I don't think he sucks but after Ragland, he was the worst defender against Cleveland.
[Reply]

Nelson?
[Reply]

Are we still talking about Nelson? He looked pretty good yesterday outside of one play....
[Reply]

Lol what game were you watching?
[Reply]

Hmmm, the common denominator just might be the coaching?:-)
[Reply]

Just got done watching the game twice actually and he was out of position a TON. He just wasn't victimized on it but a couple of times.

He's the most bipolar player on the defense. He's great for a couple of plays and then flat awful for 1 or 2 more.
[Reply]

Well that's not accurate.

Bailey, Ford and especially Speaks were all absolutely ass. Nor did Williams/Nnadi do anything worth mentioning. Hitchens did Hitchens stuff; was in between all day.

Scandrick was just quiet; they didn't seem to go his way often though I'm pretty sure I remember Callaway converting a couple of 1st downs in front of him. Fuller spent a lot of time working on Landry and Landry was very quiet yesterday.

Nelson got beat once, otherwise he was awfully good. He made some very strong tackles and had a couple of good pass breakups. That was no worse than a B- game from Nelson and really it was probably better than that.

Nelson played well. The ILBs sucked and the DL/OLB's sucked just as badly. I'd say Nelson was probably the 3rd(ish) BEST player on the defense yesterday. And you can make a legitimate argument that he was the best.
[Reply]

Name a player other than Ragland that played worse. You won't be able to do it.
[Reply]

:-)

On the first 2 series, Speaks stopped the Browns running game almost single-handedly.
[Reply]

Now now, that's not possible. I've been told that Sutton is retarded and makes everyone worse with his cockamamie schemes that are just too complicated to understand.
[Reply]

The d wasn't terrible yesterday. They could have cleaned up a few things. But they held them under 400 yards of offense (lol).

Chubb didn't run wild.

Get the damn missed tackles cleaned up.
[Reply]

No, they weren't terrible at all. They looked pretty good for long stretches.
[Reply]

Ron Parker even had a decent game.

Ragland is the worst player on this defense and it's really not even close. Why he's still out there, I have no idea.
[Reply]

Not much alternative at this point.
[Reply]

Speaks made a nice play on that inside trap looking play where he flowed down the line, no doubt (though if my memory serves, Chubb still gained a handful of yards there because poor push in the middle). He also did a good job of staying in front of Johnson later in the game on that 4th down and waiting for help to finish the play.

But Mayfield dropped back 42 times yesterday with the worst pair of tackles in the league protecting him and Speaks was getting stood up head to head damn near every time.

Speaks, like the rest of the box defenders, was reactive most of the day. They made the job a hell of a lot harder on the secondary than needed and the secondary stood tall for the most part. He didn't 'shut down' the run on those drives; they still gained okay yardage in between incomplete passes from Mayfield. Moreover, Bailey had his only real standout play of the game early on as well when he tagged Chubb (IIRC) at the line of scrimmage and even Hitchens did an okay job early on so even on those drives, Speaks didn't do anything 'single-handedly'.

Nobody loses every time, but Speaks was completely ineffective as a pass rusher, got absolutely abused in coverage a time or two and was...fine...as a run defender. He did not play well yesterday and he damn sure didn't play better than Nelson.
[Reply]