Dawgs By Nature
The Cleveland Browns versus the Las Vegas Raiders? A duo of 2-8-0 teams? You can bet that outside the stadium, there would be plenty of very cheap tickets for sale. You know, buy one – get three free type of deals. Geez….
RELATED: BROWNS VS. RAIDERS WEEK 12 FINAL SCORE
It would be a game that every Shedeur Sanders fan has been waiting for – his first start at quarterback. All of us as Browns fans hope their prognosis is correct, that he is perceived as a cross between Michael Vick, Tom Brady, and Johnny Unitas, all rolled into one sensational player who has been kept under wraps all season. Let him out of the barn and allow him to take off.
Any type of game Sanders would have in this game will be better than his first game, in which he stunk up the place, complete with a QB rating of 13.5. The Raiders were a perfect opponent for Sanders’ debut in that they weren’t a good team at all.
At the final gun (which, by the way, they don’t use a starter pistol anymore), the Browns used a dominating defense and a mild offense to thump the Raiders 24-10.
So who played well for the Browns? Who didn’t?
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Defensive line – All game long, the Browns were in the Raiders’ offensive backfield on passing downs. Las Vegas LT Stone Forsythe had no strategy for how to stop DE Myles Garrett despite a tight end stationed over on his side for much of the game. Garrett had three sacks and six QB hits.
DT Maliek Collins had 2.5 sacks on his own, along with three QB hits. In all, pressure came all game. Others with sack numbers: LB Devin Bush (1), DE Cam Thomas (1), DT Mike Hall (0.5), DT Shelby Harris (0.5), LB Jerome Baker (0.5), and DE Isaiah McGuire (1). Garrett had a nice strip sack that caused a fumble, to which Collins pounced on the loose ball. In all, this group had 10 sacks against a very inept offensive line. The offense had plenty of issues in the second half, but this group made certain to keep the lead intact.
DE Myles Garrett – Okay, so Garrett gets mentioned twice. He set a new Browns franchise record for the most sacks in a single season, breaking his own record of 16. He now has a league-leading 18 sacks, and it’s only Week 12. Can he beat the NFL single-season record of 22.5 sacks owned by Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt and the Giants’ Michael Strahan? Stay tuned.
Punt and kickoff coverage – Las Vegas could not move at all on kick coverages because guys were already down, ready to make tackles. And the Browns punted quite a bit (8) so there were plenty of opportunities for the Raiders to generate a runback. Nope. Vegas had a 5.0-yard punt return average and 26.3 yards per kickoff average. Credit goes to Mohammad Diabate, Rex Sunahara, Myles Harden,...
