Panthers-Browns Grades

[Jpjr]

Clausen should get an F for the rest of the season. That's the only grade many of the Luck-huggers will accept.

[philp]

Gnatt must have drank too much

haha, and he gives fox credit, even when it's a loss. fu gnatt

[Brandon]

People don't realize half the time the checkdowns are actually playcalls.

Yep...

I don't know how you can give the coaching an A, these guys are out there with basically no coaching, playing purely on pride and heart. It's amazing we were even in this game at the end.

[TrueBlackandBlue]

That final drive was more Goodson and LaFell than Clausen honestly.

Goodson just made a ridiculous play and I don't expect that throw/catch to work out the majority of the time.

The LaFell play was good on LaFell's part and Clausen made a nice throw but im skeptical that they could do that consistently.

It's like Jake Delhome's "comeback" against the packers in 08 he threw a terrible ball and Steve Smith worked his magic.

I don't want to discredit him too much, but I'm not convinced this was him taking a massive step forward. Right now he keeps doing just enough to be a C student but he's rarely earned an A.

I wish Claussen would learn that it's ok to throw it up to Steve every once in awhile. I give Jake credit for that. At least he recognized the talent he had on the team.

[nosuchthingasapanther]

People don't realize half the time the checkdowns are actually playcalls.

sam bradford agrees with this post.

[LiQuiD]

And here I thought the throw to Lafell was an underthrown out-of-bounds toss, which as we know Jimmy usually aims for the tick marks along the sideline when throwing it away. Back to the drawing board...

[Ohio]

People don't realize half the time the checkdowns are actually playcalls.

That might be true, but Im pretty sure I saw WR's running routes downfield on plays where he had more then enough time to find one. But I agree the offensive play calling is Jr.High level and Jeff Davidson needs to be fired.

[Darth Bobo]

For the record, LaFell had two acrobatic catches against the bounds. He played like a professional wide receiver, not like a college receiver. It is exciting to see him pan out.

Goodson was a monster versus Cleveland, especially when you consider the lack of performance of our Offensive line.

It must be very challenging for coaches to assess our Quarterbacks, when they are not given enough pass protection to allow the plays that we call to develop. That means two things, independent of each other:

1) We are not calling enough short pass plays

2) Our pass protection sucks.

It will be fair to say that Fox and Davidson will have squandered their opportunity to properly evaluate our young quarterbacks if we end our regular season without a strong showing of either improved pass protection(in seconds) or improved short passing game(in receptions).

It seems to me that we are not in control of whether or not teams can dominate our boys at the line, because it is simply a question of bad matchups. We do however control whether or not we have a short passing game, particularly to Steve Smith. Since everyone seems to think we are not getting the ball to him enough, perhaps we should change the way we attempt to deliver the ball to him. From a fans perspective(for what that's worth), it seems obvious he si not getting separation from the defensive back(s) within the timeframe our offensive line provides, and that could be because they are playing a bit further off the line of scrimmage than an effective short passing game should allow.

[SorthNarolina]

I wish Claussen would learn that it's ok to throw it up to Steve every once in awhile. I give Jake credit for that. At least he recognized the talent he had on the team.

Lol I hate to say it but I think he and Matt Moore need to have a talk about playing relaxed. I think he's scared of turnovers and is probably shocked at how small the windows are in the NFL to pass.

The good news is he's not playing all that bad, he's on a fine line between having a good/bad rookie season.

[panthers55]

How you give an A to coaching when you lose and rate the offense with Bs when they score 13 points (not counting the pick 6 or beason pick where they didn't earn a first down) all day is beyond me. Gantt must be sucking up to Hurney for next year.

[panthers55]

People don't realize half the time the checkdowns are actually playcalls.

Check downs are what you do when you don't have anywhere to throw the ball as a last resort. Balls thrown to the running back on a dump pass or screen for example are not checkdowns. Nor are checkdowns designed plays for the running back. The term checkdown implies that the quarterback has checked down his list of available receivers and is throwing it to the back to avoid a sack or gain a few yards as a last resort. The difference is when he throws the ball. Designed plays to the running back are usually first or second options and don't take much time to develop. Checkdowns usually take longer as the QB goes through his progressions. The one exception would be a screen to the back which takes time to develop and for the linemen to get caught rushing upfield too far. So to say that half of checkdowns are designed plays to the running back fails to recognize the basic differences between the two type of plays.