Murphy’s Law (noun): Whenever something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
That summed up how today went in Denver for the Browns, as the team falls to 7-4 on the season.
I can handle when my team loses a game against an opponent who’s genuinely better than they are. As long as they play clean football, fight their hardest, and go until the final whistle, I’m proud of the Browns win or lose. If they go down swinging against a better opponent, so be it.
But unfortunately, they didn’t play anything like that today. And I’m not taking anything away from Denver. They played opportunistic football, won this one fair and square, and they’re back in the playoff chase. But I’d venture to say that the Broncos didn’t beat the Browns, as much as the Browns beat themselves.
What went wrong? Let’s take a look.
Missing person report: Browns defense
For all this team has gone through over the course of 11 games, they have been able to hang their hat on stout defense that makes clutch stops when they need them the most. They beat the Steelers, Ravens and Niners playing like that.
But that same defense was nowhere to be found today. Especially on the ground. Denver did to Cleveland what the Browns usually do to other teams when they’re playing well. The Broncos gashed this defense for 169 rushing yards on 39 carries (4.3 yards per carry).
Those numbers look like normal Browns numbers. Denver fed Cleveland a bitter dose of their own medicine, the orange and blue avalanche rolled downhill, and the Browns were powerless to stop it.
Turnovers and undisciplined play
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I may love cherry, apple and strawberry turnovers. I’m a foodie. But I despise the kinds of turnovers the Browns committed today. Denver came into today’s game having forced 11 turnovers in their four-game winning streak before this. The Broncos can now add three more, and they can notch another win as well.
Two of those turnovers led directly to Broncos touchdowns, including the dagger later in the game. The Browns were only down 17-12 and driving for possibly the go-ahead touchdown, when Elijah Moore lost the football on a failed sweep/reverse on the Browns’ 20-yard line.
To an opportunistic and hungry Broncos team, they smelled blood and went in for the kill, scoring a touchdown to effectively ice the game shortly after. They deserve all the credit in the world. Playoff contenders do that.
Along with committing three costly turnovers, the Browns were also flagged eight times for 66 yards in penalties. One week after they played an incredibly clean game against Pittsburgh, and only got called for one penalty through four quarters of tough football, the Browns failed miserably in this area of the game.
The pass interference penalty called on Browns cornerback Greg Newsome seemed to set the tone for Denver today. Newsome usually plays pretty solid, and he’s quietly been one of the better cornerbacks in the league so far this year. But he got called for a 34-yard penalty that gave Denver an early offensive spark, and the Broncos took advantage of it.
I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the others were. It just seemed like once the Broncos made Newsome and the Browns pay for that uncharacteristic mistake, every other penalty seemed to compound things for Cleveland. Things just snowballed and went from bad to worse. And this next facet of the game didn’t help the Browns’ case either.
Questionable play calling
Where do I begin here? Many of the guys responsible for this facet of the game deserve some blame today. Kevin Stefanski, David Njoku, and the receiving corps in particular.
Truly great football teams prepare well, and execute well when the time comes. This means calling a common-sense football game, putting your players in the best position to win, and then going out and DOING those things in the clutch. The Browns have been surprisingly good at this for most of the season. It’s why they have seven wins so far.
For Kevin Stefanski’s part in the loss: I did not understand his fascination with throwing the football so much on first down. The only time a run-first football team should probably throw to start a series, is right after their defense gets a turnover that puts them in good position.
Taking deep shots in that situation does a number of things: It stretches the defense, keeps them honest, and sends a loud and clear message that you’re not afraid to attack them through the air. But the Browns were never in that situation today. They had a rookie quarterback making his third start. They never led this game. They were never in a position to be that aggressive.
The only way throwing on first down makes any sense to me, is if Stefanski was trying to build DTR’s confidence and get him into a rhythm. But even if that was the case, I still don’t agree with his thinking on that one.
You stick with your bread and butter, run the football as best as you can, and try to keep the pressure off your young quarterback. You don’t have him continue to throw early on in a series like that. Otherwise, you risk being in several third and long situations where he has to make plays to keep the chains moving. That unfortunately happened several times today. You’re supposed to make things easier for DTR. Not harder.
Weird situational football/poor execution
Also, why on earth is that reverse sweep still a thing? I genuinely do not understand why it’s in the playbook. The play may look pretty in practice, but it’s just not practical or fast enough to be consistently effective.
It takes longer to develop, the ballcarrier on that play starts well behind the line of scrimmage, and the play itself leaves guys open to getting tackled for a loss way too often. Or in the case of Elijah Moore, he got lit up and lost the football for what proved to be the game-deciding turnover. This play was just a microcosm of a game full of poorly executed football.
Lastly, I did not understand Kevin Stefanski’s game management at times. Particularly throwing the football inside the Broncos six-yard line when he had a pair of timeouts in his back pocket, and a decent running game at his disposal.
If the Browns had executed the end of that series right, they likely would have run the football, scored a touchdown to make it a 14-10 ballgame, and then go into the locker room with some momentum. But instead of that, Stefanski opted to throw three straight passes before settling for a field goal to make it 14-6.
Perhaps Stefanski saw something he liked in terms of matchups. But scoring touchdowns in that situation needs to be the goal, and common-sense football is the way to get there. Toss the analytics out the window, or shelve it for a later time, and give Kareem Hunt or Jerome Ford the football, and run it behind Nick Harris in the “extra beef” package!
I genuinely like Kevin Stefanski as a person, and he is a good leader for this team. But he often tries to reinvent the wheel at times. There’s a reason running the football in short yardage, goal to go situations, has worked ever since the game of football was invented. He needs to quit trying to go against the grain on that one.
An uncharacteristic case of the “dropsies”
Even though the buck stops with him since he’s the Browns head coach, Kevin Stefanski wasn’t the only one to blame today on the offensive side of things. There were a ton of drops by Browns receivers and tight ends today. The Browns’ normally solid tight end David Njoku had most of them. But Amari Cooper and Elijah Moore had a few as well.
Along with using a great running game to take the pressure off a young quarterback, his receivers and tight ends need to help him out too, by catching the football. If they do that? The offense can get into a rhythm and he can catch fire and be more and more confident as the game goes on. If his receivers and tight ends are doing their job, he’ll trust them, and be much better at his job. DTR was let down by the Browns’ wideouts and tight ends today.
Injury concerns
The Browns have been tough and battled hard through 11 games. But football is a nasty, violent game that will take its toll on any team. Whether they play 10 games in high school, 12 games in college, or 17 games in the NFL, every team will have to deal with injuries at some point in the year. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Several key Browns players were already out going into this game, including: Nick Chubb, Deshaun Watson, Jack Conklin, Denzel Ward and Rodney McLeod.
Jordan Elliot, Amari Cooper, and DTR could all be on that list as well after today. As of this article, I don’t know the severity of their injuries. But Jordan Elliott hurt his ankle, Amari Cooper injured his ribs, and DTR looks to have a concussion.
This likely leaves the door open for veteran quarterback Joe Flacco to make his first start as a Brown next week when Cleveland faces the LA Rams.
The Browns are again being forced to face more obstacles. They’re a wounded team far from home. They need to get as healthy as possible between now and next Sunday’s game in Los Angeles. And they need to regroup and prepare against a Rams team that’s fighting for their playoff lives.
If Cleveland is going to make the Playoffs, it’ll be by doing it the hard way. By gutting it out over the final six weeks, staying together, stepping up, and executing as well as they possibly can. It truly is one game at a time as we enter the stretch run over the last month and a half of the season. How they respond next week will tell us a lot about what kind of team they are.
But I still have faith in them. Keep the faith, Dawg Pound! They’ve come this far. No reason for them to pack it in now!
GO BROWNS!
Statistical Leaders
Dorian Thompson-Robinson: 14-29, 134 yards, TD
Jerome Ford: 9 carries, 64 yards
David Njoku: 6 receptions, 59 yards
Source: ESPN
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