Yeah, I'm an old guy, but I love it when the Browns and Lions play even if it is an exhibition game. In the 1950s and 1960s the Browns and Lions were great rivals, so it was good to play some old friends.
The good news is that the Browns completely dominated the Lions when the first strings were both there. Much criticism has been thrown at Browns qb Brandon Weeden, but the fact of the matter is that he played well last year and looks a little better this year. His receivers are significantly better. I think they are going to get some yards through the air this year. On this day, he had an unbelievable throw to Josh Gordon, and was on the money to tight end Jordan Cameron twice for touchdowns. Frankly the Browns looked great through the air and although they don't have All-Pros in the passing game, they don't have a real weakness there either. For that matter, backup Jason Campbell has done nothing wrong this year either.
On the ground, Trent Richardson was just fine, but the Browns looked a little lost in short yardage. They got one decent block from Chris Ogbonnaya at fullback, but otherwise fullback was silent today (one thing I hate about tv coverage of football is they don't give you the opportunity to see what formation the offense is in. I don't know how many plays used a fullback. But I do know they didn't do well in short yardage.
Trent Richardson looked unstoppable, but Coach Chud wisely took him out early.
Halfback Dion Lewis did well catching balls out of the backfield, and made a few yards on the ground, but was injured in the second half, breaking his leg. He'll be out indefinitely, which is too bad because it looked like he was headed to number two on the depth chart behind Richardson.
Dion Lewis was also explosive, but injured his ankle.
On defense, the front seven generally bullied the Lions. Matthew Stafford & Co. were under pressure and had balls batted down and a few were nearly intercepted by the Browns big line and linebackers. The secondary was good but great, and note that the Lions were not playing their big threat in Calvin Johnson.
The main issue is that a lot of guys got banged up today. In addition to Lewis' injury, they had injuries to TE Gary Barnidge, LB Barkevious Mingo (bruised lung), and G Shawn Lauvao. Hopefully they will be back soon as all of these player were doing well.
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