DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2020 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 20 Giants 6 Defense

FYI, I didn’t pay too much attention to the D lineup during the game. More just watching and hoping we could contain Jackson. I have been seeing a lot of criticism on Woods for sticking with a man scheme all game. Thoughts?

Spy?? LOL! We had no Spy.

The defensive game plan looked like it was for a slow drop back passer...

Here's my take. The kicker missed a FG.. Baker threw an INT.. there was a busted coverage on 4th and 5 that led to a TD... those are 1 bad play. Everybody is entitled to make 1 bad play once in a while, they are human and it happens.

The defense couldn't stop Lamar and the Ravens for the entire 60 minutes. It wasn't a case of "Oops, we screwed that one up", it was more than half of their possessions...

DC,
I think I can address your last point with your earlier point. L

Safety was obviously just a fluke play. So they scored 45 on us. So did Dak, but that's beside my point. Take away the 1 busted coverage you mention, it's 38 points. Take away Baker's pick 6ish, and it's 31 points. And isn't that right on with what our defense has done all year? I mean, it ain't good, and the L is on them. But I'm not convinced they played worse than any other game...just played an MVP-level Lamar.

The Ravens were averaging 27.9 points per game going into the game against us.

I think it's a little more than that. I think there's a little bit of Jekyl-and-Hyde to our defense. They're bad, but we've seen them scrape together effective games before (Titans being the most recent example... neutralizing Henry is no small feat). Yes, opponent's specific strengths do play a factor... and Lamar can pose problems for just about any defense, but we've been able to put together (barely) winning efforts on that side of the ball a couple times so far.

add: I think our defense lives and dies by turnovers. They're not going to stonewall anybody, but they can take the ball away a couple times/game.

I think a LOT of our defensive success/failure has to do with how well the other team’s OL plays. If we can get to the QB (or at least have that threat) we are usually in decent shape. If a team can negate our DL (think about the Raiders, Steelers, and Ravens) we’re in trouble

OK, PIT.
I'd love to see the point differential between what other teams put up on us vs. average, though. I'm guessing we are giving up ~10 more than the average (excluding November weather games, which are uninterpretable on both O and D).

OOBER,

There's probably some of that. But calling it jekyll & hyde is not much different than putting it on gameflow. How many hundreds of games have we seen where the game takes on a totally different flow in the second half or the 4th quarter. That's just kind of how it goes. I mean, I certainly would not expect us to drop 42 on the Ravens every game, even with some DB injuries. Same thing.

Agree 10000% with your added point.

4LIFE,
I agree with that to a point. Thing is, we were doing that in the first half. The TD we gave up at the end was bad, and foreshadowing of the second half, but we were about to go into half giving up 14...not worse than what we've seen all year.

Forgot to mention we WERE sacking Lamar, and holding the edge most of the time early on. So to your point, WHEN our DL held its own, so did our D overall.

Which is why I guess my main point was that I tend to dismiss the "just played an MVP-level Lamar" part of your post. The fact he destroyed our defense is no measure of the level at which he is playing. Last year? Sure. But this is 2020 and his play this year doesn't rise to that level. That's why I posted their average points per game.

Had we have had a defense that could have even remotely contained Lamar, that game was ours for the taking.

You're right. He absolutely hadn't been. But their backs were against the wall, and will continue to be this month. It will be interesting to see if he/they revert, or if a switch has been flipped.