The young Cleveland Browns went on the road for the first time this season, and their inexperienced showed in a 24-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens at M & T Bank Stadium.
Cleveland is now 0-2 on the season.
If a team turns the ball over five times in a game, lose the turnover battle 5-2, get outgained on the ground, and lose the time of possession battle, that’s a pretty good recipe to come out on the short end of the scoreboard, and that’s what Hue Jackson’s team did today.
Considering all the turnovers, the defense didn’t perform terribly. Joe Flacco completed 25 passes, but only gained 217 yards on those throws, and most of those yards came on tosses to the running backs and tight ends.
The only negative was just two sacks of Flacco (one each by Christian Kirksey and James Burgess). That’s just three on the year, and we would guess that defensive coordinator Gregg Williams longs for the return of rookie Myles Garrett.
Offensively, there are a lot of question marks.
Going into the season, we believed Jackson needed to take pressure off his rookie QB DeShone Kizer, and today, he did just the opposite.
Kizer missed much of the first half with a migraine, but he and Kevin Hogan put the ball in the air 42 times, and it seemed like the coach abandoned the ground game with ten minutes to go in the third quarter, down two touchdowns.
At that point, there was plenty of time to keep running more.
Outside of Kizer’s scrambles, the Browns ran two running plays after that point, one a draw by Duke Johnson (that gained 16 yards) and the other being an ill advised option play on 1st and goal at the Baltimore 2 yard line.
Instead of giving the ball at least twice to Isaiah Crowell, they ran the play by Kizer, which lost yardage, and then threw two passes, the second of which resulted in an interception.
Crowell ran just 10 times today for 37 yards with a long of 17. We still feel Crowell should get the majority of his carries between the tackles.
We also think the Browns have some players who can make plays on offense, but to date, they have had problems identifying them.
Johnson had just seven touches, gaining 80 yards. Why isn’t he getting the ball more often? TE Seth DeValve caught two balls today for 61 yards, he has six catches in the two games.
We don’t believe Crowell was targeted on any throws out of the backfield, so he had just ten touches.
Unbelievably, the leading receiver today was WR Rashard Higgins, who was on the practice squad until yesterday. He caught seven passes for 95 yards.
Meanwhile, Corey Coleman caught one pass.
Look, we aren’t saying Jackson is a bad coach, and needs to be fired. Frankly, that’s the last thing this organization needs.
But, he does need to protect his rookie quarterback better, and he needs to identify who should his feature guys and get them the ball.
Crowell fell just short of 1000 yards a year ago, and still seems to be an afterthought in this offense.
Special teams continue to be a problem as well. Penalties seem to be a norm with this unit, and twice Jabril Peppers downed kickoffs in the end zone, when he was only about two or three yards deep in the end zone.
He can be a playmaker too, and it seems like he is reluctant to try to take a chance.
There was simply a lot of things to shake your head in wonderment in today’s loss.
JD
Cleveland Sports Perspective 