Dawgs By Nature
The Cleveland Browns travel to Baltimore to play the Ravens on Sunday, and they’ll have a little more motivation seeing as Baltimore has decided to honor and celebrate the one person who destroyed the Browns organization 25 years ago.
Art Modell.
Though it’s kind of odd that their 30th anniversary celebration just happens to fall on the date that they play Cleveland, it is what it is. There’s nothing that the Browns can do about it other than to completely dominate and humiliate the Ravens on Sunday.
If that’s their plan, then these matchups will be crucial to their success:
Mason Graham could end up being the ultimate X-factor for Cleveland on Sunday, as he had a fairly good game in week 1. If he can hold up against the run as well as he did against Cincinnati, then it’ll undoubtedly force Baltimore to be more of a one-dimensional team on offense.
The main area that he needs to improve in against the Ravens on Sunday is in the pass rushing department. He only had a PFF grade of 58.6 in this category last week and will have to do better against a much stronger Baltimore interior. With Myles Garrett and Isaiah McGuire on the outside and Maliek Collins next to him inside, Graham should be able to see a decent number of 1-on-1 matchups against Andrew Vorhees and Daniel Faalele.
On the flip side, if Graham and Collins are dominating inside, that means that Ravens’ offensive tackles Ronnie Stanley and Roger Rosengarten are getting less help against Garrett and McGuire on the edge.
Though Pocic had a rough year in 2024, he played incredibly well in Cleveland’s close loss to the Bengals. He basically shut down B.J. Hill and T.J. Slaton in the passing game, though the Cincinnati duo was pretty effective against the run.
Pocic needs to have another strong game as a pass-blocker on Sunday against one of the best nose tackles in the league, Travis Jones. The 6’4”, 340-pound monster has been almost unblockable against the run over the past two seasons, and he’s been able to bullrush centers and guards back into the quarterback’s lap on passing downs.
Pocic also has to play with a strong core and be able to anchor down against Jones this weekend if Joe Flacco is going to be effective in week two. Cleveland’s interior will need to form a wall up front in order to create a nice, defined pocket for Flacco to operate in, or else Flacco won’t be able to set his feet all day long.
Are there any other positional matchups that you’ll be paying attention to on Sunday? Join fellow Browns fans in the comment section below.
