"My girlfriend made me do it!" - A Cleveland Browns Rebuild!

[pokerplaya]

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Philadelphia Eagles AT Cleveland Browns

24 - 27

Long Weeden/Cribbs Touchdown Mends Broken Hearts in Opener

Cleveland, OH- It looked like the normal heartbreaking loss to start another year for the Cleveland Browns. Their young team, especially rookies Brandon Weeden and Trent Richardson, had played their hearts out -- only to see a very long Michael Vick pass find a streaking DeSean Jackson after Joe Haden stumbled falling back into coverage and take a well-deserved lead from them with only thirty-six seconds remaining on the game clock.

The score 24-20, and with two timeouts, Brandon Weeden wasn't expected to do much. Just like his new coach, Jay Jackson and his unknown staff, aren't expected to do much. They especially weren't expected to do even more after a holding pass on a narrow incompletion right after assuming possession. However, in a totally non-Cleveland style ending, Weeden and longtime Cleveland excitement broker Josh Cribbs hooked up on what appeared to be a streak route.

Cribbs took one small cut past the rushing safety, and was headed for daylight... no one would catch him, and the seventeen seconds he left remaining on the clock after his score was not enough for even the incomparable Mike Vick to overcome, and the Browns survived, 27-24, to go 1-0 and take an early lead in the AFC North.

Key Stats:

QB's:

Brandon Weeden (CLE) - 93.7 Rating, 26-38 for 356 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT.
Mike Vick (PHI) - 103.0 Rating, 23-29 for 289 yards, 3 TD, 3 INT. 8 for 62 rushing.

Weeden's numbers look stronger when you find out one of his INT's was on a Hail Mary into the endzone at the end of the first half.

RB:

Trent Richardson (CLE) - 23 carries, 153 yards, 6.7 average, 1 TD
LeSean McCoy (PHI) - 18 carries, 52 yards, 2.9 average, 0 TD

Leading Receivers:

Josh Cribbs (CLE) - 3 catches, 109 yards, 1 TD
DeSean Jackson (PHI) - 5 catches, 123 yards, 1 TD

Leading Tacklers:

D'Qwell Jackson (CLE), 10 -- T.J. Ward (CLE), Casey Matthews (PHI) 7

This week, the Browns take just a short ride down the road to face off against divisional rival Cincinnati, also tied for the division lead at 1-0.

[pokerplaya]

Just want to be clear, I have been through a full season, and won a Super Bowl and been through the full offseason in a CC before, so if any of you have any questions as we go about how something is working or something like that, please don't hesitate to ask questions.

I love to help.

For the record, I always do "The Grind" for my weekly practice. Three minutes on the clock and you're down by 6. 1300 XP for a win, 500 XP for a loss, I have determined it to be the best method for time management and worth.

Now, I just have to work on my scouting. That is the first package I am going for as a Team Builder... I need those scouting points, I will play VERY heavy in the draft in this CC.

Hope you are enjoying the format so far, and if there's anything else you'd like to see, please let me know. Thank you to all who may be following!

[AC]

All these guys in the baseball forums starting up football dynasties... I dunno why I'm following all these when I can barely name 4 guys on my favorite team. Looking forward to this, even if I dunno who anyone is haha.

[steviephresh319]

Great start to this man. Still going through your MLB franchise as well, but both look great so far!

[pokerplaya]

Thanks for following, Stevie... and you too, AC - I figured you to be a football guy too. I guess we'll have to learn you up a bit.

I'm glad that The Show guys are finding their way over to read this. It's not like I'm never going to play baseball again. That's the beauty of long franchises, they are LOOOONG. I've been a member of OS for like eight years now, its not like I'm going anywhere.

Well, unless another one of THOSE happens. And even then, I'll just OS on my PS3 browser.

We're just going to write about football right now, and then once we've had some fun, we'll go back and play some more baseball. At 50 played games in baseball I'm just as far as most simmed writers would be after a full season, so I didn't feel bad taking a little break. Plus, I was starting to destructify the ball. And yes, I did just make up a word, or apparently OS thinks I did. Yay.

I've already played Game 2 here, and I'm going down to play more. Just taking my notebook with me, I can write from memory as long as I jot down some notes and we can get farther into the season.

Trades don't really happen very often in the NFL season, so I'll update about any transactions that I can find out about (oooooooooooh!!! zinger) when I see them. I'm far more concerned with the draft and the storylines.

We're the Browns, and so far the consensus #1 is a West Coast QB. I'll bring up his name the next time I post -- but other than what *I* reveal, I don't want anyone bringing knowledge of draft classes into this thread, PLEASE. I have actively avoided trying to learn as much as I could.

[AC]

I got recruited to play rep football, but I dunno the advanced rules, so I declined. I'm SORTA a football guy, I guess.

As a Blue Jays fan, I know all about building through the draft, hahahaha.

Does anyone really care where I sent this from?

[pokerplaya]

I'm going down to try to finish Week 5's game, have my stuff in my notebook -- just been working the past few days and have wanted to spend the time playing or hanging out with my girlfriend rather than writing.

Everything is in my notebook for those games, so I'll be posting a series of game reports either this evening after work, or tomorrow evening after work, depending on how I feel.

I have the seniority that I've taken Sunday and Monday as my days off during the NFL season, so I'll be playing and writing this weekend and early into next week as well.

Just wanted to keep you posted.

Did have a serious injury in the Week 2 game, not an IR type injury, but one that is going to make you go, "Wow, that sucks!"

[Adam14]

I'm following, love your style of writing already.