The one thing the Browns have almost never done since Stefanski arrived, run right at teams.
That's just about all we tried against them last game.
FWIW, this is also what I saw. It was practically a hand-delivered invitation for the passing game to beat them.
The Cody Kessler game plan.
Yup.
The thing I keep getting hung up on, because I *hate* the idea that we should be giving up on Baker and I think that it isn't warranted and refuse to believe that it is, is WHY did this work so well? Why were they able to go Man Coverage on us so successfully?
Is it as simple as the combination of our OLine and TE/WRs don't threaten anyone once you shut down our Run and kill the threat of play action? I think that there is a good bit to that notion.
Just thinking this through (not advocating one way or another for anything, just trying to put thoughts on the screen): our O is built on running & passing from the same looks. For starters, if you take away our ability to run, the so-called great advantages of our stellar OLine are greatly diminished, and if a team takes away the threat of the run, all they have left to defend is a very vanilla O, no matter what the formation or personnel group. Once Play action goes away our Bread & Butter is gone. We're left with half an OLine to pass block and usually just two TE and one WR to go out into routes.... and if those guys don't scare anyone enough for them to draw a double.... we get really easy to defend really quickly. It seems that Baltimore frequently did a "Run Blitz on the way to the QB" thing, so they were killing our runs, often before they got started, while at the same time bringing pressure if it wasn't a run. The situation at RT exasperates this and makes it easier for them, and if you add in that Wills hasn't been spectacular, either, things are definitely hampered. The QB has to step up or move off of his drop sooner than you'd want, but that also moves him off that drop often before a window comes open, which means he misses a designed read opportunity. Timing is ruined. It kind of compresses the field, now, too, because we no longer have the time and they are crashing gaps, so they can gamble on single-covering deep. The box is crowded, so drags & slants to quick-hit over the middle in front of the QB are frequently taken away, so the QB only has things on the outside to look to (in general). Basically, it REALLY simplifies their life when they can be successful with that approach.
Other than Landry, and
maybe DPJ, I don't think we have any WR that an opposing team needs to give extra attention to, and even Landry is probably a guy that teams are willing to try to single-cover, especially a hobbled Landry.
Hooper and Njoku are both really good, but again, I don't know that they are anyone that a team has to fear.
Schematically, I'm not sure how you beat it. The NFL is all about matchups, and I think this works because that approach works well because of how they match up against our current lineup. That right side DOES hamper things for us, and DEs CAN rush up past Wills and loop back (I wonder how that ankle *really* is), and do so frequently. All that's left is for the guys in the box to close gaps because they've got the edges. In general, whichever way Teller goes is where the ball is going.... so, watch him and then crash gaps and you've got us. I think that tendency, obviously, needs to be broken. I think the overloads we've tried need to continue - where we bunch a lot of receivers to one side... the goal being to flood/empty an area. This needs to be done from a run look to keep the middle of the field honest, and it needs to happen to get them out of what they're doing and to create a favorable situation for us, but - in the end - Guys Need to Make Plays, and I think that is where we are failing all-around. Our guys just are NOT winning their plays. Sometimes its the OL, sometimes its the TEs or WRs, sometimes its the QB, sometimes its the coaches and the calls. The number of balls that are thrown away because of pressure, the number of procedural brain-farts that cost us yardage, the number of balls that are dropped - be it bad hands or bad passes, the number of times our guys just fail to give the QB a decent target.... when guys aren't winning their play in the passing game despite the opponent having enough respect for our run game to shut it down, that's a major problem.
I dunno... just some over-caffeinated mental rambling, trying to guesswork it out on a theoretical level without the benefits of All-22 film to see the Who, What, and When of things.
