Szmyt Happens. Browns lose to Bengals 17-16

    Rookie kicker Andre Smzmyt missed an extra point in the third quarter that would have tied the game, and missed a thirty-six yard field goal with two and a half minutes remaining in the game as the Cleveland Browns lost their opening game to the Cincinnati Bengals 17-16 in Cleveland.

Joe Flacco threw for 290 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions, and rookie running back Dylan Sampson caught six passes for sixty-four yards on offense, while the defense sacked Joe Burrow on three consecutive snaps in the second half to pace the defense.

The now 0-1 Browns travel to Baltimore next week, and based on what I saw from the Ravens in Buffalo, good luck with that!

Brownie Bits

1) The Browns placed all of their chips on the foot of Andre Szmyt, and it backfired, but this is about more than Szmyt.

It's about Andrew Berry not signing a proven challenger to Dustin Hopkins in training camp, and when Hopkins gave the team little choice other than releasing him, the unproven Szmyt was handed the job by default.

The Browns cannot afford to miss mandatory kicks; likely, Szmyt will likely be released this week, and hopefully someone with experience will be the replacement.

2) Joe Flacco did throw two interceptions, but both were passes that were dropped by receivers Jerry Jeudy and Cedric Tillman and into the arms of a waiting Bengal.

Neither can be placed on Flacco, and both Jeudy and Tillman were at fault for both picks.

3) Jerry Jeudy finished with six catches for sixty-six yards, but dropped a fourth-down pass to end a drive and added the previously mentioned interception.

The Browns are paying Jeudy like a number one receiver, but on a good team, Jeudy would be a number two or an excellent third option.

4) The Browns played rookie tight end Harold Fannin a great deal, and although Fannin had one drop as well, the Bowling Green product finished with seven catches for sixty-three yards.

Fannin's catches were the most ever for a rookie tight end in week one of an NFL season.

5)  The Browns struggled running the football, finishing with a mere forty-nine yards on twenty-four attempts, with rookie Dylan Sampson leading the team with twenty-nine yards.

For a team that proclaims the need to run the football this season, that number was disheartening.

6) The offensive line may not have helped the run game, but they did a solid job protecting Joe Flacco, as they allowed only two sacks, an acceptable number, considering the Bengals' pass rush includes an elite rusher in Trey Hendrickson.

7) Myles Garrett sacked Joe Burrow on two of the three consecutive sacks of Joe Burrow in the fourth quarter, but Burrow did one small thing that was just as important as Andre Szmyt's missed field goal in the Cincinnati win.

On the third sack, just as Garrett arrived in the pocket to grab Burrow for the sack, Burrow lunged forward and got the football out of the end zone (barely), avoiding the safety that would have given the Browns a one-point win.

8) Stat of the day: second half offensive yards- Browns 216, Bengals 7.

9) Greg Newsome played well at the corner in place of Martin Emerson, knocking down two passes, and Newsome shared coverage time with Denzel Ward on Jamarr Chase, holding the Bengal standout to only two catches for twenty-six yards.

10) Many are optimistic after this game, but I'm not.

Almost everything they needed to do to win, they did, and they still didn't complete the task.

The schedule gets tougher, and the team struggled to run the ball.

I'm afraid this might be the high point for a while.

Send in the Clowns

  This isn't a comprehensive Cleveland Browns preview due to time constraints, but I wanted to jot down a few notes for the record.

While I wish that this season would be the final word on the futures of Kevin Stefanski and especially Andrew Berry, I don't think that will turn out to be the case.

Jimmy Haslam loves these two guys (especially Berry), and I think that the stage is set for the excuse of "we had a forty-year-old quarterback with a third and fifth rounder as the backups, what did you expect"?

Which means it will then be fair to "allow them the chance to draft their own quarterback.

There is a path to some wins, although I think the people predicting eight or nine are on some good pain medication.

The Browns will have to hope they can receive running game help from Jerome Ford and rookie Dylan Sampson, and hope that the NFL doesn't hammer Quinshon Judkins with a suspension that would be more than a few games.

One of a lackluster group of wide receivers needs to break out, and if not them, rookie tight end Harold Fannin needs to step up to give Cleveland some hope of a passing game.

The defensive line looks very good, and I like what I've seen from rookie linebacker Carson Schwesinger at linebacker.

Denzel Ward and Greg Newsome need to stay healthy at corner because Martin Emerson is out for the season, and the depth is thin.

IF Cleveland can get the running game going, the defensive line provides the rush that the team hopes for, and rookie kicker Andre Szmyt can be decent, I could see the Browns winning six games.

I don't see all of that happening, and if the Browns don't win their opener against the Bengals at home, a brutal early-season schedule might leave them at 0-6.

That result will see the beginning of the force-feeding of Dillon Gabriel for sure and eventually, perhaps Shedeur Sanders.

The schedule gets easier midway through the campaign, with winnable games against Miami and Tennessee at home and New England, Chicago, Las Vegas, and the Jets on the road, but the Browns would need to sweep all six games and win a few that they shouldn't to get to eight wins.

I think they win some of those and finish with a record of 5-12 and a top ten pick.

 

Ohio State Smashes Grambling

    Julian Sayin tossed four touchdown passes, two of those to Jeremiah Smith, as the Ohio State Buckeyes cruised to a 70-0 win over the Grambling State Tigers in Columbus.

Sayin finished with three hundred six passing yards and an interception for the day while Smith grabbed five passes for one hundred and nineteen recieiving yards to pace the offense.

Freshman running back Bo Jackson led the team in rushing with one hundred eight yards and a touchdown in garbage time.

Ohio State improves to 2-0 with the win and will host the Ohio Bobcats next Saturday night.

Olentangy Offerings

1) This will be a little shorter because I hate these kind of games but I still believe that if Ohio State is going to play a 1-AA team, it needs to be Youngstown State or Dayton and keep the money inside the state.

If I had to guess, inviting Grambling might have been as simple as having two of the best college bands in the country on the same field.

2) The Julian Sayin to Jeremiah Smith eighty-seven yard touchdown pass was the second longest in program history.

3) Sayin's touchdown to tight end Will Kacmarek in the first quarter was as easy that you could find.

Kacmarek was so open that he might have been able to walk the forty-seven yards for the score.

4) Freshman linebaccker Riley Pettijohn scooped up a fumble for a touchdown on the first drive of the second half.

Pettijohn and Payton Pierce are going to be impact players for the Buckeyes next year but will see plenty of playing time this season.

5) Bo Jackson led the team in rushing and ripped off a fifty-one yard run in mop-up time but he showed signs of having that something in running backs that make a difference.

You might want to sharpen up those old Tecmo Bowl and Bo Knows references because I think you are going to need them.

PPM

    The PPM continues with college and the first week of the NFL season.

One note from the NFL as the New Orleans Saints return to the PPM, mainly as the Saints have hired Kellen Moore, the former Boise State quarterback and Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator, as their head coach.

Overall and Last Week: 6-6

College

Ohio State over Grambling 62-0

Texas Tech over Kent State 51-10

Boise State over Eastern Washington 31-16

N.C State over Virginia 24-20

Fresno State over Oregon State 23-17

Cincinnati over Bowling Green 24-17

Wisconsin over Middle Tennessee 37-17

Arkansas over Arkansas State 31-20

USC over Georgia Southern 38-13

UTSA over Texas State 30-27

Games of the Week

Oklahoma over Michigan 34-28

Iowa State over Iowa 20-14

NFL

Browns over Bengals 20-17

Cardinals over Saints 24-10

Games of the Week

Bills over Ravens 31-29

Packers over Lions 27-24

  

Boxing Challenge

    After an inactive week in the boxing challenge, this week, we return with one fight, but it's a championship fight as Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez defends his IBF junior lightweight title for the first time against veteran Christopher Diaz from Los Mochis, Mexico, on DAZN.

Nunez won the vacated title via unanimous decision over Masanori Rikiishi in May, winning a title that Anthony Cacace gave up rather than defend against Nunez. 

Nunez's win over Rikiishi was his 29th overall, but the first one that he won by a decision after twenty-eight stoppage victories.

Diaz is an experienced veteran who has lost two title attempts (Emanuel Navarette and Masayuki Ito), as well as a loss to Shakur Stevenson.

Diaz has only been stopped once in his five losses, so Nunez's power may not overwhelm Diaz, at least in the early rounds.

Still, Diaz is the exact type of opponent that promoters like to schedule for boxers making their first title defense- willing to fight on the road, tough enough to give rounds but not good enough to seriously threaten for the win.

Boxing Challenge

IBF Junior Lightweight Title, 12 Rds

Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez vs Christopher Diaz

Ramon Malpica and Vince Samano: Nunez Unanimous Decision

TRS: Nunez KO 9

I Tell Ya' Herbie

 It's our weekly look at college football, which we like to call I Tell Ya' Herbie!

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            The biggest surprise in week one saw Florida State, coming off a 3-9 season, batter top-ten Alabama into submission.

Florida State not only defeated the Tide, but they also bullied them, as Bama hadn't been pushed around in years.

Alabama allowed 230 yards in rushing, and while I'm open to this being week one jitters, it's possible the Tide lost the punishing defense that was such a force during the Nick Saban era.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             Still, it's reasonable to see the week one results, which are often overexaggerated, and think back to Florida State's week zero loss last year to Georgia Tech.

It was a major shocker at the time, but when the season ended, Florida State finished 3-9 and Georgia Tech 7-5, so a game that looks huge at the time often is meaningless by the end of the season.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                            It may not have national implications, but I'm happy to see Kansas and Missouri playing each other for the first time since 2011 and the Tigers' move to the SEC.

This is a huge rivalry and was so filled with animosity (mostly Kansas towards the departing Missouri) that the Jayhawks refused to play the Tigers in any sport for years.

The teams will play in Missouri this season and return to Kansas in 2026, but I am not aware of any further commitments.

At a time when regional rivalries are dying due to conference realignment, it's nice to see games like this played, even if only for a short time.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             Another one of my favorite rivalries appears to be a potentially important game come playoff selection time, as Iowa and Iowa State meet for the Cy-Hawk Trophy in Ames.

This is usually a fun rivalry, and with both teams having playoff hopes, a big non-conference win could go a long way come selection time.

Plus, with the added attention for Kirk Ferentz, who needs one win to become the winningest Big Ten coach in history, the Cy-Hawk is a game worth watching.       

Cleaning out the Inbox: Passings

       The tributes never stop, and we start with the jockey who rode arguably (because I don't agree) the greatest racehorse of all time.

Goodbye to Ron Turcotte at the age of 84.

Turcotte rode Secretariat to the 1973 Triple Crown, one year after guiding Riva Ridge to wins in the 1972 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.

Turcotte was the nation's leading rider in those two seasons and won over three thousand races in his career.

Turcotte's career ended tragically in 1978 when his horse broke down in a Belmont Park race, which resulted in injuries to Turcotte that left him a paraplegic.

Goodbye to Allan Hornyak at the age of 74.

Known as "The Bellaire Bomber", Hornyak was named All-Big Ten in each of his three varsity seasons for Ohio State (1971-73) and averaged twenty-two points per game during his Buckeye career.

Hornyak was drafted in 1973 by the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round and the ABA's Indiana Pacers in the third round (separate drafts, of course), but Hornyak signed with neither club, deciding not to play professional basketball.

Goodbye to Lee Roy Jordan at the age of 84.

The sixth overall pick by Dallas in the 1963 NFL Draft, Jordan would play his entire fourteen-year career with the Cowboys as the middle linebacker that made Tom Landry's "Flex" defense roll.

Jordan is currently second in team history in tackles, almost fifty years after his retirement, and he is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame for his career with Alabama.

Jordan made the Pro Bowl five times and won a Super Bowl with the 1971 Cowboys.

Goodbye to Joe Bugner at the age of 75.

Bugner challenged Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight title in 1975, losing a lopsided unanimous decision in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but fought many top contenders in the seventies and eighties.

Bugner fought Joe Frazier in an excellent fight, which Frazier won by split decision, fought Ali twice (once before Ali won the title for a second time), and held wins over one-time champions Jimmy Ellis, Greg Page, and Bonecrusher Smith in a long career that saw several retirements and eventual returns to the ring.