M-V-P, M-V-P: This Week in Tribe Baseball
September 21, 202110 Musings from the Browns’ win over the Texans
September 22, 2021Happy #VictoryTuesday! Allow me a quick tangent/rant, if you please. I was so disheartened to see the timeline seem so dour on a Monday after a win. You’d think we lost in heartbreaking fashion, yet Cleveland was 1) never losing 2) in control of the entire second half 3) able to rest some of the bigger name players while allowing for younger ones to step up in a game already at hand. Yes, it would have been nice to rip through Houston to the tune of 56-0, but that’s foolhardy in today’s NFL, and the Texans aren’t as bad as we all thought. They have added some veteran pieces to a complete a competent roster that has been overshadowed by the Deshaun Watson fiasco.
The title of this article is “role reversal” because we have often been in the seat of the Texans: a winnable game against a better opponent that seemingly slipped through the fingers of a team that is not yet ready for primetime. Let’s enjoy being the bullies in this situation and winning a game that we probably should have lost because injuries to key players cropped up, the team seemed to be coasting on talent alone, and some bad playcalling on defense allowed the Texans offense to get further along than they should have. Hope you all are as fired up as I am. Let’s get into the questions and answers.
Question: What will the wide receiver room look like against the Chicago Bears?
Remember how I mentioned injuries to key players? Jarvis Landry got all of one catch for nine yards before leaving with a knee injury. Imaging during and after the game has confirmed that it is an MCL sprain and Landry has been marked as week-to-week, but as careful as head coach Kevin Stefanski has been with fellow LSU Tiger Odell Beckham Jr, it would be a cold day in Pittsburgh if you think Landry plays this Sunday. A trip to the IR is much more likely, which would keep Juice out for three weeks at a minimum. If the Browns had a bye week before Week 13, you could maybe make the argument against that, but with such a long season being even longer, we would much rather have Landry get healthy over trying to force the issue.
So the question is, who is playing wide receiver for Cleveland? OBJ has sat out the first two games, but with the injury to Landry, it’s almost expected that he will make his season debut against the Bears. So that’s one, but who will pick up the other looks? Donovan Peoples-Jones and Rashard Higgins have both only had two targets each and four catches combined, and Anthony Schwartz doesn’t seem to be the answer either after he broke off the route that ended with Baker Mayfield’s interception that led to the possible dislocation of Mayfield’s shoulder. There was an inkling that Davion Davis could come back from a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs and make the roster, but he was released on Monday. Will we continue to see the tight ends step up in the passing game, with David Njoku, Austin Hooper, and Harrison Bryant getting extra reps? That seems most likely but time will tell. That grouping had 107 of Mayfield’s 213 yards and went 11-of-12 on their targets.
Answer: Demetric Felton is electric and adds a new dimension to this offense
The 211th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft got his first snaps on Sunday and did everything humanly possible with them. With two catches for 51 yards and a touchdown, Felton announced his presence as a game-changer with his elusiveness as well as his speed. He only had three snaps but still graded a 96.1 per PFF for that ridiculously small sample size. His role in the offense will grow as the team is more than likely without Landry for a few weeks, but between the return of OBJ and all of his magnificence, Schwartz’s speed on the outside, and Felton’s explosiveness, the double-headed hydra of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt in the backfield, the offense is not without its weapons as Landry heals.
Question: Why wait to pressure Davis Mills?
Defensive coordinator Joe Woods’ game plan for the two matchups has been to keep the offense in front of you, not let anything or anyone get past you for big gains. It’s similar in that to the prevent defense, but on a much less annoying scale. That being said, it has not been effective to this point in the season. The Browns failed to get any real pressure on Patrick Mahomes in the first game, though Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney did a decent job in getting into the backfield and moving him, he was never in danger danger. Most of the first half against the Texans was the same: Tyrod Taylor dinked and dunked and took what was given to him, all with little to no effective pressure in his face, and even when he left the game with an injury, the defense still didn’t get to Davis Mills, a rookie, until late in the game when Woods started calling for some blitzes. For just some basic reference, Cleveland recorded seven QBHits on Mahomes on the road while only getting three total against Houston.
Why did Woods wait until Mills’ 5th drive to get after him? Was he waiting for the game to be in hand to try some new things? Was he unsure that Grant Delpit could be used in such a way, a havoc-creating blitzer who got to Mills for the Browns only sack and forced a fumble, and got the “okay” with two minutes left in the game? No matter who the Chicago quarterback is, a gimpy Andy Dalton or rookie Justin Fields making his first career NFL start, I hope to see more blitzes if the defensive front is not getting enough push.
Answer: The running back workload will continue to be a mix
If you drafted Nick Chubb in the first round of your fantasy drafts or paid upwards of $50 for the right to his services in a salary cap auction, it’s hard being upset about his production: 5th in rushing yards,1 tied for first in rushing touchdowns, and he’s keeping on pace with his catches. Yet with the way #BrownsTwitter complains about his usage, you’d think he was being held in some Jigsaw-esque torture chamber, getting scraps from the table. Yes, I’m aware that we should never feed the trolls and that Twitter isn’t real life, but complaining about a running back isn’t getting used enough when he was able to produce to the level he has thus far is a bad look. You can argue the KC game needed more running plays, but that’s a game plan issue, not a Hunt over Chubb issue. As I said in my open, not every game is going to be a 56-0 blowout.
That being said, I am very pleased with the breakdown of production between Hunt and Chubb and Felton to this point. 26 carries for Chubb, 19 for Hunt, with three and four catches, respectively, is about as even as possible. With Felton coming in and giving you three to five reps a game, that’s good usage out of a backfield that can obliterate opposing defense with power, blow past them with speed, and catch the ball effectively out in space.
- And one of those is a quarterback! [↩]