Last week, we said it was just one game in referring to the Cleveland Browns’ loss to Dallas in the season opener.
This week, we will reach into the cliche bag and tell everyone a win is a win. The Browns played a very good first half of football and held on to beat Jacksonville 18-13 to raise their record to 1-1.
After hiring a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey, who was bringing in an attack more friendly to a dual threat quarterback, the Cleveland offense looked much like the same as it had the previous years under Alex Van Pelt.
The brown and orange came out trying to work the running game. After having just 19 running plays vs. Dallas, and some of those were Deshaun Watson scrambles after escaping the pass rush, they ran the ball 29 times for 125 yards.
D’Onta Foreman started and had the most carries, toting the ball 14 times for 42 yards, and had a huge run in the fourth quarter that unfortunately was called back when he grabbed a defender’s face mask. Jerome Ford looked much better than he did in week one to us and seemed to run harder hitting the holes.
He had 64 yards on seven carries, including a big 36-yard on a fourth down play.
The offense looked a lot like the same kind of system used when Jacoby Brissett was behind center. It appeared the coaching staff told Watson to take care of the football, and indeed Cleveland did not turn it over all day.
There weren’t a lot of high-risk throws. Perhaps the one play that stands out was Watson at the end of a scramble throwing the football into a crowd and somehow Jerry Jeudy came down with it on the sidelines.
Watson would up 22 of 34 for 186 yards and ran the ball five times for 20 yards. It was interesting to see Stefanski use Jameis Winston, a bigger QB, in some short yardage situations for quarterback sneaks.
The defense allowed two big plays, the 66-yard pass from Trevor Lawrence to Brian Thomas and Lawrence’s 33-yard run, otherwise, the Jaguars were bottled up all game. The Browns sacked Lawrence four times, including a safety on Alex Wright’s sack, which should have salted away the game.
Ultimately, that sack followed the play of the game, the punt by Corey Bojorquez which went out of bounds on the one-yard line late in the fourth quarter. Stefanski decided to punt rather than have Dustin Hopkins try a 58-yard field goal, and that was the correct decision.
Speaking of Stefanski’s decisions, we also believe the last offensive play was not supposed to end in a pass, he wanted Watson to roll out, gain as many yards as he could, and then go down and keep the clock running.
We are sure some will focus on the penalties, which Cleveland accumulated 13 flags during the game. It needs to be cleaned up, but there seems to be another “point of emphasis” with officials to call motion penalties. And according to people who know football better than us, a few flags against the Browns were not merited.
But again, a win is a win, and the Browns should be expected to win next Sunday at home against the 0-2 Giants. It will be interesting to see what the offense looks like. Will it be run oriented at the start or throwing a lot.
Either way, Cleveland got a win they needed after a terrible first game showing. And that’s a good thing.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 