Fresh off the bye, are the Browns going to upset the Saints?
This Sunday, the Cleveland Browns take on the New Orleans Saints. Below, we analyze a few advantages, disadvantages, or general thoughts about the two teams before getting to our predictions for the game.
Game Analysis
Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images
Eight Games to Go
- It absolutely sucks to be facing your final eight games after the bye week, and feel like the team is out of it. Don’t get me wrong — if Cleveland could go 7-1 in these final eight games, then they’d have a shot. But that would be very difficult to achieve. Then, you look over at the NBA, and the Cavaliers are giving off the complete opposite vibe with a historic 13-0 start to the season and playing extremely well together.
- Nonetheless, it’s one game at a time. There is no such thing as an easy game in the NFL, but the Saints are probably the worst team who Cleveland will be facing during this stretch. There is an opportunity to build some momentum going into the Thursday nighter against the Steelers, and then you can really reverse some of the negativity by winning that one too.
- The Browns are still missing Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, but otherwise, this is as healthy as the team will be this season. They should be fresh with an extra pep in their step against a Saints team that played well in upsetting the Falcons last week with their new interim head coach. The Saints clearly had some issues before that, though, losing seven straight games.
Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images
How to Win This Week
- The Saints’ run defense is not good, allowing 5.15 yards per carry (31st in the NFL), and rank 29th in passing yards allowed per game. Nick Chubb’s yards per carry numbers in the first six years of his career: 5.2 YPC, 5.0 YPC, 5.6 YPC, 5.5 YPC, 5.0 YPC, and 6.1 YPC. Through three games this year, he is averaging 2.7 YPC. It’s completely understandable, but Chubb hasn’t been anywhere close to his dominant self yet. I have faith it’ll come back, and this would be a good week for that — I actually think it’s more of a feel/confidence thing than a physical ability. If Chubb gets on track, that could be the unforeseen X-factor that could allow this Cleveland team to go on a run to finish out the season.
- Jameis Winston has to be careful with the football, but that’s hard to do with him because sometimes he slings it and anticipates where a receiver will be, even if it’s wrong. The Ravens blew their chances at picking passes, but the Chargers didn’t. For as bad as the Saints’ defense has been, they are 5th in the NFL in interception rate. They are also 9th in red zone defense, but once you get them in a goal-to-go situation, they are 31st in the NFL.
- Defensively, the Browns have to generate turnovers, particularly interceptions. I keep harping on this, but turnovers are the most important factor for a defense in my opinion.
Quick Hitters
- Here is what offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey said about the Browns’ running game and changing some concepts — does that mean doing away with some of the Shotgun runs?
When you look back at the first nine games, what did you see is the biggest issues with the run game?
“Yeah, I think when you look back at it you evaluate, ‘Okay, what schemes have been effective for us, what schemes have not been effective for us, and why? Is it an execution piece? Is it a versus the looks we’re getting piece?’ That type of thing. So, I think when you go back and look at it, there’s some concepts that we’ve run very well. Whether it was the start of the season till now, and there’s some concepts that we weren’t as effective in. So, it’s curtailing the run game to make sure we’re maximizing those effective concepts and cutting back on the less effective concepts without becoming one dimensional as an offense. So I think when you look at that stuff, yes, there’s things that overall haven’t been as effective, but then there’s also things that have been very effective and we want to obviously lean on those things in terms of what guys are most comfortable running and we can execute at a high level because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. What matters is ‘What can we execute at a high level against whatever look they throw at us?’ Because in the course of the game, there’s going to be those un-scouted looks. There’s going to be things that happen. Maybe that three technique wasn’t supposed to go outside, but he did. And your rules have to be able to account for that and still be able to execute a play at a high level. So, I think that’s the thing that we really looked at is, ‘All right, what do we want to really kind of hang our hat on? What do we want to kind of scale back?’ And then where’s that execution piece on these things to where those guys know exactly what to do and how to do it, no matter what the defense does.”
- And then defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz talked about the defense not getting interceptions, but cites that they are creating havoc:
To the interceptions for the DBs, I mean, your system is obviously so aggressive. These guys individually play aggressive. What’s the balance between finishing the plays on some of these would be interceptions, but not being so aggressive, you’re like doing things out of position or getting out of position?
“Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t consider sort of guessing on a play aggressive. I think you can be very aggressive within the technique of how you’re playing and doing your responsibilities. So, I don’t think there’s any conflict of interest when it comes to that. I don’t know if it means anything, but I remember a couple of weeks ago I was talking about our job is to create negative plays. I don’t know if this is a stat. You guys always got to fact check me because I don’t know where I get half my s***. But I saw somebody had like a thing of havoc plays on defense. You guys can go look that up. But we were either number one or number two. So, we’re still creating — and it was like PBUs, and tackles for losses, and all these different — forced holding penalties, all these different things. We’re still doing that stuff, we just need to come down with those plays, and it could just be interceptions, it could be fumble recoveries. Turnovers are a huge game changer and those kind of things. But I think we’re just a touch off of last year’s pace on third down. We’re still a really good third down team and I don’t know after the bye week where we ended up, but we’re near the top of the league in third down. Our biggest thing is just the big plays that we’ve given up and that’s really been the tale of the tape when we can play really good for 50 snaps and then have five snaps that don’t look so good. And coming off the bye week and looking, you’d like to find some commonality. Was it miscommunication? Well, yeah, one play. Was it a missed technique? Yeah. Was it a missed tackle? It’s been like a lot of different things in there, which makes it a little bit harder to just to come out and say, ‘Hey, we can get that taken care of if we do this.’ It just goes to just being more consistent doing our job in the scheme and letting the scheme work for us and making plays within the scheme, as opposed to trying and pressing to do too much. Everybody wants to make turnovers. We feel a big responsibility to do that, to help our team. But we also have to guard against doing something that could put the rest of the defense at risk. And there’s that fine line of being aggressive and being reckless.”
- Curtiss Brown looked at three Saints who can cause problems for Cleveland.
- Matt Wilson looked at how Elijah Moore can be the X-factor for the Browns this week.
- According to the FanDuel Sportsbook, the Browns are 1.5-point underdogs against the Saints.
Predictions
Here are predictions from multiple staff members at DBN.
Chris Pokorny: “Even though I picked Cleveland to beat the Chargers a couple of weeks ago, I was worried that Los Angeles’ defense would stymie the Browns. Hope prevailed over logic for that pick. This week, the Saints’ defense has a lot of vulnerabilities, and with the bye week, I think the Browns find success on offense and can also put together a good defensive game plan for a victory.” Browns 27, Saints 17
Jared Mueller: “Browns are coming in healthy and I have no clue what to expect. The game will go one of two ways: Either the team is bought into what the future holds and they beat the Saints or they have very little energy and barely show up. As an optimist who really wants some positives for fans, including myself, I’m going to bet on the former.” Browns 27, Saints 23
Curtiss Brown: “I honestly don’t know what to expect from this game. I don’t. Cleveland needed this bye just to re-charge and get healthy considering how the season has gone. At 2-7, I don’t think Cleveland is as bad as people think, the offense hasn’t been great all year and while the defense hasn’t been as dominant as they were last year, it’s a good unit. As far as the Saints go, this team isn’t great. Out of all the teams that had a 2-0 start, the Saints were the team I gave a huge side eye to. Offensively, I don’t know what to make of quarterback Derek Carr. The amount of times he has thrown hospital balls and gotten his receivers hurt because of it is insane when you look back at the film. The wide receiver room is depleted but running back Alvin Kamara is still finding ways to be effective. Defensively, the unit has underperformed and it’s cornerback room is depleted after they traded away Ohio State/Glenville grad cornerback Marshon Lattimore.
This game will come down to who doesn’t shoot themselves in the foot and who can execute. Coin flip on who I trust at quarterback for both teams. Cleveland should win this game but the Saints feel revitalized with interim head coach Darren Rizzi and this game could be a dogfight. I guess Cleveland wins? Barely, I guess.” Browns 21, Saints 19
Damon Wolfe: “I expect this to be a close game. The Browns will probably be pulling out all the stops after the bye and the Saints are back to reality after the first game interim bump. Advantage goes to Cleveland by a field goal and Winston plays well in his return to the Big Easy!” Browns win.
Who do you think will win, Browns fans? Let us know in the comments section below.