Browns’ offense, defense dominate 49ers

“For me personally, it’s continue to try and progress”. They and the Bengals are getting a chance to watch a quarterback develop before their very eyes these days. “He did a lot more good than he did bad”. Getting the start on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, there were a lot of folks moaning and groaning that he would be plastered all over our television screens.

“I don’t think I have words to do it justice”, an emotional Dawson said afterward. “We played poorly. There’s not a man in this locker room that doesn’t own part of this, starting with me”.

The fingerprints of such a woeful defeat were indeed numerous.

Marcus Martin, who started his 13th game of the season at center, took over for Boone when he exited the game. 49ers outside linebacker Ahmad Brooks mentioned how the team might have played the Browns a little bit soft. Sure it was only the 49ers but there were some good takeaways. That doesn’t happen all the time in the NFL.

Tomsula deserves the most blame for that.

NFL: Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spotted at the Phildelphia Eagles home game against the Buffalo Bills, taking some sideline vision prior to kick off.

Whether it keeps Hayne out of the team with three games left in the regular season remains to be seen.

Also significant were the postgame comments of Cleveland coach Mike Pettine.

Even with the Brown’s turnovers leaving the doors open for the 49ers, Gabbert and a stale 49ers offense failed to move the ball against the Cleveland defense. “There were some things schematically we thought we could take advantage of, especially in some of the spread run game….” “I tell the fellows all of the time: once you win, there is an overreaction, & whenever you lose, there is an overreaction”.

It is extremely rare to hear an National Football League head coach speak about exploiting a schematic advantage over an opponent – because basically, you are bragging that you out-coached the other guy.

It appeared that the 49ers were making just enough progress for Tomsula to somehow defend keeping his job. They sacked Blaine Gabbert 9 times.

Outside the pocket, Manziel was 4-of-6 for 88 yards, with no touchdowns and the one glaring interception.

During the second quarter of the 49ers’ 24-10 loss to the lowly Cleveland Browns on Sunday, Ellington conjured up his longest punt return of the season for 36 yards.

Significantly, all of this occurred under the gaze of the entire York ownership family – Jed, Denise, John, Tony, Jenna and Mara. The off-season might be a tense one for Cleveland’s front office, should it want its young QB back again in 2016.

Will that yield drastic action after the season? The defense needs to follow up yesterday’s performance again next week against Seattle – which has scored 30 or more points in three consecutive games – and the following week and the week after.