Cleveland’s aggressiveness backfires again.
Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on defense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 5 game against the Washington Commanders.
- DL: I’m not sure I ever recall a stat line of “no stats registered” with respect to Myles Garrett. With that said, Pro Football Focus still liked when they saw, grading him out to a 74.7, the third-highest mark on defense this week. The interior of the defensive line struggled, though, with the top three players all grading out below 57. I know the Browns try to be aggressive all the time, but there is a lap of maintaining their gaps.
- LB: One thing you can’t fault is the play of the linebackers. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah did have the one play where he over-pursued Jayden Daniels on the blitz, resulting in a big run, but despite that, JOK registered a sack, forced fumble, and interception. He received a grade of 90.2, the highest on the team. Devin Bush filled in as a starter for the second straight week and led the Browns with 10 tackles, receiving a respectable grade of 71.7. Rookie Winston Reid from Weber State played a season-high 40% of the snaps, and looked like a playmaker — he shared in a sack and had 2 passes defended to go along with 6 tackles. Reid was PFF’s second-highest graded player with an 89.7. Fellow rookie Nathaniel Watson saw his first action too, and although he didn’t have many snaps, he also got a good PFF grade (72.6). The linebackers did a solid job this week.
- CB: Another week, and another early departure for Denzel Ward. It was also another week of seeing Martin Emerson get beat for an easy touchdown. I hate saying that repeatedly because I felt Emerson was a stud and should be, but something is not working for him now. PFF slammed the Browns’ cornerbacks all-around this week in the grades — Greg Newsome (57.1), Cameron Mitchell (57), Ward (50.3), and Emerson (59.1) all struggled. Bad tackling is a big part of that too.
- S: I’m not sure if something happened to Ronnie Hickman, but after starting the game, he only played 19% of the snaps. Rodney McLeod took on a starting-level workload (78% of the snaps), and D’Anthony Bell saw some action too (31%). We’ll see if Juan Thornhill comes back this week. Bell graded well with a 72.0.
