Cleveland Browns: 3 key matchups against the Kansas City Chiefs
3 matchups that will ultimately decide who wins Sunday’s playoff game
The Cleveland Browns are heading to Kansas City to play the Chiefs on Sunday afternoon in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Chiefs are heavy favorites for the game and rightly so. Their quarterback Patrick Mahomes is arguably the most talented quarterback in NFL history, and he has some of the league’s fastest wide receivers to throw to. When the Chiefs’ offense is clicking, they are nearly unbeatable.
The Browns enter this game hot coming off of one of the biggest wins in franchise history just a week ago. Baker Mayfield proved everyone wrong when he led the Browns to the Wild Card victory over the Steelers. He will have to have a similar performance this Sunday if the Browns want to have a chance to head to the AFC Championship Game.
Cleveland and Kansas City both have strong offenses and susceptible defenses. There are a couple of matchups that are going to decide who wins on Sunday. The winner of these matchups is most likely going to be moving on to the next round of the playoffs.
3. Joe Woods vs. Andy Reid
This first matchup is one that won’t actually take place on the field at all but rather in the mind of opposing signal-callers. Andy Reid calls the plays for the Chiefs on offense. He’s very good at scheming up plays to get his playmakers open in space and give Patrick Mahomes time to get them the ball.
On the Browns side, their defensive coordinator is Joe Woods who is in his first season with Cleveland. Woods has faced some scrutiny this year as the Browns defense has struggled for much of the year. Much of this scrutiny is not fair though because the secondary hasn’t been at full strength all season. But it’s the hand that the Browns were dealt, and they have to play it.
Mahomes is known by most as the best quarterback in the NFL, but his production dips significantly when he’s under pressure. The logical conclusion would be to blitz more to make sure that we can get pressure on him but Mahomes actually does better when blitzed. Mahomes is very good at seeing blitzes before the snap and making adjustments to counter those blitzes.
The first key to winning this matchup lies in the hands of Myles Garrett. He has been far from healthy since testing positive for coronavirus. He has often seemed tired during extended stints on the field because his lungs are still recovering from his hiatus when he tested positive.
Myles Garrett is also without his counterpart Olivier Vernon who ruptured his Achilles tendon in the last quarter of the regular season. This means that Garrett is going to receive more attention from the Chiefs offensive line, and he will likely be double-teamed most of the game.
In the past, we have seen Myles Garrett play like he is the best defender in the NFL. During those stretches it doesn’t matter how many people attempt to block him, it’s impossible. Garrett is going to need to have one of those games if the Browns want to get pressure on Mahomes.
Since Garrett has the deck stacked against him, Joe Woods is going to have to get creative if he wants to get pressure on the quarterback. This could consist of exotic blitzes and disguised blitzes that Mahomes doesn’t see at the line of scrimmage. This is risky because if he can dissect the blitz, the Browns don’t have the defensive firepower to guard the Chiefs receivers in man coverage.
Joe Woods is best served to spend this week figuring out how he can get surprise pressure on Patrick Mahomes to slow down to Chiefs’ offense. This is going to be a chess match with Woods on one side and Mahomes and Reid on the other and the winner of that is going to have a distinct advantage during the game.