Cleveland Browns need to coach to win, or they never will
By Joel W. Cade
Cleveland Browns failure to adapt in-game
The Browns coaching staff struggle to adapt in-game. Beyond all of the smart decisions being made, the Browns fail to recognize what is happening mid-game and make changes.
This failure was on full display against the Raiders. Las Vegas anticipated Cleveland’s conservative approach to running the football. Their game plan was simple. The outside zone offense is vulnerable to back-side chasers. The Raiders backside chasers consistently ran down the Browns’ run plays. The Browns never adapted.
The outside zone scheme is effective because it creates a numbers advantage at the point of attack. It gets more blockers against defenders in one area by leaving players unblocked in other areas. A zone scheme leaves players unblocked in the area they are running away from. This is known as the backside of a play.
The way to defeat a zone scheme is to have the unblocked player chase down the play from the backside. Proponents of the scheme understand the threat of a backside chaser. There are thousands of ways a zone offense can control a backside chaser.
The backside chaser can be controlled by a read-option play. This play reads the defender and chooses who runs the ball based on their decision. The Baltimore Ravens do this well. The zone scheme can line up a tight end in a play side wing position only to have them run across the formation to block the chaser at the snap. The 49ers do this well.
Another way is to fake the zone while the quarterback rolls out toward the area the chaser vacated. This rollout presents the quarterback with various passing options, or he can run the ball. This is the Browns’ preferred method.
The Raiders’ backside chaser consistently ran down the Browns running backs. Cleveland failed to run plays to control the backside chaser. Eventually, the Browns began pulling Pro Bowl right guard Wyatt Teller to kick out the chaser. But this did little to deter the chaser in the zone scheme.
By failing to control the chaser, the Browns failed to adapt mid-game. This isn’t isolated to the Raiders game. The coaches regularly fail to see what the other team is doing and adapt.
The myopic decisions made by this team hurts. The coaches are fixated on what they are doing and they fail to see what their opponents are doing. Games are not played against yourself.
Sun Tzu in the Art of War says that knowing yourself and knowing your enemy leads to a thousand victories. The Browns seem to know what they can do. They make smart decisions based on what they can accomplish with their personnel.
But they fail to know their enemy. They fail to gameplan or adapt to what the opponent is doing. The results are history. Sadly, history is repeating itself.
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It’s time to stop making smart decisions based on a myopic view of the team. It is time to make the right decisions to win the game.