How the Cleveland Browns Can Shock the Baltimore Ravens

With two weeks to prepare for a Monday night game with the Ravens, the Browns have their best opportunity to get a quality win.

The Ravens whupped the Browns in Week Three, 34-3, and forced Brady Quinn back to the bench at halftime.

With Quinn coming back into the starter’s role, according to the latest reports, revenge could indeed be sweet.

All the off-field drama aside, the Browns have a clear need to get a victory against the Ravens, or all the talk about “the process” will continue to fall on deaf ears. Coaching is the key to victory this coming Monday.

It starts at the top with Eric Mangini. Mangini has been under heavy criticism lately for a lot of his gameday decisions. Some of the criticism is justified, some of it is borne of frustration. Either way, there has been no honeymoon period for Mangini.

Mangini needs to quit making excuses, stop worrying about what the media is or isn’t reporting, and just focus on putting together a winning game plan.

That’s it. That’s his only responsibility right now.

His offense has scored five touchdowns all season.

F-I-V-E

That’s not just poor play, that’s seriously inept coaching.

But once again, Mangini has an opportunity here. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has been overmatched in every game so far this season and his starting quarterbacks don’t look like they could play for a high school team at the moment.

If Daboll can’t quite do the job yet due to inexperience, but Mangini still thinks Daboll can grow into the job, then he needs to give Daboll more help. Mangini talked about giving some help to Daboll after the Bears game.

It’s time to see those words translate into action on the field. Stop running halfback options and throwing designed screen passes on third and long. Stop trying to use Jamal Lewis as a workhorse running back when his legs just aren’t there to do it anymore.

These are not difficult things to see or do. It’s one thing to see the Browns not execute a play properly. While frustrating, it’s understandable given the Browns have five Pro Bowl players on the team this year, but just about everyone else wouldn’t make the practice squad of the Redskins or Lions.

What has been the sticking point for Browns fans this year is watching our offense do comically stupid things where the inevitable failure is self-fulfilling.

One reason Rob Ryan has gotten a pass for his defense, ranked last in the league, is that you can see the schemes Ryan is trying to implement. They’re good schemes. The philosophy behind them is sound and his defense should be ranked in the top five.

But the defense is one of the worst because, with the exception of Shaun Rogers and a few others, no one on that defense is capable of executing the plays. The defense has a hard time tackling, which kind of defeats the purpose of playing defense.

When your defense gives up an average of more than 400 yards per game, that usually means nobody is tackling. If you watch the games, you know nobody is getting tackled.

However, when you watch the offense, you’re just left scratching your head. There is no consistency to the offense and nothing they do makes a lot of sense. The Browns actually have gotten into the red zone a bunch of times this season, it’s getting into the end zone that has become the problem.

But watch the play calling on the goal line. The ball never really gets thrown into the end zone. Running plays seem designed to not take advantage of Joe Thomas and the Wildcat option never seems to work for the Browns.

So, with two weeks to prepare, Monday night can be the game where Mangini shows the world he really is paying attention and fields a team that can shock the world and pull of what would be one of the biggest upsets of the year.