Three Thoughts on the Puzzling Performance by Browns

The defense was tasked with too much and Lamar Jackson played at an elite level. I am more curious as to what exactly is going on with the offense.

The Cleveland Browns were dealt a decisive loss by the Baltimore Ravens in Cleveland on Sunday. It was a performance that has a number of the fan base overreacting with over the top takes. I on the other hand feel very indifferent about the loss but I am honestly puzzled by how things went so bad for the Browns.

Out of all the games this year this is the one that I am most curious to get to watch the replay on. I will save any heavy criticisms until after I do get the chance but I do have three things that I am really contemplating at the moment.

1. Slow the roll with all the Dorian Thompson-Robinson negativity.

I am certainly not here to tell you that he played great by any means but we all just need to relax just a bit here. There were some calling for DTR after week two, who are now saying that P.J. Walker should be the backup moving forward.

Look, it was his first game and he hasn't seen live reps in weeks. I do not think the game plan on offense was good enough to support him, never mind the poor offensive line play against a wounded Ravens defense. 

I fully expect him to learn from this and hopefully he won't need to be called on again this season to win football games. We also can't act like we didn't see him outperform Josh Dobbs and earn the role. I am also sure that Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski would have been thrilled to have Dobbs here today but they made the right decision in letting him have a chance to fulfill his dream of being a starting NFL quarterback.

2. Why isn't Pierre Strong Jr. seeing touches early in games?

After today's game Strong has a total of 23 carries in his career. Two of those carries have gone for forty or more yards. Overall for his career he has averaged 7.7 yards per attempt. I get that the sample size is small but for a team looking to find answers out of the backfield I for one would like to see more.

I wrote about him earlier in the week as one of the three Browns that needs more opportunity and today confirmed my suspicions. I am not saying he should be the primary over Ford but rather he should get a similar split and maybe rely less on Kareem Hunt.

3. What is going on with this passing game?

With the exception of last week against the Titans, the passing game has seemed very difficult. It has also been hard to point the finger at one specific reason. Much of today will be excused by a rookie making his first career start. 

You could also point to the play of the offensive line in pass protection for issues that continue to persist, especially at one spot. But with the exception of Amari Cooper, the production of what was supposed to be a revamped receiving corp has been alarming. 

There have been missed opportunities by Watson and there were certainly some today as well. My biggest issue is usage of personnel, especially with Elijah Moore. It does appear that they may be running too much of the offense through Cooper as the first read. Njoku finally got some catches today but that was mostly desperation rather than play design. 

I really like Kevin Stefanski as a leader and I think he is a good head coach. I also believe that we have too much talent at skill positions in the receiving game to struggle so much.