Dawgs By Nature
The Cleveland Browns will be looking to pick up their third home win of the season on Sunday when they host the San Francisco 49ers.
All the pregame hype will focus on quarterback Shedeur Sanders making his first home start, but the Browns will need more than just “juice and vibes” to beat the 49ers, who are deep into the playoff hunt in the top-heavy NFC West Division.
While the offense will look to take advantage of a weakened defense for the second consecutive week, Cleveland’s defense, which is coming off a 10-sack game, will work to make life miserable for the 49ers when they have the ball.
On Friday, Cleveland’s coordinators held their weekly meeting with the media, and here are the key takeaways from what they had to say about the upcoming game against the 49ers.
In three previous meetings, a Schwartz-led defense has limited Kyle Shanahan’s offense to 15.7 points, 290 yards, and 4.6 yards per play. But the outcome of Sunday’s game will still come down to the players on the field, according to Schwartz:
“When it’s all said and done, it’s not Jim Schwartz against Kyle Shanahan, it’s players versus players. And our job is to try to put players in good positions and let them go out, execute, play with fundamentals, and win the game. This is always one of my hardest weeks of preparation because, I mean, Kyle’s one of the best in the business and has been for a long time. (He) makes you defend every part of the field. He uses his personnel really well.
“I think we can probably make a little too much of people behind the scenes, structure and schemes, and calling plays and things like that. This is a player’s game. Our job is to put them in a good position. Kyle’s one of the best in the business of doing that for his players, so we’ll have to do the same.”
One area where the Browns will need to be particularly sharp will be in tackling to limit yards after the catch:
“(The) field might be sloppy, so it just puts more of an emphasis on technique, but also pursuit and knowing what your help is and getting 11 guys to the ball. I hate to keep referencing it, but (San Francisco’s offense is) very similar to what we saw when we had to go against Miami. A lot of perimeter screens, a lot of quick passes, and it really put an emphasis on tackling. And one of the big things we did in that game was we tackled really well, and that helped set us up for the defensive performance that we had.
“So, when it’s all said and done, defenses are judged by their ability to tackle. If you tackle well, you’re generally going to play good defense. If you don’t tackle well, it’s hard to overcome.”
