Dawgs By Nature
It was a familiar script on Sunday for the Cleveland Browns at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
The offense had a few bright spots, including a 13-play, 69-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter, but struggled in the fourth quarter, as their four drives totaled only 29 yards.
The defense held up its end by forcing two turnovers, sacking Minnesota quarterback Carson Wentz three times, and allowing just 269 yards of offense until the Vikings’ final offensive drive.
But on that final drive, Wentz took the Vikings 80 yards in 10 plays, only faced a third down once, and hit wide receiver Jordan Addison for the game-winning touchdown with 25 seconds remaining.
For a defense that positions itself as one of the league’s best, and has many stats to back up that claim, it was a missed opportunity to close out a winnable game and bring some much-needed positivity to a team that is quickly seeing the season slip away.
That is what top defenses do after all, even in a league that emphasizes the offense and loves scoring.
But that may also be treating the defense a bit too harshly, especially given that they have to overcome not only the opponent but their own offense.
Sunday marked the 12th consecutive game where the Browns finished with a negative EPA on offense, the longest current streak in the NFL. It is also double the second-longest current streak, held by the Tennessee Titans, according to The Athletic.
As we said at the top, it is a familiar outcome as the Browns have ranked at No. 1 on defense but at No. 32 on offense in EPA per play since defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz joined the coaching staff in 2023.
It gets even worse, as The Athletic’s Mike Sando points out:
Even the Browns’ defense let down Sunday, but for the 33rd time in 39 games with Schwartz, the Browns produced more EPA on defense than they did in the other two phases of the game combined. That’s 85 percent of the time, the highest rate for any defensive coordinator with any team since at least 2000 (minimum 32 games).
When you look at the Browns since 1999, several statistics seem hard to imagine, but this is not necessarily one of those.
The offense has been a mess ever since the trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson. There was that one brief stretch with Joe Flacco in 2023, but 2024 saw some of the historically worst quarterback play in NFL history, and the first four weeks of this season were more of the same.
Cleveland made the switch to rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel on Sunday, and while there were some bright spots, he was still at the helm of the unit that only had 29 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter.
There are still things the defense does to drive people crazy, like messing up the coverage on Addison’s touchdown, but it may be too much to ask a defense...
