Cleveland Browns defense played smart
Like a nightmare, the Browns complimented their smart offense with smart defensive play. Given the players lost to COVID, concussions, and injuries, the smart choice is to play conservatively on defense not asking too much of new players.
The Browns play conservatively on defense. They played conservative defense before COVID ravaged the team.
Against the Raiders, the conservative defense hurt the team. The Raiders were one of the worst rushing teams in the NFL. But they were one of the most prolific passing teams in the league. The Raiders were looking to right the rushing game against a depleted Cleveland team.
The Browns made another myopic decision. Looking only at themselves they made a smart decision. They ran the infamous cover-3 zone shell the drops defenders deep giving up the short pass. In the box, they didn’t run any stunts or games. They didn’t blitz. They literally lined up and played base defense.
This thinking is easy to grasp. With starters out on defense, the smart choice is to play a defense the players are comfortable playing. Comfortable players play fast, are aggressive, and make plays. It’s the smart choice.
But it wasn’t the right choice. Base defense severely limits the playbook and what defenses can do to attack the offense. It gave the Raiders easy reads when passing and easily identifiable blocking schemes against the run. Instead of making it hard on the offense. The Browns made it easy.
The right decision was to play aggressively. It was the right choice because it was needed to win.
In the second half, the Browns began playing man press with stunts and blitzes. The aggressive defense shut down the Raiders offense and caused turnovers. This gave the offense a chance to score points and win the game. You play to win the game.
However, with 2 minutes left and a stop needed to win the game, the Browns went back to the smart choice. They abandoned the aggression and played conservatively.
The result is history. The smart choice is not always the right choice to win the game.