forecasting snow in Buffalo at some point during the game. I don't want to speculate on which team might benefit from that, especially because both the Buffalo passing game and what I'll call the "Brady Quinn passing game" tend to rely on short and/or safe passes. Bad weather could have an adverse affect on Robot Phil Dawson's circuitry (we've seen over the past decade that Dawson suffers as the season wears on). At any rate, a little snow could make for an exciting game, especially between these two teams.

I say that not only because Cleveland and Buffalo are such snow-experienced cities, but because the Browns and Bills are so evenly matched. The Bills lead the Browns in overall DVOA, -7.7% to -11.3%. But the Browns actually edge the Bills in weighted DVOA, -9.6% to -10.7%, due to Buffalo's recent fall from grace. Throw the home field advantage back into the equation, though, and who knows anymore. Let's call it anybody's game. Enjoy!

I try to avoid the -gate suffix, but today I'll make an exception. Quitgate perfectly sums up the stupidity of this story. Faced with an embarassing loss against the Broncos and a much-longer-than-normal amount of time until the next game, Browns fans and the media found, unsurprisingly, something to argue about and pin the loss on. Otherwise, how many "previewing the Bills" articles could you stand?

Let me be frank: it doesn't matter whether a Brown "quit" last Thursday. Terms like "wanting it more" and "will to win" are thrown around a lot in sports, but it's really hard to find real examples of teams that lost because they didn't "want it enough". Why teams win and lose come down to other, no less nebulous things, like talent, strategy, execution, and plain old luck. I wish we could confine our analysis to these real—and still eminently debatable—issues.

What the Browns have been suffering from this season, as has been most clear as they've fallen apart in two consecutive games, is not a lack of competitiveness or drive or whatever you call it. They've been lacking the things I mentioned before: talent, strategy, execution, and even a little bit of luck.

Now the Browns are certainly better in some of these categories than others. I'd say they're an averagely talented team and haven't had terrible luck. But they have been plagued by poor strategy and execution. Against the Ravens' strong front seven and decimated secondary, why pound the ball into the line despite repeated failure? That's bad strategy. Why wasn't there over-the-top help for Brandon McDonald against Eddie Royal last week? And why didn't he commit pass interference instead of batting wildly at nothing? That's bad strategy, bad execution, or both. And these are just the first two questions that came to mind.

In the end, this falls on Romeo Crennel. I have soured on him shockingly quick this season. He's the one responsible for both the team's strategy and their execution. And excepting an excellent game against the Giants, he's whiffed on both this season. Players didn't quit on the rest of the team, they just weren't put in the proper position to win.

Hello readers. I realize it's been almost a week since the Browns lost to the Broncos; truth is, our schedules are making it increasingly harder with each passing week to publish "Born and Raised" in anything resembling a timely fashion. In fact, this week, Alex had to pass off his blogging duties to his assistant, Jean-Pierre, whose scribblings were so incomprehensible, I decided to just go ahead and publish a solo edition this week. We're sorry for this inconvenience, and we'll do our best to return to normal "Born and Raiseds" next week.

Anyway, if you even still remember the Browns-Broncos game, please enjoy this extremely pared-down, phoned-in bagatelle of a post.

Play of the Week

The Browns had a lot of great plays in the passing game, though it's hard to single out any one of them as truly spectacular. For the sake of picking something, I'll go with Kellen Winslow's second touchdown catch, a 16-yard reception that ended with Winslow ducking around the pylon on the left side. Like most of Quinn's more successful attempts, it was a quick, short pass, but well designed in that Winslow had plenty of room to run.

Player of the Week

Alex's suggestion was that we each take one of the obvious candidates (Cribbs or Quinn), but because I secretly hate Alex (shh, don't tell him!) Alex isn't here right now, I'm naming both Cribbs and Quinn my Co-Players of the Week. Take that, arbitrary convention! Quinn's performance was relatively mistake-free, so while the Browns' gains were mostly of the short or medium variety, they did find ways to mount long drives. In other words, it was about as good a debut as we could have hoped for. Cribbs, meanwhile, had a game for the ages, notching two rushes of 20+ yards, returning two kickoffs significant distances (as is his wont), and of course, making four bruising tackles of would-be Broncos kick returners.

Not Player of the Week

It's no secret that I have a penchant for talented, if overlooked, Browns DBs. Over the years, I've always been quick to point out when a member of the Browns secondary had a particularly good game. I want to prove, however, that I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses here; I notice the bad DB performances, too. Several times this season, I've heaped praise upon Brandon McDonald for some truly great performances, but I'll be the first to admit that he was patently awful against Denver. For that, I'm making Brandon my Not Player of the Week. According to the rather imperfect play-by-play, the Broncos only tested McDonald five times, resulting in three incompletes, a 34-yard gain on 2nd-and-3, and a 16-yard gain on 1st-and-10. But the play-by-play doesn't mention, for example, that McDonald was the DB in coverage on Eddie Royal's 92-yard touchdown catch (on which Brandon was admittedly hung out to dry, but still, he should have committed intentional pass interference, as he wisely did on a very similar play earlier this season, in Baltimore). I seem to recall other examples of blown coverage as well, though my recollection is not perfect. Here's hoping Brandon returns to early-season form.

Ryan Pontbriand Honorary Special Teams Moment of the Week

As hinted above, Cribbs did have a pair of solid kickoff returns, one for 37 yards (to the 41) and another for 43 yards (to midfield). But my favorite special teams moment of the game was probably Nick Sorenson's tackle of Broncos returner Eddie Royal on a kickoff early in the second quarter. Sorenson drilled Royal at the Denver 15-yard line, setting up the worst field position either team had following a kickoff. The ensuing drive ended with a Brodney Pool interception, followed by an easy Browns touchdown.

Antonio Garay Memorial Obscure Brown of the Week

It's hard to be a legitimate Obscure Brown and stay on the roster for a long period of time. And yet I'm betting there's a significant portion of Browns fans who have no idea who Isaac Sowells is, despite the fact he's in the middle of his third complete season as a useless nobody. Even if you knew who he was, you're probably surprised to learn he's still on the team. That kind of radar under-flying is the mark of a great Obscure Brown.

Number of the Week

15.2%—that's Brady Quinn's passing DVOA after his first game. For a point of reference, that would rank him 14th among qualified QBs, if Quinn had received enough playing time to qualify. He'd be in a class with Aaron Rodgers, Kerry Collins, and Jason Campbell. Sufficed to say, Quinn had a pretty efficient debut.

This Week on Josh's Cribbs

In this week's episode, Josh and four teammates (Charles Ali, Mike Adams, Steve "Chin Man" Sanders, and Paul Hubbard) participate in SWAT training, courtesy of the Cleveland Police Department. The guys learn how to "sweep" a house by working together to "eliminate" rooms and potential hiding places. Later, Josh and the Chin Man do some (supposedly) motivational speaking before a group of kids (who, we are told, want to be police officers some day). All in all, this was one of the more boring episodes of Josh's Cribbs, but that's okay; they can't all be instant classics.

Moral DVOA Rankings

The Browns took a big hit this week, suffering their worst moral defeat since we began tracking. The Browns no longer lead the Moral DVOA rankings by an enormous margin—only by a "rather large" margin.

           Moral DVOA  NFL rank
Cleveland      77.0%       1
Pittsburgh     11.1%      11
Cincinnati     -5.3%      25
Baltimore   -7688.0%      32

Next week:

The Browns become the best thing to happen to the Buffalo region since ever, as they cruise to a glorious Monday Night victory over the Bills. Join us—Alex, Jean-Pierre and me—as we bring you what will almost certainly be the best "Born and Raised" in over two weeks!

Boy, is it ever Friday.

Because I'm not sure how many people are even going to see this preview before tonight's game begins, I'm going to keep this super brief. Next week, I'll return to more in-depth previews. As always, stats are borrowed from Football Outsiders; click here for an explanation of how DVOA works.

Browns offense vs. Broncos defense:

           CLE offense  DEN defense
total DVOA    -5.6%        20.2%
passing       -9.7%        32.4%
rushing       -1.2%         7.2%

The Browns rank 24th in offensive DVOA, with a 24th-ranked passing attack and a 17th-ranked running game. Some might argue that we should throw the passing numbers out the window, because we have no idea what to expect with Quinn as quarterback, but I think that's an overreaction. To see any drastic changes in total team offense, there would have to be significant changes in the performances of a whole host of guys—not that that isn't possible; the Browns have had the 2nd-most variable offensive DVOA in the NFL (16.4% variance). Mercifully for Quinn, Denver ranks 28th in defensive DVOA; 30th against the pass and 24th against the run. Advantage: Browns

Broncos offense vs. Browns defense:

           DEN offense  CLE defense
total DVOA    13.5%        14.1%
passing       16.5%        21.3%
rushing        8.8%         7.8%

The Browns are 22nd in defensive DVOA; 23rd against the pass and 25th against the run. The Broncos, on the other hand, rank 10th in offensive DVOA; 12th in passing, and 5th in rushing. Jay Cutler ranks 5th in passing DYAR (629), in part because the Broncos have been rather pass-happy; he ranks 11th in passing DVOA (18.9%). In spite of this, weirdly, the Broncos don't have a single WR with a decent receiving DVOA (Eddie Royal leads Denver WRs with a 0.8%). It may simply be that Cutler is especially good at spreading the ball around to his TEs, RBs, and those lower on the depth chart, but that should be okay with the Browns, whose pass defense has had more success (relative to league average) the further down the depth chart you go. Advantage: Broncos

Special teams matchups:

                        Browns    Broncos
total DVOA                7.7%     -0.9%
FG kicking                1.9       1.9
CLE kickoff vs. DEN KR    5.5      -0.8
CLE KR vs. DEN kickoff    8.9      -5.8
CLE punt vs. DEN PR       4.3       3.6
CLE PR vs. DEN punt       2.1      -1.5

The Browns are back on top! They now rank #1 in special teams DVOA, thanks to Sunday's special-teams-a-thon. Most notably, the Browns' kickoff return team has catapulted itself from league average to #1 in the NFL. Denver ranks 23rd in special teams DVOA, but the best news might be that they rank only 28th in kicking off, meaning Cribbs and co. will have themselves a huge mis-matchup to exploit. Advantage: Browns

Well, there you go. The Broncos have a better total DVOA (-7.5%) than the Browns (-12.0%), but the Browns actually lead the Broncos in weighted DVOA (-9.5% to -9.8%), since they've gotten incrementally better since the beginning of the season, while Denver has gotten slightly worse. For that reason, this is actually a game the Browns should reasonably expect to win. That's not something you'll hear me say much more this season—apart from tonight's game and the final showdown against Cincinnati, the Browns' remaining opponents all have superior DVOA rankings.

Gun to my head, I agree that the benching of Derek Anderson was overdue, and like you, I'll be excited to see Quinn under center on Thursday. But I don't think Anderson's specific performance Sunday against Baltimore warranted his benching. If anything, the fact that the Browns lost the game gives Crennel a convenient excuse to make the switch he probably wishes he'd made weeks ago. But as far as I'm concerned, against the Ravens, Anderson was hamstrung by some questionable playcalling and some receiver miscues. And even in spite of those factors, Anderson put up some pretty decent numbers (56 total DYAR, to rank him 11th out of 29 Week 9 QB performances).

The receiver miscues have been a problem all season long, and there's no reason for us to expect they won't continue with Quinn at the wheel. The questionable playcalling, on the other hand, has not been a trademark of the Browns offense since the Carthon Era (when questionable playcalling was elevated to an art form). With Chudzinski calling the plays, the Browns have generally had enough creativity, variety, and skill in the passing game to get by. That said, this particular game reminded me a lot of the old days, when it seemed the Browns were never going to get the memo about taking to the air.

The Browns had to have at least some inkling that Baltimore had the NFL's best rushing defense coming into the weekend (compared to the 7th-best pass defense, by DVOA). So if ever there was a game where they should have been less concerned than usual about "establishing the run," this might have been it. Even forgetting for a moment that rushing is almost never the best strategy unless your goal is to kill clock, the Browns stubbornly kept at it despite the ridiculous degree to which it wasn't working. Here's a quick summary of the Browns' 21 rushing attempts (not counting Anderson's 2 scrambles), in chronological order:

 down   yds  result
1st-10   1   fail
1st-10   2   fail
2nd-8    3
1st-10   1   fail
1st-10  -1   fail
2nd-11   1   fail
1st-10   7   succeed
2nd-3    4   succeed
1st-10   1   fail
2nd-5    1   fail
1st-10   3   fail
2nd-7    5   succeed
1st-10   5
1st-10   7   succeed
2nd-3    1   fail
1st-10   4
1st-10   0   fail
2nd-10   3   fail
1st-14   3   fail
2nd-11   3   fail
1st-10   2   fail

That's a lot of failure. Plus, all four of the plays I have labeled "succeed" achieved the bare minimum (or close to it) to be considered successful. Either way, I think it's fair to say that the rushing offense in this game was pitiful.

That raises the question, why did the Browns keep at it? Granted, there were one or two possessions near the end of the third quarter when the Browns (rightly) should have been trying to kill the clock, but even at the bitter end, when they desperately needed to score, they pounded Jamal Lewis up the middle. Take that 1st-and-14 play (midway through the fourth quarter): what did they think was the best possible outcome of that attempt, after everything that had come before it? Were the Browns surprised when the play only managed to gain 3 yards? And then, on the very next play—a 2nd-and-11 play, when the Browns desperately needed to score, and preserve the clock, mind you—they rushed again! And again for 3 yards. Were they surprised by this outcome? If so, they hadn't been paying attention. And if not, then why did they call the play in the first place? As I've pointed out, it's not like Anderson was having an especially bad day in the passing game; in fact, he was having one of his better days.

Conventional wisdom says that the lesson here (with regard to the offense, anyway) is that the Browns lost because they couldn't establish the run; that is, that they needed to rush well in order to win. But that's backwards. There might be an argument to be made that the Browns blew their lead because their pathetic rushing kept them from being able to drain the clock, but that would only apply to a small handful of the plays listed above. The bigger lesson is that they shouldn't have been wasting their time in the first place on something so obviously doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, I certainly don't mean to imply that the Browns defense was blameless for the loss. In fact, the defense probably deserves to shoulder the largest portion of blame—they were truly awful. But I needed to get my gripes about the offense off my chest. So without further ado, here are your regular items...

Play of the Week

Alex says: Braylon Edwards's touchdown catch was definitely really legitimate. In that I'm fairly confident that the ball didn't touch the ground and at one point Edwards had both hands on it. Honestly though, it gave the Browns their first lead. And for a game where they trailed 0-10 after only ten minutes, that was pretty exciting. I thought about writing them off in the first quarter.

Corey says: How can it be anything but the kickoff return for a touchdown? All year we have been wondering if the kickoff returning domination of 2006 and 2007 was going to come back, and it did in a big way. As usual, this return was an ensemble effort, though Josh did break the last few tackles completely on his own, without any help from blockers. The first half of the return—indeed, the hard part—was the work of Josh's 10 deputies.

Player of the Week

Alex says: Josh Cribbs is the obvious choice, but for the sake of variety, I'll write a little bit about everyone's new favorite defensive player, Shaun Rogers. He had eight tackles during the game, which is impressive for a nose tackle, though ultimately doesn't tell us much. What does say something is that all but one of these resulted in an unsuccessful play for the Ravens. Throw in that he sacked Joe Flacco once and got in another hit on a pass attempt and I'd say Rogers had a very good—if overlooked—game.

Corey says: I don't want to beat a dead horse, especially since we still have "Special Teams Moment of the Week" to get to, but neither the offense nor the defense really deserves to be represented in this category, if you ask me. My Player of the Week will be Josh Cribbs.

Ryan Pontbriand Honorary Special Teams Moment of the Week

Alex says: Cribbs's kickoff return touchdown was, of course, awesome. But let's not forget his nifty punt return near the beginning of the third quarter. This return was more of a Cribbsean Tour de Force rather than the kickoff's team effort. He broke quite a few tackles and should've lost his balance a few times before Antwan Barnes brought him down. And on the very next play, the offense made good on their field position, as Edwards caught a touchdown pass from Anderson. It was good to see the 2007 Josh Cribbs out there this week.

Corey says: One thing that will be overlooked in the excitement over Cribbs' touchdown return is the fact that he actually broke out with his first two great returns of the season. The second one only went for 38 yards—it occurred in the fourth quarter right after Baltimore went ahead 34-27—but it's those 35- to 50-yard returns that make all the difference. In 2007, the Browns' 3 or 4 kickoff returns for touchdowns wouldn't have been enough for them to lead the league (in fact, all of recorded history) in value. The key was that Cribbs was not a boom-or-bust returner; he was more of a boom-or-mini-boom returner. For what it's worth, his excellent game on Sunday has catapulted the Browns back into the #1 spot for kickoff return value, according to Football Outsiders. I can't wait to see what else is in store.

Rolly Woolsey Memorial Obscure Brown of the Week

Alex says: Corey has honored defensive lineman Santonio Thomas before this season and while he didn't actually do anything this week, I think he deserves our praise. Sadly devoid of a middle name (it seems), Santonio makes up for it somewhat with an awesome first name, Santonio. With the two Santonios of the sports world (Good Santonio and Evil Santonio, as I call them), we're left to wonder: who thinks up these names? Am I supposed to be reminded of San Antonio? And if there are two of them, how long has Santonio been around? Trying to answer that last question, the earliest use of Santonio as a first name I could find is Santonio Berry, who was involved with a particularly controversial murder investigation in Mississippi in 1997. I also found something called Santonio Hots, which I believe are processed jalapeño peppers formerly produced by Texxstar Resources.

Corey says: When the special teams shine, as they did on Sunday, it's usually because a bunch of obscure Browns you've never heard of are dominating their Baltimoronic counterparts. One of the unsung heroes of the special teams is linebacker Kris (short for Kristofor) Griffin, a 4th-year veteran out of Indiana of Pennsylvania (and a onetime Josh's Cribbs guest star). So here's to you, Kris. You do your particular job about as well as anyone else on the Browns roster does his.

Idiot of the Week the Season Human History

Corey says: Ray Lewis. Duh.

Number of the Week

Alex says: -50, or Syndric Steptoe's DYAR against the Ravens, which was good enough (or bad enough) for worst among all wide receivers and tight ends this week. Always one to pick the low-hanging fruit, it's obvious why Steptoe Bismol comes out looking so terrible. He caught only two of the five passes thrown his way and coughed up one of the two he did catch. After his amazing catch against the Jaguars, it was a quick reversion to replacement—or below-replacement—against the Ravens. Let's not to read too much into two weeks and only a handful of passes, but it's obvious the Browns are hurting from a lack of receiving options.

Corey says: Both the pass defense and the run defense were pretty awful this time around. In general, awfulness in the pass defense is a much bigger problem than awfulness in the run defense. But the run defense does seem to be the Browns' biggest weakness, and the problems do seem to be concentrated on the front line. The Browns now rank last in the NFL in Adjusted Line Yards surrendered (4.95), meaning they're the worst at preventing opposing rushers from reaching the second line of defense. The Browns rank 31st in percentage of runs stuffed for a loss (17%), which seems to support the argument that the defensive linemen aren't getting it done. On the other hand, to the subjective observer, Shaun Rogers appears to be playing pretty well. Yet the Browns rank only 30th in the NFL in Adjusted Line Yards given up on runs up the middle (4.95). Similarly, they rank 31st in runs that go off-tackle to the left (5.64), but do somewhat better on runs of other types. Either Rogers is ineffective at stopping the run, or his would-be effectiveness is easy to circumvent.

This Week on Josh's Cribbs

Corey says: This week, the Cribbses go rock climbing at an indoor rock climbing facility in Peninsula, OH. Josh starts out on the beginner's wall but soon decides to attempt the more challenging walls; eventually, he is forced to quit before conquering an impossible-looking upside-down dealie. At one point, Maria (dressed in an outfit straight out of an 80s workout video) challenges Josh to a race, and Josh's attempt to "make it look competitive" backfires when Maria easily reaches the top first. As a result, Josh has to don Maria's Jheri curl-esque wig to close out the show. This leads to one of my favorite Josh's Cribbs moments of the season: Josh and Maria doing a hilarious rendition of the Soul Glo jingle—awesomely, the second Coming to America reference of the season.

Moral DVOA Rankings

Since last we updated you on the Moral DVOA standings, the Browns suffered a moral loss in Jacksonville (their first of the season), but enjoyed an overwhelming moral thrashing of the Ravens. Now that the Browns are finished with the most morally bankrupt team in history, the schedule gets considerably tougher (morally speaking), so let's hope the Browns have a few more moral victories left in them.

           Moral DVOA  NFL rank
Cleveland     111.4%       1
Pittsburgh     13.4%      10
Cincinnati     -5.1%      23
Baltimore   -7590.0%      32

Next week:

The Browns whup the Denver Broncos so thoroughly, they knock them back to this Thursday! We'll use our patented time machine technology to bring you all the highlights, on another Clevetacular "Born and Raised"!

This week's Born and Raised is forthcoming, but I wanted to comment on this before whenever Corey and I got around to discussing Sunday's disaster. First off, like all Browns fans, I am excited to finally see what Brady Quinn can do. I'm also relieved that Romeo Crennel finally made this long-overdue move. But, unfortunately for him, he's painted himself into a corner with the Anderson-Quinn controversy. No matter where this season goes, Crennel should lose his job at the end of it.

When fans and the media started calling for Quinn to be starter, Crennel and his staff could and did fall back on the doctrine of football coach infallibility. We as fans have seen so little of Quinn outside of the meaningless preseason, who better to judge his talents than coaches who watch him every day in practice? The decision came down to Anderson is the starter because he's better than Quinn and he's better than Quinn because we say so. Just trust us. But now that the public will get an extended look at Quinn as a real starting quarterback, Crennel can't fall back on "Trust me" anymore.

So why should Crennel lose his job then? Consider the two possible paths the team could take from here.

1. Quinn is no better than Anderson, maybe even worse. The Browns continue their losing ways. In this case, Crennel should be fired since this team—now unquestionably "his"—can't reach the playoffs. The success of the 2007 season was due to the confluence of a number of career years by Jamal Lewis, Derek Anderson, Braylon Edwards et al. and even then, the team could only manage ten wins. An upper bound of ten wins is not a strong foundation for a team.
2. Quinn plays as good as we hope; the team gets back into the playoff hunt. Were this to happen, the question on everyone's mind should be, "What took so long?" By the infallibility doctrine, Crennel should've known that Quinn was much better than Anderson and should've made the switch weeks ago—if not during the off-season. If he didn't know, then what good is he as a coach? He can't even tell which of his two high-profile quarterbacks is better. Of the decisions a head coach has to make, that has to be among the most straightforward.

So, while I'm anxious to see what Quinn can do, I'm definitely not looking forward to my rage towards Romeo Crennel growing with each week. The only way that this could turn into a positive for his coaching record is the near-impossible combination of Paths 1 and 2: Quinn fails, Anderson comes back, and the team gets back in the playoff hunt. Like that will happen.