It’s Victory Friday. VICTORY FRIDAY. The Browns were in “must win” territory last night and came through. No QB1, no RB1, no RB2, no RT 1, no WR3 and no potential defensive rookie of the year. No problem. Well not quite. I know all Browns fans were sweating a river after the last Bronco touchdown, I was. But at 4-3, I’m feeling much better this morning. So, lets get to it.
Positives. QB Case Keenum, RB D’Ernest Johnson, RT (right tackle?) Blake Hance, LT Jedrick Wills, LB Mack Wilson, CB Troy Hill, LB Anthony Walker, S John Johnson, III, offensive line coach Bill Callahan and running back coach Stump Mitchell. Good teams have backups who can step-up and coaches who know how to coach. That game felt like the score should’ve been 28-14 Browns. Keenum doesn’t have the arm he used to have, but did what was needed to win the game. The offensive line was great and opened wholes for D’Ernest Johnson all night. Speaking of Johnson, there are a lot of GM’s in the NFL looking at their third string running backs and are scratching their heads. On defense, even though the Broncos had two touchdown drives, they were long, time consuming drives. The Browns defense made them earn every yard. Good to see LB Mack Wilson have his best game both on defense and special teams. According to Pro Football Focus, he was the fifth rated defender and number one rated special teamer. Both CB Troy Hill and S John Johnson, III had good games. Glad to see the Browns line Johnson closer to the line of scrimmage on certain plays. The special teams coverage units are fantastic and the punt return unit came real close to a blocked punt. Final positive, the crowed. I had forgotten how that crowd buzz sounded on television.
Negatives. I had a few small problems with the play calling early in the game. If your QB doesn’t have the arm to throw long passes, don’t have him throw long passes. Early in the game, Keenum tried to force the ball to OBJ on a long pass that could have been intercepted. TE David Njoku was open and I mean open in the middle of the field. In the second half, the play calling really improved. Nice half-time adjustments. On defense, the Browns are going to need to be more consistent. In the first half, they did a great job of making up for the loss of LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah. In the second half, you saw how important JOK is to this defense. Yes the officiating was bad, again, however the players need to stop criticizing the referees. NFL referees have long memories. If it’s October, then Denzel Ward has a hamstring injury. Incredibly kicker Chase McLaughlin missed a field goal. It wasn’t his fault the kick got blocked, but DT Andrew Billings has to do a better job of protecting the rush lanes. Missed Shelby Harris by a mile. On the positive side, McLaughlin made his next kick, an extra point attempt. In the past a Browns kicker would miss that because they were still thinking about the block.
This was an important team win. Now the players can take some time off and rest up. The coaches can do some self scouting to improve schemes on both side of the ball. It’s time to get some more players back from injury. As for QB Baker Mayfield, he can play with his injury and he wants to start against the Steelers. If it was serious, the team would ‘ve already put him on IR and scheduled his surgery. I expect him to play. Enjoy the break, everyone stay safe and Go Browns.