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| Ricky E. Morris. 1st October, 2005 - 2:01 pm
 Trent Dilfer just continues to show the entire world that he is not some old washed up quarterback. Last year, Browns' fans and the media hyped Jeff Garcia to the limits. This offseason Dilfer was just some stop-gap according to fans and experts. Three weeks into the season Dilfer doesn?t seem like any old stop-gap. A very good comparison to Dilfer?s situation is the Cincinnati Bengals team in 2003.
Jon Kitna came out of nowhere and had a magical season and led the Bengals to 8-8. Trent Dilfer is coming out of nowhere and doing the same thing. Kitna was benched for Carson Palmer the next season, and the Browns have Charlie Frye awaiting his turn in the NFL. Dilfer?s numbers are better than any other numbers he?s posted in his career thus far. His passer rating is a 95, he is completing a little over 66% of his passes, and he has thrown for 822 yards all in just three games. He is averaging 274 yards per game so far this season. If I would have said he would average nearly 300 yards a game before the bye week some probably would have laughed at me. Some didn?t even expect him to last long behind our offensive line. He has heart and he has passion like I stated in my previous articles. He also has IT. You can?t really define IT, but Tom Brady has IT, Joe Montana had IT, Trent Dilfer has IT. Now I am not saying Dilfer is as good as those two, he is nowhere close when it comes to numbers, but he does do one thing similar that both of those men do, and that is defy all the odds to win. This has been said by me before; Dilfer knows how to win a game. Sure the Browns are 1-2, but consider the talent that the Browns have just finished facing. Two of the top rated teams in the NFL right now in the Colts and the Bengals. The Browns shot themselves in the foot for a combined 21 points taken off the board because of ?lame? penalties. Let?s just put it at lame, because penalties shouldn?t be an excuse. The refs aren?t there to make a team lose, they are there to do there jobs. Refs get evaluated all the time.
While Dilfer impresses, the defense is continuing its improvement. The Browns defense shut down Peyton Manning this week and didn?t allow him to throw any touchdowns. The Cleveland Browns secondary is one of the most underrated secondary?s in the NFL. Week in and week out for the last three years they have been at the top of the league in total pass defense but they have always been overshadowed by the Browns lack of run stopping. This weekend in the redzone, they stopped last years best offense twice.
Andra Davis has 39 tackles in three games. He is having the quietest tackling exhibition of any player I have ever seen. Why isn?t anyone talking about this guy? Sure some of those tackles are after a back breaks through for four yards but the fact is the man is making the tackles. Look back at the two games the Browns let Jamal Lewis run for 500 yards. There shouldn?t be any complaints about a player making tackles because if Davis wasn?t making those tackles this year we could very well be looking like we did in 2003. Davis is slowly picking up the 3-4 defense and is obviously our best tackler right now.
Many complaints will be made about the penalties called on the Browns on Sunday. Some of those complains are rightfully justified, but penalties should be the excuse to why the Browns lost Sunday. The Patriots went in to Pittsburgh Sunday, committed ten penalties and made mistakes and were called on a few questionable calls and still came away with a victory. The great teams know how to win regardless of how many bad calls go against them. That is the biggest difference between the Cleveland Browns and a great team. (Now keep in mind Colts fans, the things that I am about to say gives the Browns no excuse for this loss.) One call I would like to talk about is Corey Simons hit on Trent Dilfer. It was obviously three seconds late and there was a ref right in front of it happening. Before Sunday?s game numerous members of the media, including Boomer Esiason called out the Colts defensive line coach. "(Teerlinck) teaches his guys techniques that really border on trying to get someone hurt and knock them out of the game," Esiason said. "I understand why Byron Leftwich did what he did. I don't condone that, but what I would have loved for him to do is just go up there and punch (Teerlinck) in the mouth." This weekend Trent Dilfer was the target and the Colts defensive line did just what Boomer said they do.
Everyone is going to have their own personal opinions about this, but in my opinion it was clearly a cheap shot at Dilfer. It was definitely a late hit as well which wasn?t called. Thankfully Trent didn?t get seriously hurt.
Dilfer continues to impress, the Browns have a bye week this week and afterwards play the Chicago Bears, Baltimore Ravens, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, and the Tennessee Titans the next five weeks. In my personal opinion I feel that the Browns have a shot at winning all five of them and will most likely win three. The Cleveland Browns at .500 at the midpoint of the season would be impressive. All five of those teams have one thing in common, weakness at the quarterback or a quarterback controversy. If the Browns can somehow continue to play football as they have been playing the last three weeks I am confident that the Browns will surpass the low expectations given to them by the national media before they play the Steelers.
I don?t think the Cleveland Browns are the worst team in the NFL like it had been stated by many. Not anymore, Romeo Crennel has his team fighting. One positive we can all smile about being Browns fans is that we are competing and we aren?t laying down for anyone. We are showing up to every game and playing our hearts out. If anything else, that?s all a Browns fan could ever ask from their team.
For any questions or comments that you have, I can be reached at: brownsrealgm@gmail.com |
