Jerome Ford took his first carry of the day 66 yards, here’s how he was able to do it
The Cleveland Browns fell to 3-12 on the season yesterday as they lost to their in-state rivals 24 to 6. Though there wasn’t an abundance of excitement throughout the game, Jerome Ford’s 66-yard run on the first play of the day started things off with a bang.
Let’s take a look at what made this play so successful against Cincinnati’s 7-man box on play No.1 of the day:
Cleveland came out in 11P with three receivers to the right, and David Njoku in line at the LOS on the left.
It was a power-read play so once the ball was snapped, QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson read the weakside DE Trey Hendrickson (#91), and used his actions to determine where the ball would go. If Hendrickson crashed down the line of scrimmage, then DTR would’ve kept the football and taken it outside to the left behind Njoku’s block.
#Browns RB Jerome Ford made an excellent decision to stay inside at the 2nd level yesterday on his big run.
Some RBs would have tried to cut outside once the safety (#27) came down, but Ford knew he had the angle/speed to beat him. #FordFever #DawgPound pic.twitter.com/6X6ytmN4aL
— Matt Wilson (@CoachWilson66) December 23, 2024
In this instance, Hendrickson stayed “home” and waited to see what the QB would do so DTR handed the ball off to Ford. LT Germain Ifedi pulled around and up through the “B” gap and got just enough of the MIKE LB to keep him from making the tackle at the 2nd level.
Both LG Joel Bitonio and C Ethan Pocic blocked down the LOS, so Bitionio took the 3-tech and Pocic released up to block the SAM. RG Wyatt Teller was tasked with making one of the key blocks here, which was to completely seal off and take the 1-tech out of the play at the point of attack. His block set the initial hole, ensuring that there was enough width to the lane for Ford to get through between himself and RT Jack Conklin’s base block on the strongside DE.
Another important and valuable aspect of this play being so successful was the downfield blocking by all three of the wide receivers. Elijah Moore, Jerry Jeudy, and Mike Woods gave Jerome Ford the time and space that he needed to accelerate out of the 2nd-level.