BREAKING NEWS: Browns head is in danger…
Houston Texans’ defense exposes the Cleveland Browns’ weaknesses.
Houston In the visiting locker room, Cleveland Browns defenders, who had all season long embraced coordinator Jim Schwartz’s philosophy of playing with “effort, swag and badassery,” were largely silent.
In its biggest game of the year, the Browns’ top-ranked defense just delivered their worst performance of the year.
Against Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud, Cleveland’s renowned pass rush, led by front-runner Myles Garrett for Defensive Player of the Year, managed just one quarterback hurry and zero sacks. The outstanding Cleveland secondary let Houston receivers go for huge plays that brought back memories of the team’s previous season’s mistakes. Additionally, Cleveland’s once-aggressive and sure-tackling defensive backs failed miserably in their repeated attempts to contain Houston’s ball carriers.
“Today was not our best day to have a bad day,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski remarked. “Just disappointing.”
Did they ever? And boy, was it ever.
It could have been worse, but the young Texans humiliated the Browns 45-14 on Saturday to go on to the wild-card round. The Texans could have scored sixty points if Houston tight end Dalton Schultz had caught a downfield ball that bounced off his hands on the first drive and if Stroud had not thrown an open Nico Collins in the end zone during the second quarter.
Denzel Ward, a Pro Bowl cornerback, remarked, “We didn’t show up.” “We needed to show up and we didn’t.”
The Browns appeared to have everything it took to win when they started the playoffs.
There was never a chance for another Cleveland comeback thanks to back-to-back pick-sixes by Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. But even before that, Stroud was manipulating the Browns defense. The Browns defense has given up the most points this season against the Texans with 24 in the first half. Furthermore, Cleveland has given up the most yards in a half this season—286—to Houston.
Dalvin Tomlinson, the defensive tackle, stated, “They outplayed us.” “I never imagined saying something like that. We didn’t play football according to our norm.”
Houston identified Cleveland’s weaknesses frequently and early on. In order to set up the first field goal, they isolated the 6-foot-4 Collins against Newsome, resulting in a 38-yard completion. Later, the Texans targeted undrafted rookie safety Ronnie Hickman for failing to hold onto Schultz during a simple 37-yard touchdown throw the previous game.
Owusu-Koramoah, who accepted responsibility for the tight end touchdown, stated, “It just comes down to doing our responsibilities and being patient with our jobs and make sure we fulfill those.” We are accountable for those errors.”
The Browns continued to make errors. And when it became clear that the Texans and Stroud would be too much for Cleveland to slow down, Schwartz decided against making any significant changes, particularly to his coverage.
More than any other defense in the league, the Browns employed single-high safety coverage 66% of the time during the regular season. Next Gen Stats indicates that on 81% of Stroud’s dropbacks on Saturday, Cleveland ran at a single-high percentage. Stroud shredded the Browns on those plays, finishing 13 of 17 throws for 228 yards and two scores.
“[We were] going to ride with what got us here and he’s not going to change up,” Garrett stated. “There (weren’t) going to be any magic calls that (were) going to get us out of anything or get us doing anything.”
Conversely, the Browns were unable to muster much momentum or do much against the youngest quarterback (22 years, 102 days) to ever win a postseason game in the
New York’s Orchard Park — At first, it appeared as though the kick might go through the uprights. The winds at Orchard Park, which were gusting between 11 and 13 mph, helped it soar up and to the right, away from the upright, until it abruptly altered course.
In Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game, with 1:43 remaining, the Kansas City Chiefs took the field from their own 34-yard line with a three-point lead after Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass missed a 44-yard field goal.
In the end, I’m solely responsible for it. “I need to improve my ability to reach my target,” Bass stated following the Bills’ 24–27 defeat. “When you have a left-to-right [wind], I need to play it a little bit more left. I’ve
Buffalo’s hypothetical scenarios also include how and when to take such chances or shots downfield throughout the contest, given that the Bills had largely succeeded with the short passing game during the evening. It was only the second occasion in Allen’s 103 career starts (including playoffs) that Buffalo had zero offensive plays of 20 yards or more in a game where the Bills failed to run a play longer than 18 yards (Week 5, 2018). On 26 completions, Allen averaged 0.7 air yards, 24 of which were within five yards of the line of scrimmage. Only two quarterbacks have completed more than 20 passes in a game and averaged less air yards upon completions since 2006.
Allen completed 26 of 39 passes for 186 yards and a score.
Early in the fourth quarter, the defense forced a fumble out of bounds near the goal line by Mecole Hardman after a botched Bills fake punt, but it was insufficient to keep the Bills in the game.
DaQuan Jones, a defensive tackle, stated, “It just comes down to making the plays that come your way, making the tackles, and doing your job.” “Some of those plays, we weren’t doing that and they exposed us.”
following another AFC East championship, which the Bills had a 4% chance of winning when they were 6-6 following Week 13, the team will face a challenging summer full of unknowns. Another year will pass before the team gets another shot at winning its first Super Bowl.
“I feel really let down. You know, you put
