DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Four Downs: Why Mike Pettine is sticking with run-focused formula amid Browns struggles

Four Downs: Why Mike Pettine is sticking with run-focused formula amid Browns struggles

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1. Why Pettine is sticking with the plan

There are different ways to win football games and different ways to build a team. This is what makes the NFL and, really, all of football great.

One year, a team with a dominant defense and an under-the-radar quarterback can win it all. The next year, a team with a high-powered offense and just enough defense can shoot its way from worst to first. A quarterback can be the MVP. A running back can be the MVP. A defensive lineman can be arguably considered the best player in the league. It’s a sport with endless possibilities, formulas and solutions to problems. It’s great.

The construction of these current Browns was built on the philosophy of building a strong foundation on the line of scrimmage, both on offense and defense. That means running the ball well and stopping it on the other side of the ball, thereby lessening the stress on the quarterback on offense while opening up opportunities for linebackers and defensive backs to make big plays on defense. When Cleveland did this successfully last season, it won games -- sometimes convincingly.

The Browns’ free-agent acquisitions and draft centered on this foundation because that’s what coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer believe is the best track for success. They’ve reiterated that fact since the start of the offseason.

The early results, of course, have been concerning in both of these areas, and Pettine hasn’t shied away from it. The Browns are last in the NFL in rushing defense (158.3 yards per game) and 25th in rushing offense (86.3). There have been flashes of potential -- 116 rushing yards vs. Tennessee, limiting Oakland to 1 yard on seven carries in Sunday’s first quarter -- but the necessary consistency hasn’t been there.

Every week is its own season in the NFL, and three weeks has been more than enough for many to draw broad-sweeping conclusions about the makeup of a team. Pettine, though, isn’t ready to crumple up the paper and go back to the drawing board.

“We are capable of executing that plan and we are not going to deviate from it or panic from it,” Pettine said Monday. “We need to play better. We need to execute. If you want to look at the biggest reasons why we have lost two of three games, it is exactly what you said. It’s because we didn’t run the ball well enough and we didn’t defend the run well enough.”

Pettine’s confidence in the plan has roots in his history and can be backed up by the actions of three teams off to hot starts in 2015.

The history, of course, goes back a few years to 2009 and 2010, when Pettine was in his first two years as the defensive coordinator of the New York Jets. With rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez at the helm, the Jets led the league in rushing and finished eighth in rush defense on their way to the AFC Championship. They got back to the conference title game in 2010 with the league’s fourth-best rushing attack and third-best run defense.

The present has a touch of the history, too. The 2-1 Buffalo Bills, led by former Jets coach Rex Ryan, currently leads the league in both rushing offense and rushing defense. Two of the league’s six 3-0 teams, Cincinnati and Carolina, rank in the top 10 in both rush offense and rush defense.

The one exception to this philosophy, so far, has been the 1-2 Washington Redskins. Not even a strong running game and run game can overcome a minus-5 turnover margin.

Solutions exist in fixing both of these areas. “A lot of little things” have contributed to Cleveland’s struggles in the running game and tackling has been the biggest problem against the run. It’s all correctable. And if it does corrected, there’s proof better results than Sunday’s will follow.

2. Digging into snap counts after 3 games

Through three games, the Browns have six players who have not missed a single snap: Mitchell Schwarz, Joel Bitonio, Alex Mack, Joe Thomas, Karlos Dansby and Donte Whitner.

John Greco missed a few snaps in the season opener with a minor injury but was on the field for every play in the last two games.

Some other snaps of note…

- Duke Johnson Jr. has played 97 snaps. Isaiah Crowell has been on the field for 92. Both were in the backfield when Gary Barnidge caught a 28-yard touchdown pass in Sunday’s fourth quarter against the Raiders.

- Rookie DL Xavier Cooper played 30 snaps in his Browns debut Sunday. He helped fill the void left by veteran Desmond Bryant, who was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

- Rookie DL Danny Shelton has played 58 percent of the defensive snaps this season. That’s among the highest for Browns defensive linemen.

- Johnson Bademosi, Tank Carder, Marlon Moore, Jordan Poyer, Barkevious Mingo and Shaun Draughn have been the most active on special teams

3. Paul Kruger doing heavy lifting

Veteran pass rusher Paul Kruger saw his snaps go down Sunday against the Raiders, but that was by design.

The Browns are thin on depth at outside linebacker because of the ankle injury Scott Solomon incurred on the first series of the season and no one has been picking up the slack more than Kruger. He played 91 percent of the snaps in the season opener and a whopping 71 of 80 against the Titans.

On Sunday against the Raiders, Kruger was on the field for 56 of 71. This was promised a few days earlier by defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil.

“I think when your best pass rusher is on the field for 70 plays throughout the course of a game, that’s probably a little high, especially when you get into those critical drives at the end of the game. You want those guys to be fresh,” O’Neil said. “Paul’s a guy that we’re going to count on to make big plays for us at the end of the game so we have to do a better job as a coaching staff taking some reps on him in some of those early drives, early quarters.”

4. Tweet of the week



DonteHitner Verified account
‏@DonteWhitner

I can handle the criticism. We will get better. #DawgPound

The other day, Rish asked me to post an article about Pet and Manziel. I said I would not post it because it was obviously slanted against the Browns. Not true journalism.

I also said that I hate these articles that Vambo posts from the Browns. They are slanted and not true.

Later, tab and others criticized TMZ for not being objective. I agree w/them. On the other hand, I think that articles written by shills paid by the Browns are also not objective.

Now, let's look at the first line, shall we?



"Sticking with run-focused formula...." Wait. What? Did he really say that? Sticking w/it? As in..........he's been using it throughout the season?

I could have sworn that we passed the ball 49 freaking times and only ran it 14 times against the Raiders. Am I wrong?

These guys are so freaking full of crap.

Time for all y'all to go.

I posted the question in another thread as to why we only had 14 rushing attempts? I didn't get to see the game but I looked up that Crowell had 3.6 ypc on 10 attempts. Not great but not terrible. So what gives with McCown throwing the ball 50 freaking times? I know we got behind but did we have to completely abandon the run?

We were not that far behind.

These guys talk out of both sides of their mouth.

14 rushed and 49 passes and he says we are sticking w/the run-focused formula.

Hey Pet...........coach and speak like a Brown.

My initial first thought EXACTLY!

Mike

But yet you continue to read and post in every one of them!

Do you really have to scratch your head as to the reason why?

I respond to them to combat your feeble attempts of passing them off as legit articles.

This play will work all day


Every player is executing. Alex Mack didn't totally cover the NT, but he prob knew that the RB usually goes backside on this play.

Notice that is a pure zone blocking play.

On this play everyone executed except 1 player. Jim Dray handed over a pass rusher to Malcolm Johnson who whiffed the block. This play would also work all day if everyone executed.



The more I try to pin down what's wrong with the blocking, the more I see stuff like this. Yes Mack looks a little rusty and not his dominant self, but Schwartz and Greco actually look better than last year. More often then not it has been the RB not executing as well, but it usually just 1 player not executing on the majority of plays that don't work.

As stupid as it sounds, I think Pettine might be right on the running game being able to work if everyone executes.

Nice post. I am not trying to be snide and I kinda feel bad saying this, but.........

......as a former coach, I know for a fact that no coach designs a play that is destined to fail. We believe in every play we design/call.

Of course, the execution of those plays is imperative to the play's actual success.

Some plays are better than others. Some plays work better against different defenses. Some plays are better run at different down and distances. Some plays work better on different parts of the field.

But, believe me...........no coach designs plays that they think will fail. LOL

My point is that it's not a bunch of guys failing their assignments at the same time. It's just one guy on every blown running play that I watch. It's not the same guy every time either. Though too often it is the RB.

Are you actually trying to say you don't post with a BIASED opinion?

BTW I posted it and let people make up their own mind please show where I claimed them to be anything!

I hate to be "stats guy," but for discussion purposes....

In the game Manziel started against TN our RBs #s were:

Crowell - 15 carries for 72 yards, 4.8 ypc and 1 TD
Johnson - 12 carries for 43 yards, 3.6 ypc

In the game McCown started against Oak our RBs #s were:

Crowell - 10 carries for 36 yards, 3.6 ypc
Johnson - 4 carries for 3 yards, .8 ypc

Does the the deep ball threat and mobility of Manziel open up and improve our run game?

I already addressed this. I said I did NOT post articles that I thought were slanted in the other direction.

You post those articles, but never include the author. You try to pass them off as legit articles, when they are nothing more than propaganda pieces written by shills employed by the Browns.

I see where you are coming from, I guess the only question is...is Manziel ready to be a full time starter? If you believe he is what reason would the coaching staff have in keeping him out?

Mobility not really. A WR that needs a double will pull guys out of the box. It doesn't matter if he's a deep ball guy, a quick guy going across the field, or just a great athlete that is physical. That's more on the WR than the QB though.

Without a doubt it does.

You did see the LINKS posted with the articles?

So you feel that unless you expose those pesky authors no one else would be smart enough to make up their own mind about the articles. You must patrol the board and keep unwanted opinions from being read and any opinion not like yours is feeble.

Are you really defending "sticking w/a run focused formula" when we just passed the ball 49 times and ran it 14 times?

Seriously?

I know it's all about regime wars w/you, but 49 to 14 and the article says we are "sticking w/a run fun-focused approach." You don't see any sort of contradiction there? None? Zero?

Seriously?

The stats were so slanted because we were so far behind in the 2nd half.

Play calls and score per quarter -

1st: 4 runs, 7 passes (2 penalties, 1 sack = 4 attempts) , Score 0-3
2nd: 7 runs, 12 passes (1 penalty = 11 attempts) , Score 3-14
3rd: 2 runs, 15 passes (1 penalty, 1 sack = 13 attempts) , Score 7-3
4th: 1 runs, 25 passes (1 penalty, 3 sacks = 21 attempts) , Score 10-7

Total: 14 runs, 59 passes (5 penalties, 5 sacks = 49 attempts) , Score 20-27


It's not rocket science to look at both the score of the game as well as the success of our offense by half and see why they did what they did.

1st Half: Run 11 - Pass 19 (Run 37.6%) , Points = 3
2nd Half: Run 3 - Pass 40 (Run 7.0%) , Points = 17 (down by 14-17 pts for the majority of the half)

We literally COMPLETELY abandoned the run in the 2nd half because a) we were so far down and b) we were actually scoring doing that.


Just because the coaches went all pass for the 2nd half last week is not mutually exclusive to them having a "run focused formula" and identity for the offense. Were they supposed to keep handing it off to Crow for 1 yard gains over and over while down 3 scores in the 2nd half? Maybe they should have, because at least then almighty Vers would believe in them? *shakes head*

If they can figure out a way to clean up some things (Malcolm Johnson has been awful at blocking so far) - as outlined above with 1 different guy not doing his job every snap, then the run game might actually start clicking and we could actually start using it during games as long as we aren't being blown out. That's still the coaches goal, roster compilation and our intended "identity"....so yes we're still implementing a "run focused formula" for future success.

Whether they can actually stick with it and see it succeed is for them and the players to get figured out (I'm not holding my breath FWIW). But it's not some big conspiracy/contradiction.

It's not even Johnny (though he's the guy we have who has the potential to do it at the moment), it's having a QB with a pulse.

Pettine's philosophy is garbage to begin with. Running the ball and stopping the run is absolutely essential but if you can't pass the ball in today's NFL, you shouldn't even show up. The fact that the passing game is an afterthought is archaic. They're living in the 60s.

This article reads like flat out propaganda... it's embarrassing that it's on the official site. Buffalo, Cincinnati and Carolina are running the ball well so therefore Pettine's philosophy is solid? Those teams also have QBs rated in the top half of the league (Cincy and Buffalo in the Top 5). Go figure that the team below .500 on their list is the one with Cousins.

Pettine/Farmer are just too linear in their thinking. Running game is weak? Let's draft another OL and RB. Run defense is shoddy? Let's draft multiple DL.

When you're able to pass the ball well, it opens up the run game because people have to respect the threat. When you're able to pass the ball well, you don't turn the ball over and can sustain drives which keeps the defense off the field.

Obviously some is execution but our passing game puts fear into nobody. If Johnny is able to take the top off the passing game, I'm sure we'll watch with wonder as holes open up because safeties have to guard against Benjamin going deep instead of cheating up.

I posted the article didn't take sides I let others make up their own opinion, it seems when I do you tend to assault me with personal attacks.

In Vers's defense, lies do need to be corrected on the spot.

Why does he LIE ?

J/c

To be fair folks. In two of these games we've been in a hole, 2 or 3 scores adrift. Doesn't the pass game always out balance the run game in these situations? I would like to read less about this stuff and more about team unity and of course, hitting our straps the moment the game starts in some semblance of actually looking prepared with a coaching plan in place!

Agreed, but please point them out as I didn't see any that were immediately obvious...

Since we all get to form our own opinion.......

It's yet another fluff article with little to no substance bought and paid for, just for your viewing pleasure by the Cleveland Browns.

Browns are sticking to the run until it becomes necessary to throw it 50 times a game. What's the problem? LOL

Yes, if the Browns run game works early, we establish a lead, and the defense plays well, we will stick with the run... just like 31 other teams would do.

**Well, maybe not the Patriots, they seem to want to throw it no matter what the situation.

We agree. When the OLB made the inside move it was the FB's job to pick him up. He totally whiffed what should have been an easy block. He was thinkin' when he should have been thumpin'!

I don't have the stats in front of me, but what's the sorry excuse this week?

Didn't we throw it 41 times? Did we run it around 20 times? A 2 to 1 ratio in a close game.

Yeah, we can believe you guys.

Forgive if already posted, but we came out with no run plays at all, and went 3 and out. Even the announcers were mocking the fact the team they wanted to balance out, but with a close game, totally abandoned the run.

Either Pettine is a liar, or Flip is a moron.

Just looking at the stats for the last 2 games..We went from 80% passing plays to 67% passing plays

This week 66 Offensive plays and 21 were rushes (SD was 61 and 21)
the stat line between the 2 teams on RB / WR / QB play was really close.

Last week we were 68 total plays and 14 were rushing (Raiders were 62 total plays and 30 running)

In our division - especially for us -running you'd think would be key. I guess it is impressive that we can throw that much with McCown and still be in each of the games..are we going to flip-flop from last year where we started strong and tanked late so this year we start slow and come on strong later?

For what? It worked. So Flip used the pass to set up the run - I don't see a problem with that. Nobody criticizes Tom Brady for starting a game with 10 straight passing plays, or 60+ passes/game...

Did you read the freaking article?

How did it work? We lost. Against a team that was severely limited by multiple injuries.

Don't think that had a lot to do with our run/pass ratio... seemed to have a lot more to do with our tackle/watch them run down the field ratio...