Browns Film Room: What Went So Wrong In Denver?

From Kevin Stefanski's strange game plan to Dorian Thompson-Robinson's development under center, find out what happened in the Browns 29-12 loss to the Broncos

Rolling the table on the Browns 29-12 loss to the Denver Broncos revealed some major missed opportunities for Cleveland on a day where it felt like every bounce seemed to go against them.

Despite the fact that Kevin Stefanski, perplexingly, leaned heavily into throwing the football against the 32nd ranked run defense in football, rookie quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson actually had Cleveland within striking distance of the Broncos late in the third quarter. In fact, if Amari Cooper holds on to a ball following Cleveland's only touchdown of the day, the game would have been tied at 14 with just over six minutes remaining in the third quarter.

On that touchdown drive, Thompson-Robinson showed some encouraging signs of development and made a handful of veteran-level throws to get the Browns offense moving. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to build upon it after being removed from the game following a hard hit from Broncos linebacker Baron Browning that put him into the league's concussion protocol.

That seemed to be the turning point in the game where things seemed to spiraled out of control for Cleveland the rest of the way.

Anthony Moeglin and I dissected the tape in our latest episode of Brownie Breakdowns, as we work to explain everything that went wrong in this lopsided Browns loss. If we want answer as to why Stefanski abandoned his run game, leaving Jerome Ford and Kareem Hunt with a combined 16 rushes on the day, we don't uncover and answer for you, but we do pinpoint a few instances where it felt like the run game could have become a catalyst for the Browns.

Meanwhile, the defense unquestionably had one of its worst performances of the season. Find out what Sean Payton did to exploit Cleveland's aggressive group and how Russell Wilson became an X-factor for Denver when it needed him to in key moments.