The Cleveland Browns moved to 5-2 on Sunday, defeating the Tennessee Titans 27-24, thanks to their best offensive outing of the season. It came at the perfect time, because the Browns defense wasn’t at its best on Sunday.
While Cleveland’s defense has carried the offense for most of the season, the units switched roles in the Week 7 win.
The Titans put up 24 points and 322 yards of offense, and they did so behind a strong run game. Tennessee rushed the ball 30 times for 141 yards (4.7 per carry), and Tony Pollard led the way with 25 carries for 129 yards (5.2) and three touchdowns.
The Browns should’ve been motivated to contain Pollard, because he ran all over Cleveland when the two teams met last season. In a game that Tennessee won 31-29, Pollard rushed 25 times for 161 yards and two touchdowns.
Cleveland surely was aware of that and didn’t want to let the running back go off again. The fact that Pollard and the Titans were still able to have their way on the ground points to an uncomfortable truth: the Browns aren’t good enough against the run right now.
Browns’ run defense proved to be problematic in win against Titans
This may seem like a weird thing to say after Cleveland just held Derrick Henry to 58 yards on 17 carries in Week 6, with 30 of those yards coming on the first drive of the game. But a closer look at the season shows that the Browns have been just an average defense against the run.
Entering Sunday’s game against Tennessee, Cleveland was allowing 112.3 rushing yards per game, which only ranked 17th in the league, and 4.4 yards per carry — 22nd in the NFL. Both metrics put the defense in the bottom half of the league, which is bad for an otherwise good defensive unit.
The 141 yards allowed on the ground on Sunday were the most the Browns have allowed all season, but they have three other games where they allowed over 125 rushing yards. Cleveland is now 2-2 in games giving up over 125 yards on the ground, and that should be a sign that the defense has to clean things up quickly.
It’s hard to consistently win games when you can’t stop the run, and that has been true since the start of football. Additionally, if the Browns are going to be the elite defensive unit they strive to be, they have to be able to do what great defenses do — stop the run.
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