When the first Joe Flacco interception happened I thought it looked interesting. There was a specific way Kevin Stefanski showed emotion on the sideline that was unusual and there was a specific way the target, Cedric Tillman, reacted to the outcome of the play.
When the interception was thrown, it looked like a total miss by the quarterback, but there are many layers to the mistake and how it came to be and it boils down to what many throwing mistakes are centered on: miscommunication.
The concept is known as “Hoss” which is a scheme from the Erhardt-Perkins system, where the terminology is designed to be very simple for the quarterback to learn. The “HOSS” part stands for “Hitches Outside, Seams.” The “Y-Juke” tells the #3 receiver on the “trips” side to run a “juke” route. There are many variations of this play and the Browns run it from 3×1 which is not all too common. Here is the general draw-up.
On the inside, if the middle of the field (MOFO) is open they are to run “Bender” routes. These routes attack the open grass between the split safeties, so once you notice the coverage is open (Cover-2, Cover-4, Cover-6) the bender route comes into play. Work past the slot defender redirecting you, then bend it back into the middle.
The Browns wanted to attack the Bears’ open safety coverage with this one and here is what the defense looks like for the play.
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Cleveland Browns News 12/21: Joe Flacco Beardless, Kevin Stefanski Hyped, and Case Keenum is Serious Business
As the Cleveland Browns prepare to battle the Houston Texans, Joe Flacco prepares for battle by removing facial hair while it looks increasingly likely that he’ll be matched up against former Kevin Stefanski student Case Keenum…
Now we’re getting somewhere. Today’s OBR Daily Newswire features several stories on Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco shaving off his beard, and quarterback personal grooming stories are undoubtedly among my favorites in the journalistic catalog.
They’re somewhere below “Cleveland Browns Win Super Bowl” stories and well above “Tight End Lost for the Season in Disasterous Fly-Fishing Incident.”
This is because a beard-shaving story generally means two things: (1) There’s enough positive interest in the Browns for reporters to care as to whether the Browns QB shaves his beard without resorting to snarky remarks about it, and (2) there’s not a horrifying gruesome injury or another awful story to dominate the headlines. Both of these are good things.
For those looking for the details, Flacco shaved off the beard, which was dangerously encroaching upon his neck and threatening a hair bridge between his nostrils and the rest of his body because “it was a mess.” So there you go.
Personally, I admire Flacco for shaving off a serviceable beard. If I could grow a decent beard, I’d parade that thing around and shelter woodland creatures in it.
Unfortunately, my beard growth has two major issues. The first is that, per feedback from my wife, it “makes me look even fatter,” which is a bad thing, and the second is that it refuses to color coordinate with the rest of my face.
When I was younger, my beard would come in sort of red, clashing with my dull brown hair. Now, it comes in gray, giving away the secret of my advanced age, which most people can’t detect because the level of my social awkwardness corresponds closer to the age of fourteen.
I’ve found being nerdy and awkward briefly distracts people I contact from my chronological age so that, assuming I escape social situations quickly enough, it simply leaves them confused.
At the opposite end of that spectrum, Flacco can not only grow a beard, he’s proclaimed a hero for his adult calm and demeanor in the huddle and elsewhere, providing instant leadership-in-a-can for the Cleveland Browns, who needed it after season-ending injury #47 left their 2023 campaign in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, the Browns are saying all the right things about Texans quarterback Case Keenum, who looks increasingly likely to be the signal caller when the Texans take the field on Sunday.
Keenum is quite a familiar face to Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, who helped him take the Vikings deep in the playoffs a few years ago and who brought him in, apparently as a sideline decoration, during the Baker Mayfield years.
Stefanski has apparently been talking about Keenum’s capabilities because the Browns are all singing from the same hymnal about taking the threat he poses seriously.
