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Browns won’t overreact after loss to Jets, but mistakes need to be corrected

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Cleveland unable to overcome avalanche of miscues

The reasons behind the Cleveland Browns’ 31-10 loss to the New York Jets went beyond one area of the team. It was a system-wide malfunction.

The offense scored 10 points. Stops on defense were rare. Coach Mike Pettine wasn’t hesitant to shoulder some of the blame, too.

“You invest so much in the opener. You prepare for it, you over-prepare for it, and to lose the way we did,” said Pettine, “it’s difficult to swallow it.

“Some of it’s on the guys, but a lot of it’s on the staff. We need to coach better.”

One indication of losing by three touchdowns was a bombardment of mental miscues. Quarterback Johnny Manziel turned the ball over three times and the Browns finished with five on the game. Many of the 12 penalties negated positive yardage plays down the field.

Opportunities to seize control of the game in the second quarter presented themselves but Cleveland just couldn’t capitalize. Loose balls, like Tashaun Gipson’s fumble and a snap sent over Ryan Fitzpatrick’s head, went New York’s way. A Manziel pass near the goal line sailed a tad high for receiver Andrew Hawkins, turning a surefire touchdown into a field goal. The avalanche of missed opportunities piled on until it buried the Browns.

“You want to win football games in the NFL, you’ve got to make those plays,” Pettine said.

An offense built around winning the line of scrimmage struggled to generate much push in the running game against the Jets’ 300-pounders. A secondary that hoped to build off last year’s top-ranked performance let the 32-year-old Fitzpatrick and Jets receivers have their way through the air.

“I know I didn't play up to my potential,” said Joe Haden.

“I really don’t have any words for it,” Hawkins said. “That’s football.”

Some teams talk about burying film after a dreadful performance and never bringing up the loss again. Under Pettine, the Browns will do just the opposite, analyzing the gaffes together as a team.

“I told the guys afterwards, we own this – we own it,” Pettine said. “You turn the ball over five times, you have 12 penalties, and a lot of the little detail stuff that I thought we had done a good job of leading up to this taking care of, we did not pay attention to detail.”

“You don’t want to overreact to the game, but you do want to look at the mistakes,” Hawkins said.

Some issues in the game aren’t as poor as they appear on paper for the Browns – even on overreaction Monday across the NFL landscape.

In the first half, New York had minimal running lanes and totaled just 42 yards on the ground. With starting quarterback Josh McCown in the first quarter, Cleveland’s scripted plays were traveling the length of the field. The Browns’ 104 rushing yards actually rank 12th in the NFL with a pending Monday Night Football doubleheader to close out Week 1.

“I’ve played on teams where we lost Week 1 and still went to the playoffs,” Hawkins said, referring to his time with the Bengals. “The sky isn’t falling. We’ll come out the next game, try and fix our mistakes and get a win.”[/color]

well, at least we won't overreact

I was hoping we wouldn't correct the mistakes.

I hope they develop other mistakes to keep us on our toes.

5 observations: Why did the Browns run defense struggle vs. Jets?

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Mike Pettine updates status of Dwayne Bowe, run game and more

The Browns weren’t on the practice field Monday but it was a busy, thorough day of film study one day removed from a disappointing, 31-10 loss to the New York Jets.

Here’s what stood out from the first postgame Monday of the 2015 season.

1) Diagnosing the run defense issues

From Day 1 of the offseason up until Sunday’s season opener, the Browns’ top priority on defense was to be better against the run.

That held true for the first half against the Jets, who managed 42 yards on 12 carries through the first 30 minutes. The second half, though, was not what Cleveland wanted, and the Jets came away from the season opener with 154 yards and an average of 4.3 yards per carry.

Pettine attributed the disappointing result to a number of factors. The first thing he listed, missed tackles, was echoed by inside linebacker Christian Kirksey as an area of emphasis during the team’s film analysis. The No. 1 culprit, however, was runs to the edge, a problem that persisted throughout the preseason and was only made tougher when Scott Solomon went down with an ankle injury early in the first quarter.

The interior, Pettine said, was “pretty solid,” and rookie nose tackle Danny Shelton played “pretty well” in his first official NFL game.

“He did a good job handling double teams. His pads got up a couple times, but I think for the most part he controlled the middle when he was in there,” Pettine said. “We need to be better on the edges.”

Pettine reaffirmed his confidence that the run defense would be significantly improved from last year, when the unit finished last in the NFL. Sunday’s showing put the Browns 30th in the league after Week 1.

“I thought we did a much better job in practice,” Pettine said. “We did a much better job at times in the preseason games. It needs to be played better and it needs to be coached better.”

2) Run game issues went beyond O-line

Pettine’s critique of the Browns’ rushing offense immediately after Sunday’s game focused heavily on the offensive line.

After watching the film Monday, Pettine said the team’s running backs “left some yards out there.”

“We need to break more tackles,” Pettine said. “We can’t be one and done with our backs. It is going to be rare where it is going to be blocked and a gaping hole and you are running untouched for a while. We are going to have to make some guys miss. We are going to have to break some tackles. That needs to be a point of emphasis for us.

“Overall the running game – we knew it was going to be tough against that front given their history and scheme wise with what they play, but we should have run the ball better.”

The Browns finished with 104 yards on 28 carries. Only 46 came from running backs Isaiah Crowell (20), Duke Johnson Jr. (22) and Shaun Draughn (4).

“I think we can come back to the drawing board and fix some things up,” Johnson said. “It was all little things that we can fix and we just didn’t do it in the game. Now we are coming back to the drawing board and we are going to get it right.”

3) Dwayne Bowe update

Pettine said veteran wide receiver Dwayne Bowe, who was inactive Sunday, had a minor setback with his hamstring injury during practice last week and was not 100 percent at the end of the week.

Bowe, who played in the Browns’ final two preseason games, was listed as “limited” throughout the week and was deemed “questionable” Friday.

“Just given our numbers it would have been hard to justify having up that many receivers given the game plan,” Pettine said. “It was the decision we made."


4) Something to build on

Asked to identify a positive from Sunday’s loss, wide receiver Brian Hartline pointed to the Browns’ third-down conversion rate against the Jets.

Cleveland converted its first four third downs on a game-opening series that drained nearly 10 minutes off the clock. Johnny Manziel’s 54-yard touchdown pass to Travis Benjamin came on a third-and-19. On the previous play, Manziel scrambled for 22 yards on a third-and-4 only to have it wiped away by a chop block penalty on Crowell.

The Browns finished 8-of-16 on third downs.

“We were staying on the field for the most part. The ones that we didn’t convert a lot of them were self-inflicted wounds from holding or turnovers or anything like that,” Hartline said. “I think that was the positive. I think we will continue to build on that, but overall I think there were some times in the red zone where we should have got the ball in the end zone to keep the points going up. We will continue to move forward.”

5) Other observations

- Pettine did not have an update on the status of Solomon.

- A quote to note from Pettine’s opening statement at Monday’s press conference.

“Lot of good teaching moments in the game, but we cannot be repeat offenders,” Pettine said. “Mistakes that we made yesterday we have to make sure that we learn from and do not repeat. That is both from a coaching and a playing perspective. That is where we are today. Disappointed, but anxious to get onto this next one and put on a performance in front of our home crowd that they deserve to see.”

“Just given our numbers it would have been hard to justify having up that many receivers given the game plan,” Pettine said. “It was the decision we made."


AKA we don't need him

This team doesn't need to worry about overreacting. Their main problem seems to be underreacting.

LOL these two post are awesome!

I thought the underreacting post was good too.

I'd settle for simple reacting.

It's attached to a leg that doesn't want to run.

“We need to break more tackles,” Pettine said. "We've also toyed with the idea of running in the opposite direction where there are no tacklers."

That would mean running to our sideline and through our own D

And toward the opposite end zone. But there would be a seam.

As it should.

But you knew he would come back and say that there were SOME running lanes, the RBs just didn't find them... in a loss like that, you have to spread the blame around..

Don't count on it. He had months to do this. Like I have said many times, a good guy in way over his head...

A thought: Just this once, let's overreact like hell, see how that goes for a change. Seem awfully casual about something truly awful. Danger, Will Robinson.