How did the Cleveland Browns defense look during the Week 1 loss to the Steelers?

This past Sunday, the Cleveland Browns was like night and day. In the first half versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, the defensive unit yielded 364 total yards and 27 points, gouged for 90 yards on the ground and 274 yards in the air. This put the team in a huge hole in the second half. After halftime, the Browns were able to hold the Steelers to only 126 yards and a field goal. So what was the difference between the first half and the second half?

During the first 24 minutes, Ben Roethlisberger and Le’Veon Bell made the D look like one of the worst defenses in the league. The main culprits of what went wrong with the defense in the first half were: bad tackling, players losing their assignment, and not being able to bring down Big Ben.

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Bad Tackling

This could be the biggest reason why the defense gave up so many yards and points in the first half. There were multiple times where defenders would completely whiff on the ball carrier and allow a bigger play to happen. The biggest example of the bad tackling was the 38-yard touchdown run by Le’Veon Bell.

The run starts towards the middle of the line, but Bell cuts to the left and finds the hole on the outside around the tight end. This is where Phil Taylor makes the first missed tackle at the line of scrimmage. He misjudges Bell’s speed and lunges instead of pursuing after him.

The next couple miss tackles come when Bell cuts back to the right after entering the hole. Donte Whitner takes a bad angle and overruns Bell making him incapable of even attempting a tackle. Armonty Bryant misses the tackle because of bad positioning and technique using just his arms to try and bring him down.

The next group of tacklers is Jabaal Sheard and Joe Haden. Jabaal Sheard lunges at Bell while he simultaneously jukes, causing Sheard to barely even touch him. Joe Haden is out of position and also gets juked easily causing to completely miss Bell.

The last miss tackle comes from Buster Skrine. Skrine is chasing Bell, but gets out of control and takes the wrong route to him. He only gets one hand on Bell before finishes the run towards the endzone.

So this one play had six mistakes—all of which being either a missed tackle or an out-of-position defender. It was like the team thought it was touch football with the horrible arm tackling on the play. The first half had multiple plays where Browns defenders missed tackles letting the Steelers have bigger plays.

In the second half, the team shored up this deficiency quite a bit. The tackling was markedly better in the second half. The Browns limited the bigger plays by getting the ball carrier down with the first tackle. It also helped that the defense was able to have multiple players get to the ball carriers and bring the ball carrier down with more then one defender.

But even in the second half, there were still times that a Browns defender would miss a tackle because of bad technique. Many of the tackling was done with arms and so the ball carrier was able to breakaway because of this poor technique. The team will need to practice this over the week and address this issue. It was not a pretty site seeing all these missed tackles, but it seemed like they did get better in the second half.

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Losing Assignment

I saw times throughout the first half where a defender did not do what they were assigned to do causing a vulnerability in the defense. A couple of the big plays in the game occurred because of this problem. An example of a Browns defender losing their assignment came on an 11-yard run by Le’Veon Bell. It was a first and ten from the 15-yard line in the very first series of the game.

The run started with Le’Veon Bell running towards the left side of the line. He then stops and cuts back all the way to the right side around the end to the four-yard line. The player who lost his assignment was Paul Kruger. He loses contain by going too far down the line getting cut blocked by tight end Heath Miller. Kruger has to guard the edge from any cut back and keep the runner inside. He was the last line of defense on the edge as you can see here. Whitner was the only one who was able to get to the runner, but that was 11 yards down field.

There were also multiple times where players in coverage lost their assignment. In the second play of the game for the Browns defense, they gave up a 41-yard gain on a screen pass to Antonio Brown.

As you see here, the play has the receiver on the outside clearing out and going up the field on a streak. Antonio Brown starts his route going outside and then goes back in to catch the screen pass. Craig Robertson is assigned to cover Brown (not a smart idea) with Donte Whitner as a deep safety.

Brown fakes Robertson when he goes outside and so an offensive lineman because of this hesitation, subsequently blocks Robertson. He was only able to put a hand on Brown, letting Brown go down field for a huge gain. As you see here, this gives Brown open space after getting past Robertson. Robertson knew he had to stay with Brown because he had only deep safety help. He could not afford to lose his assignment.

Now, I do not fully blame Robertson for this play. It was a stupid playcall to have Robertson lined up against the Steelers’ best wide receiver. The defense was flawed before the play even started. But Robertson needed to stay with Brown and get thru the block to make a tackle.

The Browns were a lot better in the second half in staying on assignment. The defense was able to stay in coverage and not lose their assignment like they did a couple times in the first half. This part of the game is a lot about not being overly aggressive as a player and just doing your job. The Browns can improve on this as season goes on and each player knows their role in the defense.

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Not Being Able to Bring Down Big Ben

This was a huge issue in the first half for the Browns. The Browns had multiple times where a pass rusher or multiple pass rushers got to the backfield and had an open shot to get a sack. But many times in these instances, Ben Roethlisberger would escape and cause the pass rusher to miss. One of the biggest plays of the game in the first half portrays this big problem.

On this play, Buster Skrine comes in on a blitz and has a free lane to Roethlisberger. But he completely whiffs when Roethlisberger shifts to the left. But when he shifts to the left, he runs into Barkevious Mingo on the edge. But, Mingo completely overruns Roethlisberger and just gets his hands on him. Roethlisberger then slips out of the pocket and heaves a great throw to Antonio Brown for a touchdown.

This was a huge play in the game because it could have been a huge sack to push back the Steeler offense. The defense had a couple times in the first half to make sacks on Big Ben, but they just couldn’t get to him and bring him down before he threw it away or broke away. In the first half the Browns only had one sack, but had multiple opportunities for more. Obviously, it has always been hard to bring Roethlisberger down, but when you are free to the quarterback, you have to make the play.

They were able to bring Roethlisberger down in the second half. The defense had three sacks in the second half. The sacks also came in big moments to either slow down a drive or end a drive.

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Defensive Standout

Paul Kruger was my defensive standout of the game. He was in the backfield all day, notching five tackles, two sacks, two tackles for loss, and two quarterback hits. Kruger was able to keep up the pressure throughout the game and caused the Steelers offensive line havoc. He was one of the catalysts of the second half run. Early in the second half, he ended the first two drives with a short yardage tackle and a sack.

Defensive Lowlight

Justin Gilbert was the lowlight on the defense. He struggled all day in coverage, giving a lot of yards to his man. According to ProFootballFocus, Gilbert was targeted seven times giving up six receptions for 97 yards. In multiple situations he was outmuscled on the wide receiver’s break. The receiver would gain separation through this little push off. He must learn to fight through this and be stronger in coverage.