Adoni Beast

I believe and I’ve heaed rumblings, (maybe @Mogglez has heard something similiar?) that Bates is a potential replacement for Bowles and Heirmdinger for Mac. It will all depend on how the offense is this year. If Bowles handcuffs Bates from calling his offense, and they keep losing games then Bowles might be on his way out.

Bust? No. He’s a very good player. THe problem is he isn’t an elite player and was advertised as the next Reggie White. Would have picked Beasley over him, but if Leo isn’t expecting a monster contract I’m all for re-signing him.

The first 2 games the playbook seemed opened up for Darnold to use fully. He looked great for the youngest rookie to ever start. In CLE, they limited him cause of the short week/ Cle pass rush and look at what happened. It worked in the first half but they neesed to open it up a little in the second half. I think Bowles conservative methods will only hold back Darnold long term. Honestly, if he had his D making stops like the OP mentions, then he can earn the right to play it safe. But his defense ALWAYS crumbles. He has no sense of the feel of the game. Whatever the gameplan is, he sticks to it. Zero adjustments since day 1. No good...

For a 4th or less. I’m in...especially with Big Mac’s drafting record.

Definitely a Bowles decision. Working in the first half, but they needed to open things up: playactions and designed bootleg roll outs would have been perfect. But nope, Bowles wanted to run out the clock on an entire half of football with an 11 point lead...

Yup...I said “I believe” not “I have inside information. To call my post speculative is obvious, since at no point did I claim any of it as fact. Carry on, but next time stop wasting space and time.

“The culture has been changed!” Has been the campaign slogan since we drafted Adams/Maye, and purged the roster of the old vets. It hasn’t. The Browns are not the same old Browns. They should be 3-0, with a defense that made Brees and Big Ben look like rookies (true). But we still should have won last night...if the culture was truly changed. Truth is we are a 7-9 team this season (best case scenario). Our offensive roster is one of the worst, easily. Our defense is talented, but no true game changers. Chris Johnson is the one true culture change in this sad franchise. He was the one who made Mac pull the Suh deal when he was using us as bait. I’m sure he was also the one who demanded we move on from Cousins asap. I firmly believe he forced Mac to trade up for a QB. Our new owner has earned the respect of our players; something Woody Johnson never had. Chris Johnson can truly change the culture by either: - Hiring a President of Football Operations, and letting this man decide Mac/Bowles fate. - Or fire the two himself and start anew. I believe Chris Johnson will hire a someone to run the show, because he seems to trult care about winning and creating a real winning culture here & knows he’s not a football guru by any means. So he will not conduct a gm & hc search by himself. We someone to oversee the gm/coach...Especially for when Woody returns. The problem is...who? I do believe with a boatload of cap space, most of our draft picks, and a true blue chip FQB already on the roster, we can lure too notch candidates President, a GM, and a HC.

I don’t know how people weren’t encouraged and impressed with Weeks 1 & 2. He looked great for a rookie in both. Last night he looked like a rookie who the team was scared to send out there against a good aggressive D, on a short week, their 3rd game (2nd road) in 11 days. Bowles wanted to run the ball, protect Darnold, and have his D win the game. Except his D ran out of gas and Robbie Anderson fumbled near their own goal line. We’re an under .500 with the players and coaches we have, and lost to a better team on their home field.

Darnold was the best player on the field against Miami. All of a sudden he’s a bust? His 3rd game in 11 days to open his rookie season, against a defense who made Big Ben and Drew Brees look bad and we’re quitting on Darnold? SOJF’s

Barring a miracle turnaround, with wins over Jax, New England, Minnesota, Green Bay...he’ll be gone. Darnold is too talented and Chris Johnson is too aware of our first true blue chip QB prospect in half a century to let a coach who will stunt his growth stay on board

“Charlie Brown’d” @Charlie Brown After our kicker wiffs a game winning field goal in the final seconds.

Then new GM time.

I’ve defended Mac a lot too. I think he has a good sense of how to build a team. He has had some good FA signings, and hasn’t hamstrung us with bad contracts. Drafts are crap shoots for every team, but he’s been looking pretty bad. He has to have a monster off season; draft and free agency. He’s going to have to draft at least 2 starters again, maybe 3. I think Herndon wil be an eventual starter and good player, as will Shephard. So he got 3 starters this year, 2 the year before. But there are too many holes. The OLine will need a complete overhaul. He needs to find a great, or two good edge rushers. He’s got next offseason to soldify this team.

The biggest red flag I’ve ever seen with Bowles was the Denver game last year. After the game Morton said, and I’m paraphrasing here... ”We just needed to get out of there.” Admitted that he quit. So either the head coach was in on quitting, or too stupid to realize what was happening, or too weak to interject. Would any great head coach ever have allowed that? Seriously. It wasn’t like we were down 49-0. Then okay. It was absurd.

Everything the OP stated is 100% correct. But I think we are all still reeling from Sunday, a game we should have won, against a pretty good (not great) team. The air’s been taken out of us, after such an amazing start to the season. I think a lot of us (myself included) have a gut feeling that we are gonna get destroyed Thursday...on national tv...to the Browns (who are a lot better than years past, but because it’ll be their first win in awhile the media will hype us total embarrassments).