The most significant outcome of Monday night’s game was the devastating loss of Nick Chubb to a season-ending injury. However, as injuries are unfortunately part of this game, the team must now redirect their attention towards learning from this loss and identifying areas for improvement. While this was a tough loss in many ways, it’s important to remember that the season is far from over, and the Browns must prepare themselves for another physical game against Tennessee. Here’s what the Steelers game showed us about this Cleveland football team.
Offense
This offense as a whole struggled mightily against a strong Pittsburgh defense. Let’s begin by addressing the 230 million dollar-man who wasn’t up for the challenge on Monday. While it’s true that pass protection wasn’t on point, and receivers as well as tight ends dropped catchable balls, Watson hasn’t looked as advertised even with a full offseason in the building. By paying him this much money, the team expects their quarterback to elevate the performance of his offensive teammates, a feat Watson has struggled to achieve thus far. His accuracy, especially on deep throws, left much to be desired, with several passes sailing 5-10 yards out of bounds. He consistently struggled with timing routes and to throw with anticipation, resulting in missed opportunities for chunk yardage. At times, he held on to the ball for too long in search of deep targets, leading to him taking off with the ball and getting hit or sacked instead of opting for check-downs. You could sense the pressure he was putting on himself to compensate for the offensive struggles, rather than trusting his teammates from time to time. Additionally, he wasn’t able to maintain his composure, getting flagged for two very unnecessary facemask penalties late in the game.
As I mentioned earlier, pass protection emerged as a significant issue for Cleveland in this game. While some growing pains were expected with rookie Dawand Jones, Jedrick Wills turned in one of his least impressive performances as a Brown. Neither of these tackles could effectively contain Highsmith and Watt in one-on-one matchups. To be fair, Stefanski didn’t provide them with as much help in the form of double teams or chips as he probably should have. If the tackles, especially Wills, don’t improve significantly, the offense and Deshaun Watson will look rough against the better pass-rushing units in the league. The run blocking, particularly from the interior group, was a little better. However, they had some head-scratching blocking concepts, such as letting Harrison Bryant block T.J. Watt one-on-one with the running back rushing to his side.
What intrigued me was Stefanski’s extensive use of Harrison Bryant, particularly after Bryant had dropped both of his targets, one of which led to a pick-six on their first offensive snap. It appears that Stefanski is attempting to disguise his play calling by deploying personnel that could hint at different plays than those they actually run. In theory, this is a great idea, especially when combined with the numeruos pre-snap motions they used. However, I would much rather see them executing their bread and butter plays on a high level than trying to just out-coach the defense.
The three turnovers played a pivotal role in the loss. However, I wouldn’t really place the blame on Watson for any of these turnovers. The interception, for instance, happened because of a catchable ball that Bryant tipped into the air. As for the fumble, if Highsmith hadn’t reached Watson nearly untouched, the fumble probably wouldn’t have occurred. While Njoku’s fumble happened on a third down play that had little chance of being converted, it did give the Steelers excellent field position. Fortunately, it didn’t lead to any additional defensive points for them.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t all bad for the Browns. Deshaun Watson looked like he has developed good chemistry with Cooper already, delivering some impressive throws to him on key downs. He also threw some accurate passes to other targets, but as I said those came a lot more inconsistent. Although I did not like Watson running as much as he did, it is a skill that the Browns should tap into in a more controlled manner, such as utilizing RPOs or designed rollouts, where he displayed better accuracy and had a higher chance of evading the pass rush.
Although losing Nick Chubb is a significant setback for the running game, I am confident that Jerome Ford can be a very good featured back. Despite less-than-ideal run blocking, he still managed to use his speed to get around defenders and even looked somewhat powerful on a few runs through the middle. If Watson’s struggles continue, this team should still be able to fall back on these running backs, especially with the addition of Kareem Hunt to support Ford and Strong.
Defense
As underwhelming as this offense may have been, the defense looked absolutely incredible. The defensive line was making life hell for the Steelers by constantly controlling the line of scrimmage and forcing Pickett to get rid of the ball quickly or meeting running backs in the backfield. Schwartz orchestrated strategic positioning of his defensive linemen, such as having Myles Garrett line up at 0-technique or even blitzing as a middle linebacker to use his speed against slower interior linemen. The “cheetah” package, featuring Garrett, Smith, Ogbo and Tomlinson/Harris is one of the nastiest I’ve seen and consistently applied pressure on passing downs, regardless of the level of protection provided by the offensive line. This dominance also allowed the linebackers and safeties to take calculated risks and reduced the time in coverage, as Pickett couldn’t hold the ball for more than 3 seconds.
Schwartz also made great use of his cornerbacks by capitalizing on their strengths in man coverage, resulting in some impressive pass deflections. However, the standout in the secondary was undoubtedly Grant Delpit, who delivered yet another remarkable performance in Pittsburgh, marked by an interception and a fumble recovery. He looks like a different player, flying over the field, making plays from sideline to sideline, while also being able to manipulate the quarterback into throwing picks. If I were in the Browns’ front office, extending Grant Delpit as soon as possible would be my top priority right now because if he keeps playing like this, I would not want him to hit free agency.
If you want to be nitpicky, the Browns’ defense had a few missed tackles, giving up some extra yardage. Additionally, Rodney McLeod dropped what should have been an easy interception. However, overall this was a defensive clinic, which effectively kept the offense in the game.
Special Teams
Usually special teams isn’t that much of a deciding factor when your kicker is making field goals and extra points. However, in this particular game, there were some pretty bad mental errors. For instance, Jordan Elliott jumped the snap on an extra point, leading the Steelers to opt for a two-point conversion, which fortunately was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, a more significant issue emerged in the form of DPJ handling punt returns. He allowed several easily catchable punts to bounce, leading to crucially bad field position for an already struggling offense.
Conclusion
Despite all the offseason hype, the offense hasn’t looked much improved from when Watson took over in 2022. Nevertheless, there is still time for the offense to discover its rhythm, particularly if the defense continues to maintain its exceptional level of play. While certain key improvements are necessary, it’s not time to hit the panic button just yet.
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