Kizer not getting enough help from his teammates
Can someone INDIANAPOLIS — make a play to help a rookie quarterback?
Kenny Britt made one play Sunday, reaching low to catch a touchdown before tumbling onto his backside in the end zone. Duke Johnson made them all day, scampering in with a one-man effort for a 19-yard touchdown off a little flip from DeShone Kizer, and catching six of the seven passes thrown his way, even when some were off target. Jordan Leslie made one with a one-handed leaping 26-yard grab near the goal line on his only target of the day to set up a score. Anyone else? Anyone else did nothing but let down a 21-year-old making his third start on a day when the Browns skill players ruined their chances at victory in a 31-28 loss to the Colts.
There were seven or eight drops among Kizer’s 22-for47 day, and when you have trouble tracking exactly how many drops there were, that’s a problem. The fear now is that every time Kizer hits his receivers in the hands and they put it on the ground, it does something to the confidence of the young thrower.
“Today would have gone a lot different if we would have went out there and executed every play,” said Britt, who had three catches and two drops among his 10 targets. “So I actually put this game right here on the skill positions, on the wide receivers as a unit. Because that’s not us. I know we can play at a higher level, to tell you the truth.”
That’s not a truth that everyone is so sure of.
Obviously the Browns miss Corey Coleman, the second-year player and firstround draft pick out with a broken hand. That leaves no one in the receiver room that’s close to a sure thing. Outside of Johnson, the running back/receiver hybrid, the Browns receivers were targeted 25 times Sunday and made eight catches for 110 yards, dropping at least six balls among their group, maybe seven.
Second-year receiver Ricardo Louis had a rough day, with at least three drops, including a long sideline pass that could have been a touchdown. Kizer dropped it right in his hands. Louis just dropped it.
Every team drops passes sometimes, just like every quarterback misfires sometimes. But you think about that Louis drop, you think about the second drive of that second quarter that started with a Britt drop and ended with Rashard Higgins drop, you think about the pass behind Britt over the middle that did hit his hands and wound up as an interception ...
The Browns could have had a very different day. Kizer could have had a very different day.
“It’s very tough man, because he’s leaving plays on the field (because of the drops),” Louis said. “That just means we’ve got to get back to work.”
Will work be enough? Britt is the veteran making $8 million a year. If the Browns can’t count on him for more, they’re done. He did have the tumbling touchdown, and he did haul in a 38-yard sideline deep ball from Kizer.
He also said he should have caught the pass that was intercepted after he tipped it.
“I was always told if it touches your hands, you can catch it,” Britt said. “So regardless of where the pass was, my job is to always make the quarterback look good. So it’s not on him.”
No one else comes with a track record. Maybe they’ll start making the catches, maybe they’ll improve their chemistry with Kizer, or maybe this is a season-long issue.
Kasen Williams, claimed on waivers from Seattle just before the start of the season, was targeted twice and made one catch for 10 yards. The other throw was intercepted at the 3-yard line on a play that looked like a miscommunication as Kizer threw behind Williams.
Williams said he ran the right route, and Kizer adjusted to what he saw, and then missed.
“I did what I was supposed to do,” Williams said. “He saw the inside backer closing in and he wanted to put me away from the inside backer to protect me. He wanted to put me a little bit outside and it was just a little bit too far for me.”
With a rookie QB and a receiver on the team for three weeks, there’s reason to think that should happen less in the future.
“It’s just a feel thing,” Williams said. “He’s coming to me a lot in practice with throws, so we’re starting to build that camaraderie. That’s shaping up pretty well. That play just was what it was.”
A lot of plays were like that Sunday. Maybe the future will bring fewer of them. Kizer can’t do it alone. Leslie’s big play led to a score. Johnson’s big run hit the end zone. Britt’s tumbling catch was a score.
Kizer will give receivers chances. He needs someone to take advantage of them. Had that happened more Sunday, the Browns would be 1-2 right now.
The Cincinnati Bengals got the Bill Lazor era off to a fast start Sunday at Green Bay before eventually wilting in the rare September heat and even rarer talent that is Aaron Rodgers.
The Packers quarterback rallied his team from a 14-point deficit with a pair of second-half touchdown passes, including a 3-yarder to Jordy Nelson with 17 seconds left in the fourth quarter to force overtime.
The Bengals went three and out to start the extra period, then Rodgers hit Geronimo Allison with a 72-yard pass to set up Mason Crosby’s 27-yard field goal that lifted Green Bay to a 27-24 triumph.
Here are five things to know about the loss that dropped the Bengals to 0-3:
Under the direction of new offensive coordinator Lazor, who replaced the fired Ken Zampese on Sept. 15, the Bengals gained 167 yards on their first three drives, two of which ended with their first touchdowns of the season.
On those three possessions, they picked up 11 first downs and were 4 of 5 on third down while quarterback Andy Dalton went 9 of 10 for 97 yards and two touchdowns.
And then the offense went into hiding.
Over the final eight drives, the Bengals gained just 134 yards and were 0 of 7 on third down.
Their best chance to convert one came late in the fourth quarter on third and 1 at the Packers 27. But running back Joe Mixon slipped before he could take the handoff, and the Bengals had to settle for a Randy Bullock 46-yard field goal.
Instead of finishing the drive in the end zone to take an 11-point lead, the Bengals went up by seven with 3:46 to go, and Rodgers drove the Packers 75 yards for the game-tying score with 17 seconds left.
“We obviously played better,” Dalton said. “But at the end of the game, we’ve got to find a way to put that away. We know what kind of offense they have. We know what Aaron (Rodgers) can do. Unfortunately we had to slip on third down. Obviously it was good we got the field goal made, but we left too much time for them.”
The offensive lull included a drive with the best starting field position of the game, which came on the final possession of the third quarter when the Bengals took over at the Green Bay 47. But on third and 7 at the 22, Dalton got sacked for an 8-yard loss and Bullock missed a 48-yard field goal that would have given the team a 10-point lead.
Three times this year the Bengals have started a drive in opponent territory, and they’ve failed to score on each of them.
The Bengals sacked Rodgers six times, with rookie Carl Lawson recording 2.5 of them.
They were the first career sacks for Lawson, who was working against Packers backup left tackle Kyle Murphy with Pro Bowler David Bakhtiari out with a hamstring injury. Lawson, according to pro-football-reference. com, became the first rookie since 2002 and 11th overall to have at least 2.5 sacks in one of the first three games of his career.
Lawson had another sack wiped out when cornerback William Jackson was a tick late getting to the sideline, resulting in a penalty for 12 men on the field.
Carlos Dunlap, Michael Johnson and Darqueze Dennard also had sacks, while Chris Smith had 0.5, sharing the lone one in the second half with Lawson.
Geno Atkins’ streak of six consecutive games with at least half a sack came to an end.
The Bengals had been 5-1 under head coach Marvin Lewis when recording at least six sacks in a game.
For Rodgers, it was only the second time in his career he was sacked at least five times in the first half.
The big question with Lazor taking over as coordinator was whether he would continue to employ a threeman rotation at running back with Jeremy Hill, Joe Mixon and Giovani Bernard.
All three continued to play, but Mixon emerged as the feature back for the first time as he was on the field for 34 of the team’s 61 snaps while logging 18 of the group’s 28 carries. It was the first time the rookie played more than half of the snaps.
But another three-man rotation emerged on the offensive line, with veteran Andre Smith alternating between giving breathers to left tackle Cedric Ogbuehi and right tackle Jake Fisher.
Lewis attributed it to the heat, with the gametime temperature being 89 degrees, making it the warmest game in the 60-year history of Lambeau Field.
“We went into the game just knowing it was going to be a warm day,” Lewis said. “And we played everybody just about and did that on both offense and defense and special teams and receivers and everybody. We knew it was going to be a warm day.”
A.J. Green’s 10-yard touchdown reception on the first drive of the game was the 50th of his career in his 89th game. He reached another milestone later in the game with his 500th reception. It was a 20-yard gain with 8:17 left in regulation to extend the team’s final scoring drive of the game.
Green joins Pro Football Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison and Larry Fitzgerald as the only players in NFL history with at least 500 catches and 50 touchdown receptions in his first 90 games. Green finished with 10 receptions for 111 yards. The 29th 100-yard game of his career left him two shy of Chad Johnson’s franchise record.
The Bengals were one of the few teams in the NFL that didn’t have a player take a knee during the national anthem, deciding instead to protest President Donald Trump’s recent comments with a more subtle showing.
Most of the players and coaches stood with their arms locked, and Lewis explained the display after the loss.
“This thing has put the players into an awkward position, and our guys remain very committed to winning football games and continuing the great things they do in our community in Cincinnati, in their outreach in everything they do,” Lewis said. “And they chose to show their support for our veterans, for our military, for the Cincinnati community by simply standing and staying unified together. They weren’t going to let the divisive words divide them.
“That’s the conclusion they came to, to be very respectful of the anthem and to stand together and focus on what we want to do and that’s win football games,” Lewis added. “We’ve been consistent with that all of the way through . ... It’s over. You don’t want to have that be a focus of football. Unfortunately, it was.”