Browns Talk With NFL Due To Injured Rookie

Eric Mangini the coach of Cleveland Browns said he has talked with NFL officials about how James Davis the rookie running back got a season-ending shoulder injury.  He stated that they talked and addressed it with the league.  Mangini said after the victory over the Buffalo Bills last Sunday with a 6-3 score. Mangini was answering a query about a report of ESPN that cited witnesses who claimed Davis had no pads after practice when he got injured by another Browns linebacker who was wearing pads. 

Davis was hurt last Sept. 13 against the Minnesota Vikings on the season opener and was placed on injured reserve last Oct. 3.  Last month, the NFL Players Association confirmed that it filed a formal grievance over Mangini giving fine to a player $1,701 for a hotel bill of $3 bottled water that was not paid.  Mangini answered that grievances are common and that it happens to every team.

BUFFALO(-6.0) vs. Cleveland

The Bills have been struggling offensively the last two weeks (4.1 yppl against the Saints and Dolphins) after moving the ball well the first two weeks against the Patriots and Bucs, but I expect the Bills to use their good ground game to exploit a Cleveland defense that’s allowed over 5.0 ypr in all 4 games and has given up an average of 5.5 ypr for the season. A good ground attack should take some of the pressure off of Trent Edwards, who hasn’t been given enough time to find his talented group of receivers (he’s been sacked 16 times in 4 games). Cleveland’s offense looked better last week with Derek Anderson taking over at quarterback for Brady Quinn, but the Browns were still below average offensively in that game (4.8 yppl against a Cincy defense that would allow 5.2 yppl at home to an average attack). Still, that’s much better than the Browns’ season rating of 0.9 yppl worse than average.

The trade of WR Braylon Edwards to the Jets most likely won’t have much of a negative affect given that Anderson appears to connect better with rookie Mohamed Massaquoi, who caught 8 passes in Anderson’s start last week (only 2 in the other 3 games) while Edwards had 0 catches on 4 passes intended for him. Buffalo was without 3 of their 4 starting defensive backs the previous week (two are questionable to return this week and CB Leodis McKelvin is out for the season). Oddly it was the Bills’ run defense that let them down, as Miami tallied 251 rushing yards and averaged only 3.1 yards per pass play. Buffalo has been standard defensively for the season (5.3 yppl allowed to teams that would combine to average 5.3 yppl against an average team) and they have an advantage over Cleveland’s attack. Buffalo actually has a pretty concrete edge overall from the line of scrimmage but the Browns have excellent special teams and the Bills’ special teams have been uncharacteristically poor so far this season. There are pretty strong situations favoring both teams in this game, but my math model favors Buffalo by only 3 points and will lean with the Browns based on that.

Jets Acquire WR Braylon Edwards from Browns

The New York Jets have reached an accord with the Cleveland Browns to acquire bothered but talented wide receiver Braylon Edwards. The Jets sent their wide receiver Chansi Stuckey, linebacker Jason Trusnik and undisclosed draft choices to the Browns on Wednesday to acquire the deep threat they had been lacking. Edwards, in his fifth season, has a meager 10 receptions for only 139 yards – well below what he is really capable of.

Edwards is also dealing with off-field issues as the NFL is investigating whether he violated the league’s conduct policy following accusations he assaulted a man outside a nightclub. Edwards supposedly punched promoter Edward Givens, a friend of NBA star LeBron James, early Monday morning following an argument in downtown Cleveland. This trade might put the Jets in the elite class… or not. They are taking a huge risk on the huge head case that goes by the name of Braylon Edwards. Let’s see what a motivated Edwards can do for a winning team. Will he change his attitude towards the Jets? Or will he bring the rest of the Jets down?

Coach Jauron Takes Blame For Bills’ Dreadful Start

Though Dick Jauron declines to talk about whether his job is in peril, the Bills coach doesn’t waver when asked who’s responsible for Buffalo’s awful start. It’s on him and him alone. On four instances during a six-minute news conference Monday, Jauron blamed himself for what has gone wrong with a team off to a 1-3 start following what his players called an “embarrassing” 38-10 loss at Miami on Sunday. Jauron questioned himself regarding his team’s lack of preparation. He took the responsibility for a banged-up and inexperienced offensive line that allowed six sacks against Miami: “I point the finger at myself first.” And it was more of the same from Jauron when asked to assess the Trent Edwards led offense that managed a mere 206 yards, 10 first downs—none by rushing—and converted 1 of 11 third-down chances.

A month into the season, Jauron’s already on the hot seat, which is where he was at the end of last year after leading Buffalo to its third consecutive 7-9 finish before being retained by owner Ralph Wilson. And this weekend’s home game against the winless Browns has a sudden must-win quality to it for Jauron and a team that’s already fading out of contention in an ever-competitive AFC East.

LeBron Calls Edwards Out for Supposed Fight

Braylon Edwards was aggressive Sunday, exchanging little hits with one of Cincinnati’s huge defensive linemen. Later, Cleveland’s controversial wide receiver supposedly took a swing at someone much smaller but with a soaring, more famous friend: LeBron James – and the King isn’t happy about it. James called Edwards “childish” for purportedly hitting his friend early Monday morning following a disagreement outside a Cleveland night club. The Cavaliers star said Edwards hit his friend, Edward Givens, a promoter who was just doing work outside the club around 2:30 a.m. EDT.

The enormously gifted Edwards, who is in the last year of his contract with Cleveland, has been a nuisance for much of his time with the Browns. While recovering from a foot injury—he slash his heel running in his socks after practice—last year, he was pulled over in his Bentley for driving 120 mph in a 65 mph zone. He hasn’t caught easy passes, criticized almost every play Cleveland calls, argued with the team and notably took a helicopter to the Ohio State-Michigan game in 2006 regardless of being told not to go.

Cleveland Vs. Cincinnati

The Brady Quinn era ended pretty quickly in Cleveland, as the Browns’ Quinn-led offense has averaged just 3.9 ypp. Cleveland has played 3 teams that are good defensively (Minnesota, Denver and Baltimore), but those are bad numbers even when you take that into account. Derek Anderson takes over and should be better, but Anderson has not been able to back up his very good 2007 season. Anderson has averaged just 5.1 yards per pass play in 11 games since the beginning of last season and that’s where I’ll rate him heading into this game.

The Browns have to face another good defense this week, as Cincinnati has allowed just 5.2 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.6 yppl against the normal defensive team. Cincy has been about average offensively so far (5.1 yppl against teams that would allow 5.1 yppl to a normal team) but the Bengals’ attack should have flourished against a sub-par Browns’ defense which couldn’t stop the run (5.6 ypr allowable) and has only gotten worse than the usual contrary to the pass too (6.8 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 6.4 yppp). My ratings favor Cincinnati by 7 points and using this year’s games only (and adjusting for Anderson at QB for Cleveland) results in a prediction of Bengals by 8 points. There are good situations favoring both teams in this game, so I’ll stick to the math and lean with Cincy minus the points.

A boost for Braylon?

Derek Anderson is going to be the quarterback, waive his magic wand, and change Braylon Edwards from a toad to a prince, right? In theory, that’s exactly how it should go. Anderson’s big arm hit Edwards for the majority of his 16 touchdowns and 78 catches in 2007. He’s not a dump off quarterback like Brady Quinn and even Edwards himself sounds pumped up about the change.

There’s just one problem: What the heck happened last season? Anderson was Cleveland’s quarterback for the first eight games of 2008 and here are Edwards’ numbers in those games: 26 catches for 457 yards and three touchdowns. That’s a normal of 3.2 yards per catches for 57.1 yards as well as 0.37 touchdowns for every game. Not exactly numbers to get all giddy and yippee. As Edwards said, Anderson is willing to take risks meaning deep shots. That alone is adequate to give Braylon an increase in value. But just because Anderson is keen to look deep more doesn’t mean he’ll connect with Edwards as the duo proved the previous season. He’s just a low-end WR2 with some big-play upside.

Broncos Vs. Cowboys

Denver may be lucky to be the unbeaten team (they needed an 87 yard tipped pass to beat Cincy in week 1), but the Broncos surely deserve a bit more credit for their 3-0 start. Even with no 87 yard fluke pass play, which I took out of my stats, Denver is still averaging 5.4 yards per play with a nice balance between the run (160 yards per game at 4.8 ypr) as well as the same pass (187 yards at 6.2 yards for every pass play). Denver has faced the individual teams that would allow 5.6 yppl to an average team, but an offense that is 0.2 yppl worse than average is good enough when you have a defense that has yielded just 3.9 yppl. That quantity is considerably very good even when you adjust for the fact that Denver has faced a mediocre Cincy offense and the bad attacks of Cleveland and Oakland. Those three teams would probably combine to average just 4.9 yppl against an average defensive team, so the Broncos’ defense has been 1.0 yppl better than average under the guidance of brilliant defensive coordinator Mike Nolan. Denver’s defense is actually rated at 0.7 yppl better than average and an explosive Dallas offense that rates at 1.4 yppl better than average will be tough to stop. However, Denver’s offense should be able to keep up by moving the ball against a Dallas defense that’s allowed 6.1 yppl to a schedule of teams that would average only 5.2 yppl against an average defensive team.

Using this year’s games only would actually favor Denver by 7 1/2 points in this game, but I believe that Dallas is better defensively than they’ve shown (although still probably worse than average) and Denver is not quite as good on defense as they’ve been so far this year. Even with those assumptions my ratings still favor Denver by 1 point and 3-0 teams are 21-4 ATS in game 4 if they’re at home and not favored by more than 4 points. Nonetheless, teams that have permitted less than 10 points in 3 consecutive games are just 14-31 ATS the next game, including 8-25 ATS if the opponent has a win percentage of greater than .333.

Patriots Vs. Ravens

Baltimore has looked very good so far on both sides of the ball, but dominating Kansas City and Cleveland at home is expected and their win at San Diego isn’t really impressive given that the Ravens were out-gained 5.4 yards for each play to 7.1 yards per play by the Chargers. It’s pretty obvious that Baltimore is improved offensively in quarterback Joe Flacco’s second season but their pass defense has been poor (6.8 yards per pass play allowed) and Tom Brady should be able to exploit that weakness in this game. The Patriots are worse than average defensively as expected, allowing 5.4 yards per play to the teams that would combine to average 5.1 yards per play against an average defensive unit, so Baltimore should move the ball as well.

My ratings favor Baltimore by 2 points, but the Ravens apply to a negative 25-57 ATS road letdown situation following last week’s easy win over the Browns.

Anderson Back at QB for Cleveland

The Cleveland Browns turned their mournful offense over to Derek Anderson and won 10 games 2 years ago. Browns coach Eric Mangini is hoping that he can do it again. With his first season in Cleveland already unscrambling, Brady Quinn was benched by Mangini in favor or Derek Anderson. One touchdown and 29 points in Quinn’s three starts for the Browns, and Mangini has seen enough to believe Anderson deserves a chance to show what he can do. Mangini brought in Anderson after benching Quinn at halftime of Sunday’s embarrassing 34-3 loss in Baltimore and he was able to move the ball with more consistency.

In his first game in his 2007 promotion, Anderson threw five touchdown passes in a 51-45 win over Cincinnati. The Browns are hosting the much improved Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday, a fact that made Anderson smile when he was reminded about what happened the last time he was promoted. Will the Browns move forward with Anderson back at QB for Cleveland?

The New GM on the Block

In sports, one of the most important things ever is team work. Even individual sports such as tennis and golf still need some level of teams work with managers and coaches. If there’s a cloudy relationship, it could affect the performance of the player or the team significantly. The hiring of George Kokinis as the Browns’ new general manager seems to be a very good decision.

When Kokinis was just starting out, it was coach Eric Mangini that recommended him to the Browns. It was Mangini that recommended Kokinis for an interview for an internship position. This proved to be a good recommendation as Kokinis is a very hard worker, and has done a lot for the organization.

It was a good decision for the Browns to do this because it’s important that the coach and GM work well together. Knowing that they have been friends and working together for the longest time would really help the team.

He actually came from Baltimore, where he was a pro personnel director. The whole Browns organization say that they can’t wait to have him back over at Cleveland where he started his career in the first place. Good move i must say.

Lavelli Passes Away

It really is a sad moment in the sports world whenever someone passes away. Especially for the NFL, it is a great loss for the sport to lose someone that had contributed so much to the game.

Dante Lavelli was known to be able to catch a football under almost any circumstance, and this is the reason why he was called “gluefingers”. It was thanks to him that the Cleveland Browns were able to build a dynasty of their own, during the 40’s and 50’s. Now it is a sad moment for everyone now that Lavelli has passed away at age 85.

Lavelli died Tuesday night at the Fairview hospital, but the spokesman didn’t give details as to what was the cause of his death.

The Cleveland Browns know how much he had contributed to their organization, as he was part of four title teams. He is said to be very integral in the formation of the NFL player’s union in the 1950. When he was playing, he felt that the players shouldn’t be buying their own uniforms, and that they should be given a certain amount of allowance for meals on trips. He, along with his team mates, would also ask for a minimum pay, as well as a pension plan.