Browns’ Danny Shelton named Pro Football Focus’ midseason All-Pro
November 10, 2016Can the Browns avoid a national embarrassment?: WFNY Roundtable
November 10, 2016The Cleveland Browns dropped their ninth game of the season, losing 35-10 to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. Cleveland is still looking for their first win of the season after nine weeks in 2016, tying the worst start in the history of the franchise.
The Browns have struggled on both sides of the ball, but especially on defense. Cleveland’s defense has allowed the second highest points per game average in the NFL, allowing 30.3 points per game. The defense lacks talent—this is without question the biggest issue with the unit. But they have also struggled mightily because of their lack of fundamentals, allowing big plays to happen at the worst possible times.
The two biggest fundamentals that the Browns struggled with on defense are communication and tackling. In this week’s film room, I will look at the tape of the Cowboys game to illustrate the lack of fundamentals hurting the Browns defense.
Browns Film Room Series: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8
Miscommunication
The play above, Dallas’ first score of the game, was successful for the Cowboys because of the Browns miscommunication in the secondary. On the play, the Cowboys are in a shotgun with three receivers out wide, a running back in the backfield and a tight end lined up on the end of the right side of the line. The Browns are in zone coverage in the secondary with two safeties covering over top.
The two key players on the play are the receiver Terrance Williams and tight end Jason Witten. Williams is running a streak route down the numbers, while Witten is running a 15-yard out route. The miscommunication comes between linebacker Jamie Collins and cornerback Jamar Taylor. The fault is on both these players. Collins is covering the underneath area of field. He initially covers Witten in the first ten yards, but he for some reason stops rather than track Witten toward the sideline. This leaves it up to Taylor over top. Taylor covers Williams like he is in man coverage. He just sticks to Williams, leaving Witten with no one over top. Witten cruises in for the touchdown because two of the Browns defenders did not communicate on the coverage of Williams and Witten.
The Browns have yet to say which player was at fault, but looking at the players covering and releasing on the other side of the play with what should be a three-deep secondary, Cleveland was in a zone defense which means Taylor blew his assignment of the deep right side.
***
This is another miscommunication by the Browns defense. On the play, the Dallas Cowboys line up in a shotgun with three receivers out wide, a running back in the backfield and a tight end on the end of the right side of the line. The Browns are in man coverage on the outside against the three receivers and two safeties in zone coverage.
The key players on the play for the Cowboys are receivers Cole Beasley and Dez Bryant. They are covered man-to-man by Browns cornerbacks Tramon Williams and Joe Haden, respectively. The motion by Beasley completely confuses the Browns on the play. Beasley motions over to line up behind Bryant. Bryant is designed to run a dig route, running all to the way to the back of the end zone and then heading inside. Beasley is designed to run a short out route a couple yards in the end zone. The miscommunication is between Haden and Williams. Haden covers Beasley pre-snap then takes Bryant who runs to the back of the endzone, while Williams takes Beasley initially but completely stops covering as he cuts outside, letting him slip away for an easy touchdown. Williams acts like Haden should have been there following the play. It was bad communication between the two Browns secondary players.
Tackling
This play is an example of the bad tackling on the Browns defense fans have seen all season long. On the play, the Cowboys line up in a single back set with three receivers out wide and a tight end motioning to the left end of the line. The Browns have four down linemen and three linebackers in the box.
The play for the Cowboys was designed to go up the middle, but running back Ezekiel Elliott bounces it out to the left edge after seeing the middle of the line stuffed. He sees defensive lineman Carl Nassib slant inside leaving the edge open (which is also not good). This leaves cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun to stop Elliott from getting to the edge. Boddy-Calhoun has a chance to stop Elliott, but he takes a really bad angle. He starts to go slightly inside, which makes him have to reverse field and head back outside to beat Elliott to the edge. He is far too late, though. Elliott had too much speed, forcing Boddy-Calhoun to only have the chance of tackling the running back by a last resort dive. He missed and Elliott cruised in for a touchdown. The missed tackle all started because of a bad angle taken initially.
***
This is yet another example of bad tackling from the Browns defense. On the play, the Cowboys line up in a shotgun formation with four receivers out wide and a running back in the backfield. The Browns have man coverage on four receiving targets, either on- or off-man coverage.
The target to watch on the play is tight end Jason Witten who is running an out route from the left slot. Witten is covered by defensive back Tracy Howard, who lined up at safety, but is in charge of Witten. The space given by Howard allows a catch for Witten, but it was turned into a bigger play because of the bad tackling of Howard. Howard takes yet another bad angle to take down Witten. The future Hall of Famer simply pauses and Howard flies past him, allowing Witten to head up field. The Browns still do not tackle Witten perfectly, allowing Witten to carry two Browns defenders up field for additional yardage. It was just extra yardage that simply did not need to happen.
Highlight of the Game
The highlight of the game versus the Dallas Cowboys was quarterback Cody Kessler. After returning to lineup, Kessler performed admirably. He completed 19 of 27 for 203 yards and a touchdown. He was far from the problem on Sunday, continuing to show solid play.
Lowlight of the Game
The lowlight of the game versus the Dallas Cowboys was the Browns defense. It is hard to watch this defense play. Against the Cowboys, the Browns defense allowed 35 points and 423 total yards of offense. The Browns couldn’t stop the run or pass, allowing rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott to roll right over them. The defense needs a lot of help.
9 Comments
Poor fundamentals are a byproduct of poor coaching.
I’m looking at you Mr. Horton…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afaad853c829055913115dfd1e01f8724eaa587fbd4d787de02d5790f72873a5.jpg
good stuff JOE … on that first one , it’s taylor’s fault … they’re in a zone defense & taylor leaves his area … the safety had t.williams covered. this kinda stuff is happening multiple times during games. you would think they could at least play zone defense.
… and on the “tackling” one , bad technique by Nassib by diving inside instead of setting the edge … you picked some good clips on our deficiencies … i would say the mistakes are disciplinary & not the coaching … though everyone is looking at ray horton.
Lando Calrissian!
Sometimes poor “fundamentals” are poor ability, like misjudging speed and taking bad angles to a play. However, the poor communication, which has been a constant this season, has to reflect poorly on Horton at least a little bit. It doesn’t look like they’re doing anything particularly complicated – they just aren’t on the same page.
That end zone play is inexcusable. I guess it’s possible that Haden was in the wrong following Dez instead of dropping into zone on the outside, but Haden was in man coverage on Dez all day, so I think either Williams just got confused when he pivoted and saw Haden and Dez both right there, or the play call just wasn’t clear enough for the players to know what to do. You’ll notice that on the other side of the field the CB takes a terrible path to cut off any pass other than a deep corner fade while the safety drops into a zone against nobody and just stands there. Huge chunk of field un-defended and Prescott could easily have thrown a TD on that side if he had wanted to. The players can’t all be that bad at sorting out their assignments.
hi WOOF … good post. he is working with a very young defense , so i would think he would try to keep it very simple for everyone … is he doing this ? … i don’t know.
the other thing i wonder about , is how much do they actually work on tackling technique in the NFL ?
http://img.pandawhale.com/45981-Sweet-Jesus-mother-of-god-Jura-ytNE.gif
https://66.media.tumblr.com/49e6092f0658f01990f936eadaa67bd6/tumblr_mhtm5eKi1g1rxk7obo1_500.jpg