Dawgs By Nature
This Sunday, the Cleveland Browns take on the Cincinnati Bengals to cap off the regular season. Below, we analyze a few advantages, disadvantages, or general thoughts about the two teams before getting to our predictions for the game.
Since 2022, Myles Garrett has faced the Bengals six times, and has at least one sack in five of those games. Cincinnati has always tended to try throwing the ball more, and they also try to push the ball downfield with their talented receivers. They are the type of team that you can’t just blow up with 10 sacks against them (like what happened when Cleveland faced the Raiders earlier this season). However, because they get a lot of offense and take time to throw the ball down the field, it’s only natural that Joe Burrow will take some sacks. Sure, they will try to account for Myles Garrett — but they’re not going to radically change everything just because of Garrett. If Garrett gets a sack, he gets a sack — and they move on to trying to get the next big play.
All of that is a long way of me saying that this is as good of an opportunity for Garrett to break the sack record — and all eyes will be on him. Let’s hope he gets it. If he doesn’t, it’ll suck, but it’s not going to leave me devastated or anything like that.
The Bengals’ offense has been red hot over these last couple of weeks. Even though they are eliminated from playoff contention, the season is still young for Burrow because of the early-season injury he had. As far as they’re concerned, they are playing their hearts out still. Cleveland has had an interesting stretch defensively to where I thought the Titans, Bears, and for one half, the Bills, moved the ball all over them. And then, a switch flipped in the second half vs. Buffalo and last week against the Steelers, to where they’ve picked up their intensity.
Now, against Cincinnati, they’ll be without starting middle linebacker Carson Schwesinger. Although Cleveland has historically had the Bengals’ number, I expect them to have a degree of success this week — the kind where both sides have success offensively, and play below average defense. The Bengals have their key pieces offensively, while Cleveland doesn’t — so the scale should tip in favor of the Bengals.
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was asked about whether Pittsburgh spent too much attention on Myles Garrett, but he attributed their issues more so to the trickle down effect and Kenneth Gainwell having to help block:
“Well, I mean, they are always Myles-conscious. Everybody’s Myles-aware. They have to be because otherwise he’ll just completely wreck your game. So, everybody starts their game plan with saying, ‘okay, 95 is not going to beat us, and let’s see if we can play it another way.’ I would say this – it...
