Cleveland Browns: Tough overtime loss landed four in the dawg house

DeShone Kizer

It’s been a tough year for Kizer to say the least. This is his second time as a candidate for the dawg house. He got benched again in the fourth quarter after throwing his second interception of the game and it seems to be a theme of his lately.

Kizer now has three touchdowns, and leads the NFL with 11 interceptions. Some of those are because of the terrible group of receivers on the team. Others though are from his bad decision making when throwing the ball.

He’s now been taken out of three of seven games for erratic play. Some are saying it’s bad for a quarterback’s development and psyche to be taken in-and-out of games, but Jackson believes it’s about winning games and executing his system correctly.

I’m not a coach, nor will I pretend to be, but constantly taking the “leader” of the team out of a game can’t be good for overall chemistry.

Players need somebody to get behind and support, and if a coach is reactionary and indecisive on his choice of the most important position on a team, it’s not a good look.

Jackson has already chosen Kizer to be the starter this week in London against the Minnesota Vikings. But will a few mistakes get him taken out and Kessler put back in?

Kizer has been awful, but unfortunately he’s the best option. He has all the intangibles that I’ve mentioned in my previous dawg house articles–he just doesn’t have the mental capacity of an NFL starting quarterback.

It could be because of Jackson or Kizer just might not have the “it” factor. I understand the Browns have absolute garbage at the receiving position, but he can’t keep throwing behind and over the head of his targets constantly. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Most teams hope that with a young QB, they learn from their mistakes and become better with each week. It hasn’t happened with Kizer.

He’s regressing at a significant pace.  His QBR rating is getting worse by the week. He went from 43.5 against the Cincinnati Bengals to 36.3 against the Titans.

It doesn’t help that media types are questioning his integrity after going out last Friday to a local bar. I see nothing wrong with it at all, but when a team is winless, everything is questioned and under a microscope.

Is he the quarterback of the future for the Browns? It’s still too early to say. Just like most Browns fans, I’m waiting for the one defining game that tells us there is something to build upon, but it’s yet to come.

It doesn’t help that Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson (who I believe is overrated) are performing at high levels. It always seems like players in Cleveland take longer to develop than in other places.

Russell Wilson was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks and instantly turned the team into a Super Bowl champion.  The Browns drafted Brady Quinn and he’s a bust. It’s just an endless cycle of failures that keep happening.

I don’t know what we’ll see from Kizer on Sunday, but hopefully it’s major improvement as the team goes forward.