DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2021 NFL Season Looking Back: Browns 26 Bears 6 Post game thoughts

Ha - just came back from Pure Football and Stefanski's presser to comment on this. Yes - a masterful last drive of the half. My thought is (and maybe someone with better resources than me can look it up) I have to believe Stefanski's scoring success % on last possession before the half is in the upper echelon of NFL head coaches. I know he did well last year with this and we've done well this season too. It's a really impressive characteristic.

J/c

Felton is more quick than fast. Not sure we have someone with his skill set, which is great. We have a Swiss Army knife type offense. What works one game may not the next and we become very difficult to prepare to play

Nice win and one the Browns needed. Couldn't afford to lose to the Bears at home if you are a true division champ contender. Browns proved that they are!

Defense finally woke up and was awesome . Myles had a career game. Fields was running for his life and had no time to throw at all.

Baker and OBJ were playing catch all game. Welcome back OBJ, we missed you!
Hunt and Chubb were both monsters as usual.

Jake Burns
@jake_burns18
If Grant Delpit is going to cover Allen Robinson types in the slot like he did yesterday.....that dude is going to be deadly.

Sam Penix
@Sam_Penix
#Browns Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah earned a 93.9 overall grade yesterday, the highest single-game grade for any LB (minimum 20 snaps) since Week 17 of 2019.

He also leads all 2021 NFL LBs in overall grade (90.1), pending Week 3 review.

We need JOK, Delpit, Garrett, Clowney, Ward, Newsome, Harrison, and Johnson on the field together every 3rd down

How many times have we seen those before half time drives against us. Repeatedly for years. Nice to be on the other side

exactly. Told my dad: gosh it feels nice to have us be the scorers

Found it interesting that Woods had Clowney and Garrett on the same side for several 3rd down plays ..

The good I saw:

- DL, obviously. Took advantage of a below avg OL and a terrible gameplan by the Bears offense.

- When the Bears (read: Roquan Smith) take away RB 1a, we're like, hmmm, try RB 1b. Explosion. This is a true luxury right now.

- Baker's back-shoulder throws were on point today. And though screen passes are generally considered a knock on QBs, I'm beginning to think that part of the reason those are so good for us now is similar to the reason PA game is so good...Baker is really good at the post-snap selling of misdirection.

- That end of half drive. The whole thing. Managed the clock pretty darn well. Made plays. Absolutely grabbed momentum in a game that would've felt a lot different going to half at 3-3.

- Newsome has some really good closing speed. Something needed with the "Woods Cushion." L

- We won, comfortably! Being in complete control in Q4 is almost NEVER easy in the NFL.

The bad I saw:

- Bitonio is showing himself to be in decline, I think. Maybe a premature call 3 games in, but I'm thinking that a round 1 G is in order. And there is no dead cap hit in cutting him next season.

- Conklin also played more poorly than you want from a high-priced FA again. Dude's 27, so I don't think it's age yet. Injury we don't know about?

- Felton needs to learn when to go upfield and just take the yards. On that 1 3rd down swing pass, if he angles to the boundary, he likely has the first down. Tries to make the mig jump cut and is instead cut down. Same thing is seen on his KRs. Just 1 move too many, I think, which can lead to turnovers/injuries.

- Baker's eyes were slow this week. On one of his sacks, if he gets off that 1st read, Hooper is crossing right to left uncovered with 20 yards of open field in front of him. Saw him staring at his first read several other throws, although tbf, some were ultimately completed passes. Still don't like to see it.

The D played awesome yesterday. I'm not going to dock them any points for competition level, as I felt they should've done this to Houston. The 2 differences that stood out to my untrained eyes when our D was on the field was our secondary, and their offensive line. Our secondary PLAYED A GAME. Troy Hill got his game grade back up there, Newsome is turning in a ridiculous rookie-CB year, and Delpit is slowly working his way back into becoming a weapon. Harrison is playing really well too. Maybe Houston just has a really underrated Oline, but our big boys just took whatever they wanted yesterday. Clowney and Garrett's play speaks for themselves, but McDowell was also doing his thang, and I was really happy for Takk that he got on the stat sheet. I made a comment that I wouldn't be surprised to see him off the roster (wasn't anything against him, just observing that his time here hasn't resulted in much good press), so I'm happy that he got in on the action yesterday.

Special teams was not-so-special yesterday. Too many penalties.

Offense just had its head up its butt at the beginning of the game. Lots of mental mistakes. On the 2nd 4th down, the announcer said OBJ got knocked down, but I saw Mayfield stick the ball out while the RB ran the other way, and then run around like he had no idea what to do until he got sacked. I didn't see his WR get knocked down, so I thought it was a running play where everyone was all looking in different directions. Just kind of a cluster that had to get sorted (it did).

Wu is coming along really fast. The fact we're getting such contributions from our rookies right out of the gate is incredible (Newsome, Felton, Wu, Schwartz... maybe even throw Delpit in there).

I was really happy for Hunt yesterday. I know Chubb is the man and everything... it is what it is... but Hunt is criminally underutilized (the guy has a rushing title and is in his prime).

You saying Njoku is a top TE doesn’t make it true. He’s not. He may be one of the better athletes at the position but he’s not nearly as instinctual of a player as Kittle, or Gronk, or Kelce… and it ain’t even close.

I think the reality of our offense is that defenses will have to choose who they're going to key on, and then others will step up (ex. they were pretty effective in limiting Chubb, so Hunt had a day).

I think the bottom line will be Play calling and execution as we have way to many weapons to be stopped for a whole game ..

That sack by Takk was freaking BEAUTIFUL. I thought it was Clowney at first based on how fast and fluid he was (and the hair flowing out from the helmet). It took me a second to realize it was Takk, but the thing that stood out most to me was the use of his arms and how he hooked Fields' arm to not only try to strip the ball, but also to prevent him from getting that arm up to throw it away. It was technical beauty and I hope we see a LOT more of it!



I did not see Schwartz in for even a single play, though he was dressed: I'm thinking this game was his DogHouse game; his punishment for giving up on his route and getting his QB hurt last week.


It's the next day and I am still completely geeked over that defensive performance. I don't think I've ever seen such a performance. ONE YARD passing. Total. For an ENTIRE GAME. Before adjusting for Sack Yardage, we still almost had them under 100 yards of Total Offense. After adjusting, we had them under 50 yards of total offense. We never even saw anything so brutal when we were going 1-31 and on the receiving end of games like this.

Agreed. JOK was a freaking stud. So explosive and instinctive

Thoughts...

Game balls to Myles Garrett for his 4.5 sacks (probably should have been more, he contributed to others), JOK for making impact plays all over the field, Kareem Hunt for his 160 yards of total offense, and Chase McLaughlin for going 2/2 on XPs and 4/4 on FGs including 57 and 52 yarders.

Mayfield didn't have his best game (nor did our OL), missed a few open targets but avoided the big mistake. Bears DL is legit, got good pressure all day.

Worried in the beginning that everything seemed to be going toward OBJ..... again. We moved the ball but it wasn't the fluid offense we have seen in weeks 1 and 2. It was Chubb running and OBJ targets... It's like we forgot the TEs existed. After a couple drives we went back to getting Higgins, JPJ, and the TEs involved, using Hunt in the passing game, and things started to look better.

Bears OL is as bad as advertised, if not worse. You could tell Fields was frustrated, the moves he used in college that worked to get out of trouble didn't work against Myles and company...

Defense played aggressive and brought it to the Bears all game long, loved to see it. Glad Woods at least has that defense in the playbook.

The entire last drive to end the half was outstanding. It kinda won the game for us IMO. I felt like we wouldn’t lose after we broke through

Exactly.
Up to that point, we were struggling on offense, but they were shut down on offense. I felt that if we could just put together a TD drive right that, that was going to ice cinch the game. Of course, I wouldn't relax until we scored like 10 more, but that was when it felt like "ok, we've got this".

I agree with the penalties, but our special teams were special yesterday.

Felton had 7 punt returns for over 100 yards, and a 14.7 yard average. He had more punt return yards yesterday than we had all of last year. Combined.

The Bears returned 4 KO yesterday, for a 23.8 yard average. Holding a return short of the 25 is a win, and we did that at least twice yesterday.

We punted twice, for a 41 yard average, long of 48, and 1 inside the 20. One of those was flubbed by the Bears inside the 20, and the other was a 48 yard punt to the Bears 27, that had only a 4 yard return.

I agree on the "too many penalties", because frankly, any are too many. However, overall we had a great day on special teams yesterday.

I believe he had one target over his head on the first drive.

That's all I remember from him.

I wished we had the Bears Punter that dude kept us deep in our own end of the field most of the day.

Good post, agree with many points you brought up.

Conklin has seemed a little off thus far, but then again PFF just gave him a near 90.0 rating..so who knows. I usually watch our OTs as its easier to view as they operate on their own islands mainly. Conklin has had a few jumps or penalties this year (though I know Teller was responsible for Conklin getting flagged yesterday) He was very very sound last year.

With Bitonio, I've noted the same...He's usually always the most sound Olineman since like what 2014? His play has slipped this year, to last week against the Texans he graded out at a mere 56.0...But someone had mentioned it could be because of Wills and Hence and possibly overcompensating on that side. Hoping he rebounds, as he should still have several really good years left...least I hope.

And along with the Dline, I wouldn't object to drafting Oline as well...I always have a weird feeling Tretter will retire next year (though obviously I'm jumping the gun) And we mentioned Bitonio, then Teller will be a FA.

j/c...

It’s so nice to be able to save Chubb/Hunt so efficiently. Chubb seemed like he barely played

I'm shocked that Schwartz got that many snaps. I didn't see him on the field all day, and I was looking for him after a while.

Absolutely. It will extend both of their careers.

From the article:


Final Thoughts

There was a clear uptick in 5-man pressures brought by Woods this week. Preliminarily I have the Browns at nine for this game and that is an uptick from the three blitzes last week. I will confirm the data throughout the week, but one thing is clear: the Browns stepped up the aggression at all levels of the defense on Sunday. They felt the right kind of aggressive in both man and zone coverages and played with physicality in the back half. Their total pressures and pass rush win rates remained high, but with a confused young quarterback lacking quick throwing options, those pressures converted into sacks.
1COMMENTS

It was a historic day in Cleveland for the defense as a whole and Garrett individually, but Joe Woods didn't overhaul the scheme. They did uptick those blitzes to an extent, but as you could see here, they were a small percentage of the sack production. The difference was a secondary playing what felt like a different brand of coverage and a well-scouted and prepared attack for the Bears' favorite route concepts.

This is the marriage between pass coverage and rush skills we all envisioned for the 2021 Browns defense. It all converged for the perfect storm and a historic day. They won't all be like this moving forward, clearly, but if they can give these kinds of efforts where they not only stop the run all day but get pressure in both blitz concepts and regular rush situations, they have a chance to be special and on this day they were historic.

They have a nice test coming with the Vikings next Sunday to prove this was no fluke.

***************************

I readily admit to not knowing the concepts of football as well as others...and I usually don't post until I re-watch the game...BUT...

Many things were different Sunday. To my eye, we weren't losing "integrity(?)" when rushing the QB. We looked much more under control and the front of the pocket was regularly compromised or clogged-up. There were obviously fewer lanes for the QB to escape. Discipline? Scheme? Opponent? Probably all three.

I bolded what I really liked above...but the italicized part of the quote just might be my favorite.

While I agree that a count of (9) 5-man pressures /blitz? isn't a lot...it IS 3x what we ran the previous week.

That game had to be big fun for the D.

His one and only target came on the 5th play of the game. On the field, but obviously had a quiet rest of the day.

I saw him lined up a few times, and I remember us being in the redzone or endzone and him being tossed aside on a block lol Weird that Njoku got 50 snaps, and not targeted once...then again, we tend to flip the script weekly.

Ok, I'm going to pick some nits with the playcalling.

Our first drive we had 3rd and 5, pass, incomplete. Go for it, pass, sack.

Our second drive we had 3rd and 1, pass, incomplete. Go for it, pass sack.

One drive in the 4th quarter we had 3rd and 2, pass, incomplete. Kick FG.

I like the aggressiveness of Ski going for it a lot. But if you have 3rd and anything less than 5, and you know in the back of your mind that you are going to go for it... run the ball, run it twice. If we can't get 2 yards on 2 carries, then we deserve to get stopped.

We had 2 other 3rd and shorts in + territory that I remember, a 3rd and 1 where we gave it to Hunt and he went 26 yards for a TD and another that set up the Hooper TD pass, where we had 3rd and 1 and Hunt went for 4 or 5...

I cut the cable a couple months ago and have youtube TV - Fox has been terrible since the switch over. I was wondering if it was a Fox issue because I have had literally no issues with any other channel. Thanks for the validation

This all said, you summarized my thoughts well. I don't think the terrible performance from Chicago was on Fields - I think it was the game plan and OL. He wasn't set up for success and their OL was awful. I'm not a Woods fan, but my goodness, what a gameplan for this game. I hope we see this type of aggressive D moving forward.

I'm happy how we played on O against a pretty stout defense. 418 yards isn't bad, and 200+ rushing on a good rush D.