Hello missed tackles, my old friend…

To paraphrase LeBron James during a time in his life that I prefer not to think about: Not one, not two, not three, not four — fourteen. That is how many tackles the Browns missed during Sunday’s 27-20 loss to the Oakland Raiders, according to head coach Mike Pettine.

The number aside, the Raiders had their way with the Browns for a good portion of the game. Second-year quarterback Derek Carr completed 20-of-32 passes for 314 yards and two touchdowns; he was not sacked. Third-year running back Latavius Murray ran for 139 yards on 26 carries, including a 54-yard scamper. Rookie receiver Amari Cooper burned the Browns for 134 yards on eight catches.

The Browns defense simply didn’t get it done against Oakland, and in the process they helped the Raiders’ trio of Carr, Murray, and Cooper look like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin.

No trio (age 25-or-younger) in NFL history had as many pass/rush/rec. yards respectively as these @RAIDERS on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/GIqxiGKzrm

— NFL (@NFL) September 28, 2015

It was bad, and much of that badness was due to missed tackles. That point was not lost on Pettine, who addressed the topic at some length Monday afternoon.

“There were 14 [missed tackles] that we charted yesterday,” Pettine said. “We do a lot — how we play blocks and how we get to the ball, how we fly to the ball — we get guys in a position to make tackles at the point of attack, and when you miss them, that’s hard to handle. I don’t know the exact total yardage that led to. When I look at yesterday and have to say one thing defensively, that would be it.”

The coach’s language was a little harsher after the game on Sunday: “There were times out there — I didn’t mince words with the staff — that we looked like a scout team.”

Cornerback Joe Haden, against whom Amari Cooper did most of his damage — perhaps in part because Haden suffered a rib injury on the game’s first play — echoed Pettine’s sentiments.

“We have to tackle better,” Haden said after the game. “We have to get off the field on third downs. Myself included, everybody, we just have to be way more consistent on defense. We have flashes where we do really good. Then, we have flashes when we don’t play like ourselves.”

Pettine made it clear that tackling is the biggest problem facing the Browns defense. He said that there are other things to be concerned about, including missed assignments and injuries to middle linebacker Craig Robertson and cornerback K’Waun Williams, but getting the ballcarrier on the ground remains the defense’s most pressing issue.

“I think we took a long hard look at some of the stuff we were doing from a schematic standpoint, but it has been a lot of different things,” said Pettine Monday. “I would say the tackling has been the most troubling. There have been some technical issues — how we are playing double teams, some of the guys on the edge losing the edge — but it has been a mixture.

“To me, it has been the most disappointing aspect of our defense this year. Something that we weren’t very good at last year and not much has changed. With all the emphasis that was put on it, that is an obvious source of frustration.”

Pettine didn’t point to CBA-mandated training camp restrictions on tackling or limited practice time as excuses. There doesn’t seem to be any quick fix beyond just tackling better. The coach was asked if there is any way for the team to drastically improve its tackling given the limited practice time of the regular season.

“Drastic is a strong word, but we need to improve. We are capable of tackling. It is not like we have to teach our guys to do it. There are a lot of finer points involved with it.

“We need to do it better.”