Cleveland Browns’ fans should be celebrating the first 2-0 start to a season since 1993 this morning, but instead, they are incensed the team blew a 13 point lead with under two minutes to go at home against one of the three AFC teams no one is projecting as a playoff contender, the New York Jets.
Last week, in discussing the Browns win over Carolina, we said the breakdowns in the secondary have to be fixed, as it just didn’t happen in week one, it occurred many times in the 2021 season as well.
Wouldn’t you know, it happened again.
The long pass to cut the lead to 30-24 was bad enough. The defense simply cannot let the opponent score that quickly. And it appeared Denzel Ward thought he was supposed to get help deep, and he didn’t, so someone was on the wrong page.
However, it also happened at the end of the first half, when no one thought to pick up Breece Hall coming out of the backfield and allowing the Jets to tie the game going into the half.
Again, if this was a one time thing, it can be excused. It’s not. It happens over and over and over again, and if we were Kevin Stefanski, Joe Woods would have to come up with a good reason that it happens along with a course of action to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
It’s not like there is no talent in the secondary, it is loaded with high draft picks, so that would seem to us that GM Andrew Berry is also not happy with Woods.
Ward and Greg Newsome are first round picks, Grant Delpit is a second rounder, and Martin Emerson is a third rounder. John Johnson III is a high priced free agent. That’s a lot of draft capital and financial commitment involved to accept play like this.
Look, the reality is the Browns have dominated each of their first two games and should have won both by 10 or more points, but they are a Cade York 58-yard field goal miss away from being 0-2 despite that.
The offense has operated just as everyone expected coming into the year without Deshaun Watson. And they’ve scored 56 points in the two games. There is nothing to complain about there.
After a rough start against Carolina, Jacoby Brissett was very good last Sunday, completing 22 of 27 passes for 229 yards. Amari Cooper caught nine balls for 101 yards and Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt combined for 187 total yards.
We know David Njoku dropped a pass, but overall, we can’t think of anyone on offense who had a poor game. Everything operated according to plan.
However, all of that was erased because the defensive secondary can’t get its act together.
Maybe Stefanski has to give up the play calling responsibilities to make sure he’s more involved with the defense. But something needs to change going forward, starting Thursday night against Pittsburgh.
The breakdowns simply have to stop. At a certain point, Stefanski needs to tell Woods he doesn’t want excuses, just results. After all, this is professional football. There are no moral victories.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 