The Cleveland Browns have a little something brewing, now 2-1 with a share of first place in the AFC North. To their credit, they are using the newness of the Todd Monken regime to their advantage.
Liam Coen, the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, discussed it prior to the season opener. He had weeks to prepare for a Week 1 matchup against Cleveland’s defense, but under a first-time play-caller in Mike Rutenberg, the Browns had the element of the unknown on their side.
Carolina Panthers tight end Darren Waller discussed that very thing after Rutenberg and the Browns frustrated a team that entered Sunday’s matchup with the second-highest-scoring offense in football. Cleveland stopped the Panthers on downs three times and only allowed one touchdown on three red-zone trips.
Waller said the Panthers were expecting a different defensive strategy from Rutenberg with starting cornerback Tyson Campbell ruled out.
“I naturally think, like, OK, they might want to try to play a little bit more zone than they want to… maybe like their two-high coverage that we would have wanted,” Waller said in the visitor’s locker room after Sunday’s 21-18 loss to Cleveland. “In situations where it’s like, OK, these may be certain play-action shots we’re trying to take… and they pressure with those two-high looks. So they were playing the chess match, too, showing things that we didn’t see early on from them. They have a new defensive coordinator. So they were able to catch us off-guard with things like that. Sometimes you’re trying to go to them, they got pressure, they rotated their coverage in a new way that we hadn’t seen on tape before. So those are the kinds of things that happen early on in the season and you have to give hats off to them defensively.”
Darren Waller admitted Mike Rutenberg's unpredictability caught the Panthers off guard
Ever since Week 1, which can be written off as an extension of the preseason, Cleveland’s defense has been mostly lights-out.
The Browns have now held back-to-back opponents, Tampa Bay and Carolina, to less than 20 points. And as Waller said, Rutenberg has been dialing up pressure in exotic ways that teams are powerless to prepare for.
According to Ben Linsey of SumerSports, the Browns pressured Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on 20% of his dropbacks in Week 1. That number climbed to an elite 43% against Baker Mayfield and the Bucs in Week 2.
Sunday’s game against Carolina? Bryce Young was pressured on 63% of his dropbacks. It was the highest rate by any defense in a game so far this season, per Linsey, and it left the Panthers handcuffed. No offense in football can function properly when facing pressure on over 60% of dropbacks.
Mike Rutenberg is proving the Browns don't need to be predictable to be dominant
With Campbell out and the seldom-used Mekhi Blackmon starting for the Browns at cornerback, the Panthers likely expected the kind of zone-heavy game that Rutenberg called against Jacksonville. But the Browns are at their best when they’re bringing pressure and playing man-to-man on the back end. No. 1 corner Denzel Ward saw 25 matchups against top wideout Tetairoa McMillan and completely erased the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year.
There was understandable concern when Jim Schwartz resigned as the Browns’ defensive coordinator after Monken was named the head coach. But change isn’t always a bad thing in the NFL.
It’s going to take a year for Cleveland’s opponents to collect enough film history on Rutenberg to find tendencies. In the meantime, it’s on the Browns to take full advantage.
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