Cleveland Browns: Week 2 grades in somewhat ugly win

Cleveland Browns Defense: C

This may be a bit of a harsh grade, but I bet many fans are willing to jump ship now and give the group an F. Once again, an average quarterback, and even a backup who had never played an NFL snap, had success on this Browns defense.

The defensive line and linebackers did play well against the rushing attack, but there was zero pressure on the quarterback all day, and receivers were constantly running free.

At this point, I’m not sure if Joe Woods doesn’t know how to game plan, or if some of the guys on this roster just aren’t as good as we anticipated.

No doubt, the biggest disappointment yesterday was Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney. They were able to collapse the pocket and get pressure a few times, there was little pressure on either quarterback all day. When there is no pressure, it’s that much more difficult on the defensive backs who know they must cover for even longer.

I get it that Taylor is mobile so you have to be careful to contain him, but Davis Mills is not, and the Browns still couldn’t get pressure on a guy with little to no experience in the NFL.

The two bright spots were the rookies, JOK and Grant Delpit. JOK had a couple of great plays on defense as he read the play well and made a play right at the line of scrimmage. He also had a great pass deflection.

Delpit finally made his NFL debut and boy did he not disappoint. He was on a pitch count, so we didn’t see as much as we wanted, but he still had five tackles, which included a strip-sack in the second half of the game. Delpit was flying around the field and was everything that fans expected. Let’s hope he can be a much bigger contributor next week as the Browns certainly need him.