Browns have more to worry about than just Jayden Daniels against Washington
In addition to contending with the Commanders dynamic rookie QB, the defense may also have its hands full against Washington’s run game.
The Cleveland Browns take on the Washington Commanders on Sunday where they will get their first look at rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
All Daniels has done through the first four weeks of the season:
Complete 82.1 percent of his passes, the highest completion percentage by a quarterback through the first four games of a season
Score seven touchdowns (three passing and four rushing) against just one interception
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Excel against pressure, as he is No. 2 in quarterback ranking, and tops the league in highest completion percentage over expected and the most expected points added per passing attempt. https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/jayden-daniels-among-the-browns-top-concerns-heading-into-week-5
Lead the Commanders on 23 scoring drives – which is more than the number of incompletions he has thrown (19)
While Cleveland’s defense may have its hands full with Daniels, they can’t ignore Washington’s run game as the Commanders are currently among the top 5 in the league in runs of 10-plus yards, rushing touchdowns (10), yards per carry (5.1), and rushing first downs.
The Browns, on the other hand, are coming off a game where the defense allowed the Las Vegas Raiders to rush for 152 yards – just one yard less than the Raiders had in the first three games combined. The Browns also allowed five different players to have runs of 10 yards or more against Las Vegas and have allowed 16 runs of 10-plus yards on the season.
One area that the Browns can work on is actually tackling the ball carrier, as their 20 missed tackles for almost 100 extra yards lead the league, according to Next Gen Stats.
Following the game, defensive end Myles Garrett attributed the problem to poor technique (quote via Browns Zone):
“Early, I feel like the majority of it was tackling. I feel like we had too many missed tackles and we just got to wrap up. A lot of guys going in with their shoulder trying to lay that big hit, and it came in clutch down the stretch with that forced fumble. But for the majority of the plays, the second man’s got to be the one to force the ball out. The first guy’s got to wrap up and slow the runner down or stop his momentum.”
Identifying the problem is a good first step. The hard part, as the Browns have too often shown, is actually fixing the problem.
The defense needs to figure that out quickly or else a season teetering toward disaster will most certainly hit the tipping point.
