Cleveland Browns quarter mark PFF grades very friendly to offense, defense less so
By Sam Penix
Defense
For the most part, things aren’t as pretty defensively. Cleveland is a modest 14th in defensive grade, but that’s mostly thanks to the play of Myles Garrett, who owns a 90.9 defensive grade with a league-leading (among EDGEs) 91.4 pass-rush mark. He leads the NFL in pressures with 27, and his 16 percent pressure rate is actually 1 percent higher than it was in 2019. He’s been fantastic and has to the Defensive Player of the Year favorite right now.
Garrett is the only Cleveland defender with an overall grade above 77. Denzel Ward ranks second at 76.5, and Olivier Vernon, Karl Joseph, Sione Takitaki, and Andrew Sendejo are all starters under the 50.0 threshold. Not great. With Andrew Billings opting out of the season and Grant Delpit suffering a torn Achilles, the defense was always going to struggle, but it has struggled mightily this season, with the only saving grace coming in the form of a league-leading 10 turnovers, a number which is hardly sustainable. Once the turnovers stop coming and teams are actually able to finish off long drives with points, Cleveland’s already suspect passing defense will be exposed even more.
Rookie Jordan Elliott had three solid games before his “Welcome to the NFL” moment happened in Week 4. He’s still sporting a solid 63.9 grade, which actually puts him above Sheldon Richardson’s 61.4. Larry Ogunjobi has come back to earth after an elite Week 1 performance and is now at a 69.6.
Linebacker Malcolm Smith currently holds a 73.3 grade in coverage, which is by far the best out of all Browns linebackers, so of course, he has fewer snaps than Sione Takitaki and B.J. Goodson.
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It’s a tale of two halves for the Browns four games into the season. It will be very interesting to see how long the team can keep up this level of offensive superiority, and whether or not the defense can play up to its talent level. But now you have a better understanding of how each unit has played thus far, and when Mason asks you what the numbers mean, you can tell him.