Brandon Weeden Leads The Cleveland Browns To The Teams 8th Loss of The Season Working Overtime To Get It

Written By Larry M. Glicken "LG"

The Cleveland Browns suffered their 8th loss of the season with Brandon Weeden as the teams starting quarterback. For many they are still waiting to see the highly accurate throwing arm Weeden is suppose to possess, Weeden did lead the Browns into the end-zone in the first quarter in Dallas.

Anyone who says Cleveland doesn't have a good crew of receivers must not have watched this game. The Browns receivers were reeling in every wild pitch Brandon Weeden threw on that touchdown drive. Greg Little went high into the air and made a fantastic grab using his finger tips, Ben Watson made a great leaping catch in the end-zone to get the score and  Josh Gordon made a grab that no one his size should have been able to catch.

Brandon Weeden is showing signs of improvement as the Browns starting quarterback, there
is no doubt about that. The doubts come into play as to whether or not Weeden is the guy that can lead the Cleveland Browns to the top of the AFC North. The Cleveland Browns played a not so good Dallas Cowboys team today. Brandon Weeden missed  on 15 of his throws. The receivers are doing a better job at catching Weeden's passes but it is Brandon Weeden's accuracy that needs improvement. If the Cowboys defense was able to hold on to the football Weeden would have thrown 3 interceptions today. He is lucky they couldn't otherwise Weeden would be leading the NFL in pics this season.

The other thing that bothers me about Brandon Weeden is the fact he couldn't capitalize on the lead the Browns had over the Dallas Cowboys. Weeden failed to find the end zone again for the Cleveland Browns until the 4th quarter. If the Browns were able to move the ball up and down the field and find the end-zone the way they should with an ace quarterback they would have been able to bury the Cowboys today. The Cleveland Browns couldn't even get a field goal in the 3rd quarter today. Brandon Weeden couldn't move his Cleveland Browns team into field goal range for an entire 15 minutes in a game the Browns were leading in. Why Not?

Brandon Weeden continues to miss wide open receivers with throws we see every other quarterback make in the NFL. Why can't a guy who was suppose to have such an accurate arm make those throws? There are times when Brandon Weeden looks like an NFL quarterback who can move his team and there are times he look terrible. When can we expect Brandon Weeden to become the kind of quarterback we see winning teams have?

If the referees didn't blow the call when they called the Cowboys for a horse collar on Cribbs in the 4th quarter to put the Browns into great position to score, I wonder if Weeden would have been able to ever find the end-zone again in the game. The guy has to do a better job getting his team up and down the field. The Browns are not going to win many football games unless Weeden can become more consistent.

Weeden's final numbers for today's loss to the Cowboys were 20 of 35 for 210 yards and 2 touchdowns. That is 15 in-complete passes he threw. Weeden is not clutch at all. He can't get it done when he has too. He is nothing special and at the very best will have an average career in the NFL at best.  His average yards per completion is only .1 better than Colt McCoy's. Now listen people I am not saying McCoy should be the starter, I am simply using his stat from last season as a comparison.  Being only .1 yard per completion isn't that good for a guy to take another s job in my book.

Now for the Browns defense. Today they looked like the old Oakland Raiders defense with all the penalties they took in the game. The Browns defense did one heck of a job in the first half holding the Dallas Cowboys to nothing. You cannot expect a defense to get your team every win on the season. The Browns defense did what they could today to get a win for the team. The secondary is short-handed and the team has no depth in the secondary. The Browns offense needs to be able to control the football game a lot better than they do at times. The Cleveland Browns almost got it right today. Weeden needs to be able to make clutch plays if he wants to continue in the NFL.

70% of Browns fans aren't sold on Brandon Weeden being the Browns future. The Browns president Joe Banner came out during the bye week and said the team will look at Weeden's last 7 games to make a decision on Weeden's future. The team can't win a game that they held a 13-0 win over a team that isn't very good. The Browns aren't showing much promise as the season starts winding down.  The Cleveland Sports fans just got to witness another losing season. What else is new.

Larry Glicken is the owner of www.clevelandsports360.com and the host of the Cleveland Sports 360 Show, an online streaming sports video show at www.streamingsportstalk.com

Cleveland State Vikings Basketball 2012-2013 Season Preview

By Brett Crow, Staff Reporter

The Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t the only basketball team worth talking about it in Cleveland. Since 2006, Gary Waters has coached the men’s basketball Cleveland State Vikings to multiple NIT Tournament appearances and an NCAA Tournament bid, feats not accomplished with Cleveland State since the late 1980’s.

Gary Waters took the time to sit down with Jerry Mires of the Sports Fix this past weekend for an exclusive interview and give a preview of what to expect with the 2012-2013 Vikings campaign.

Right off the bat, Waters made no secret that he was extremely excited for the new season. “I’m always excited about basketball,” spoke Waters jovially, “and at the beginning, you’re very excited because you’re undefeated!”

Excitement certainly seemed to be the theme with Waters as he discussed his very young and talented roster: “I’m excited about them because they rejuvenate you and also they’re a talented group of young men, that’s what’s unique about them.”

“We’re excited about the direction of the program,” added Waters. “I think now we’ve established a culture. If you can’t fit in this culture with your abilities, how hard you play, and how disciplined you are, then we really don’t recruit you.”

The culture of coach Waters has been one of success, as he has a 122-82 record as coach of the CSU Vikings. It’s a stark contrast to the coach before Waters, Mike Garland, who sported a record of 23-60 during his tenure there. It’s a culture that the Viking’s group of nine freshmen and sophomore are likely to learn quickly.

One such sophomore is Anton Grady, the 6’8” sophomore forward who excelled last year and was named to the 2nd Team in the Preseason Horizon League team. “He’s really improve and is a great kid to coach. He’s a coachable player, and he really wants to be coached.”

“They’re young,” said Waters laughing when asked about what he had learned about his young team thus far. “We got a ways to go. When you’re young, your biggest area of concern is on the defensive end. So we got to get them right in that area. I can see that they like to run, this is a running team.”

“This is the most athletic team I’ve had. These guys are long and athletic,” said Waters of his team, offering high praise to his young crop of players.

Marlin Mason was one player in particular that Waters spoke very highly of. The 6’6” forward from Cass Tech High School was a redshirt who ended up playing last year due to injuries in the lineup. He had his arguably best game against Detroit last year with a career 15 points and nine rebounds.

The conversation then turned to the recruiting process: “You take someone like Junior Lomomba, he is as good a recruit as you can get. He was a top 100, and it came down to us, UCLA, and Washington and it tells you how good of a player he is. He’s a next level recruit. And we also have someone like Aaron Scales who had signed early with Missouri. These kids are one day going to be showing who they are at Cleveland State.”

The newly found national recognition was the next topic on the slate, as the Vikings head coach was asked about being in the preseason NIT: “We start out against Bowling Green, and if we’re fortunate enough to win that game, we move forward and play Michigan on their home court. We’re looking forward to that.”

The regular season is always the main concern though, especially playing games within your division. The Horizon League has suffered a small shake-up though with the mid-major school Butler leaving the Horizon League conference for the Atlantic 10.

“It’s going to hurt something because they establish their name. But what you need to remember is a year ago, they came in fourth. And they didn’t have one player on the All League team. So when you think about that, I won’t say they were going backwards, but they weren’t at the top of the league,” said Waters about Butler’s departure.

Waters was quick to remove any idea that he didn’t respect Butler: “Think about what they did, going to two Final Fours...There’s not many teams in America who can do that. What they did is, they raised the level of the Horizon League. Even though they left, they raised it to a level now that’s going to stay regardless if they are here or not.”

To hear more of the exclusive Coach Waters interview on the Sports Fix, check out the whole interview below.

The Sports Fix is Cleveland’s choice for sports talk in Northeast Ohio, hosted by Jerry Mires. They can be found online at www.thesportsfix.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thesportsfix

Who is to blame for the Ravens loss, Pt 2... PAT PAT PAT!

I'll have my positive notes of the game later, but I want to hear from Browns fans everywhere.. Who do you blame for yesterdays loss to the Ravens? There is no doubt in my mind, the man to blame, is the same one who can be blamed for alot of this teams problems, and thats Pat Shurmer. Allow me to list the reasons why...  1) Who allows their team to come out as unmotivated and unready to play against a 5-2 1st place rival team as we did yesterday (and do quite often under Shurmer)?... 2) He continues to mismanage the clock, timeouts and mishandle game situations. Case in point, the end of the 1st half. The Browns D made a great stop after yet another FG, and got the ball back, down 14-9 with 1:09 left. They only had 1 timeout to work with, because Pat wasted 2 in a 1 min span early in the 2nd quarter foolishly, btw. Then, Pat runs the ball for a yard on 1st down, apparently not trying to score, but run out the clock, because he allows the team to slowly set up and tick 30 secs off the clock, before someone tells Pat (maybe the booing in the stadium told him) that perhaps he should at least try to score. Then, because he mismanaged the drive and the clock, he never had to use the TO because he only had time to barely get in range for another FG, instead of taking a few shots from the 6 yd line where we ended up, Pat has to decide, either were running it out, or going for it, you cant change your mind, MID STREAM, or you get what we had here yesterday, and all too much in general... Then in the 2nd half, we got dose after dose of the famous 3rd and 7, lets run a 2yd pass, happened countless times again, and the Browns do this more than any team in football on a weekly basis... Penalties are a sign of bad team discipline and coaching, no excuse for back to back false starts to push a red zone offense back 10 yds, or how about the illegal formation that wiped the TD off the board... Also, when Weeden clearly was playing terribly, and he nearly throws the ball right to Ed Reed (whos that? You mean we should avoid him? Tomfoolery!), so what does Pat do next? Has him throw the ball again the next play, and of course he presses and throws a terrible pick with no one near him... (Weeden also missed a half dozen WIDE OPEN receivers throughout the game, too busy looking for the dump pass, which increases QB and offensive efficiency numbers for people who need all the stats they can get to keep jobs)... Then even after all of that, the Browns still were within a TD with 4 mins left and reached a deep in the wrong end of the field 4th down. Of course, after being criticized for not going for it on more favorable 4th down situations this year, Pat chose a terrible on to show us all look, ill go for it on 4th down, ON MY OWN END OF THE FIELD. Thanks Pat! Instead of letting your defense stop them and get the ball back with 2 mins to go (theres really no choice there), lets run a terrible 4th down play, turn over the automatic Raven FG and seal a 10 pt loss... This one was winnable, the fans who sat through this whole season, and froze through yesterdays game once again got the short end of the stick... Oh and the Browns overaggressive and ridiculously stupid security struck again at the end of the game, but ill talk much more about this later... Jimmy Haslam, fix your media relations dept, fix your overzealous rnat a cop security force who treat your paying customers like crap, and replace this moron of a head coach... Your team could actually be pretty good, if you just let them... Follow THE SPORTS FIX on Twitter @thesportsfixwhk, become a fan on Facebook, join the 12,000 plus at facebook.com.thesportsfix... and tune in LIVE every Sat night from 9p-12a on Newstalk 1420 WHK or streaming live on whkradio.com, tunein.com, i heart radio, or the HWK mobile app, and GET YOUR FIX!!!!

Face It Brandon Weeden Is One Heck Of An Athlete But He is Not The Real McCoy Has No Heart Try The PGA Tour

Written By Larry M. Glicken "LG"

Brandon Weeden is one heck of a great athlete, lets face it you don't get drafted into the M.L.B. to the New York Yankees or to the Cleveland Browns if you have no athletic ability. The problem with Brandon Weeden is he has no heart, he is afraid to take a hit and when he faces any kind of pressure he folds.

 He couldn't make it in major league baseball and he sure isn't able to cut the mustard in the N.F.L. as a starting quarterback, this leaves the P.G.A. tour. Weeden is said to play one heck of a good round of golf. Perhaps he should pursue a career on the PGA tour.    Lets face it, after what we saw today it is clear Weeden is not the real McCoy when it comes to playing in the N.F.L.. I told everyone in the preseason Brandon Weeden sucked as an N.F.L. quarterback and we all saw it again today. I took all kinds of flack for saying it in the preseason and I am still taking all kinds of flack now.

If you know football, you know it isn't often when an N.F.L. caliber quarterback misses wide open receivers who don't have any defenders within five yards of them stopping them from making a catch that offten, Brandon Weeden made a habit out of doing that in the Ravens game today. He didn't only miss one or two passes to wide open guys he couldn't  even find them half the time. The Browns had a real chance to win the game today. After losing to the Baltimore Ravens over the past five years, the Browns needed to jump on the opportunity to get a win today. Because of Brandon Weeden's lack of commitment to making plays the Cleveland Browns came away with yet another loss.

Who is this guy trying to fool? HE is afraid out on the field. When you play scared you can't get the job done. That was the case today and it was the case in Brandon Weedens very first game in the NFL. There is no other rookie quarterback in the NFL playing as poorly as Brandon Weeden.  I don't care what kind of excuses the Weeden lovers are going to make for this guy, it is time for a change in Cleveland. It is time to place Colt McCoy into the starting line up to see if this young team can win some football games.

 Weeden could still register for Q school on the PGA tour if he gets out now. This way his huge ego can be satisfied and the good people in the City of Cleveland may be able to see some winning football games. It is time for the Browns new owner to step in and demand better of his  1.1 billion dollar football team the good people of Cleveland are paying for.
Weeden lacks the heart to get the job done and we all know one thing. At least the kid from Texas has heart. Give him a freaking chance we are sick and tired of seeing losing football in Cleveland....

Larry Glicken is the owner of www.clevelandsports360.com and the host of the Cleveland Sports 360 Show, an online streaming sports video show at www.streamingsportstalk.com

Hey You Colt McCoy Haters Including You Denny Dice, The NFL Trade Deadline Passes & McCoy Still In Cleveland

Written By Larry M. Glicken "LG"

The 2012 N.F.L. Trade deadline has passed and the man who the Browns blamed for all their problems in 2011 is still a member of the Cleveland Browns. There were lots of people who said McCoy would be traded by the Browns, how stupid is that statement?

The Browns know better than to trade Colt McCoy, they would be left without a viable back-up quarterback that give the Browns a shot at winning football games.  The fans have been brain-washed by Pat Shurmur's attempt to place all the blame for his terrible rookie season as a head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Rather than take the blame for his on lack of abilities to use any imagination as a head coach, Shurmur made a quarterback switch so it would look as though all the Browns problems were because they didn't have a good quarterback.

These same fans fell for the bait and switch and have come to hate McCoy. They say McCoy plays a dink and dunk offense and that is all he is good for, they say McCoy doesn't have the arm strength to complete long passes in the NFL. These people don't recall the Injury McCoy suffered in the BCS bowl that damaged McCoy's throwing arm. Well guess what people, the Cleveland Browns aren't exactly ripping it up this season either.  They have a new quarterback who has a 1/2 yard longer passing average than McCoy had in 2011 and fewer wins so far in the 2012 season.

The problem's with the Cleveland Browns in 2011 weren't because of Colt McCoy. The play calling which still stinks in 2012 was done by Shurmur in 2011 and he still has no imagination. Sure the Browns completed a few long passes this season. The entire receiving core of the Browns looks a bit different this season. The only thing that really resembles the 2011 Cleveland Browns is the win-loss record. The Browns know better than to trade Colt McCoy. The guy knows the offense and the Browns know McCoy would play his butt off for the team even after the Cleveland Browns gave McCoy the shaft in 2012.

McCoy out-played the current starting quarterback in the preseason and he still got the shaft and the Cleveland fans who hate Colt McCoy are getting the shaft each Sunday the Browns lose football games. Yes sir the Browns are keeping Colt McCoy and there is a good reason they did. Rest assured if the Cleveland Browns didn't think Colt McCoy gave the team a chance to win football games he would have been gone. That is not the case.  The Browns management know that and they keep him on the team for that reason....

One thing is for sure. People think we at Cleveland Sports 360 don't like the Browns current Q.B.. I assure you that is not the case. What we don't care for is the Browns not putting the best players on the field. Does that mean we don't think the Browns new Q.B. is a good player? No not the case. We didn't think he was ready to start in the NFL and we do think McCoy would give the Browns the better chance to win. We are left watching the team go through another losing season and we are sick and tired of losing football games. It would be nice to at the very least play a .500 season. No Matter who was throwing the football.....Chalk another one up to the Browns management....

Larry Glicken is the owner of www.clevelandsports360.com and the host of the Cleveland Sports 360 Show, an online streaming sports video show at www.streamingsportstalk.com