Despite what the score might say, the Browns' defense gave fits to a Super Bowl-contending offense for a large part of this game before it got out of hand. Here are four takeaways about the Browns' defense from their Week 2 game against the Ravens after watching the all-22 film.
4 takeaways from Browns' Week 2 defensive all-22 film vs Ravens
Maliek Collins was tremendous as a pass rusher
Through his first two games with the Browns, defensive tackle Maliek Collins has been a perfect interior complement to Myles Garrett. Among defensive tackles with at least 10 pass rush snaps, Collins ranks second in pass rush win rate and first in pass rush PFF grade while seeing double teams at a 50 percent rate.
Collins isn't double-teamed nearly as much as other interior linemen in the league, but that's because Garrett is being doubled at a 75.9 percent rate, almost 10 percent higher than Micah Parsons, the next closest edge rusher on the list. However, Baltimore did have to take additional notice to Collins as the game went on, which created openings for Garrett and others up front.
Linebacking core has been very impressive
Once Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was ruled out for the season and Jordan Hicks retired, there was concern about how the linebacking core was going to hold up in the middle of a defense with high expectations. Through two games, Devin Bush has been elite in leading this group, as he's been tremendous in both phases of the game.
In Baltimore's game plan, they attempted to utilize trap blocks to take advantage of the defensive linemen's aggressive upfield philosophy. The Browns need their linebackers to flow downfield quickly in these plays to get in position before the interior linemen can move up to the second level and cut them off. Bush was tremendous again at getting himself in position with a quick trigger and getting off blocks even when he appeared to be taken care of to hold plays to a minimum.
Mason Graham is as advertised vs run, needs refinement as pass rusher
Speaking of other players who were fantastic against the run, Mason Graham was a handful for the Ravens' front all day. Another concept they tried to use against the Browns' defensive style is pin/pull runs to quickly flush defensive tackles out of the play. There were a few cases where Graham was able to get off the ball so quickly that he got into the backfield before the down blocker was able to take him out of the play.
The rookie could still use improvement as a pass rusher, but that's not surprising based on the pre-draft evaluations of him. There were too many cases where Graham allowed the blocker to get their hands up, and most of these interior offensive linemen in the NFL are going to be too large to win consistently with pure bull rushes. Nonetheless, the Browns have gotten exactly what they expected out of Graham through two games.
Need more consistency out of Cameron Mitchell/Myles Harden
Denzel Ward wasn't able to play a full load of snaps in this one due to cramping, putting a heavier burden on Cameron Mitchell to get more reps. Unfortunately, it was a rough day for him and slot corner Myles Harden, who were clearly the players Todd Monken and the Ravens wanted to attack in the passing game.
In Jim Schwartz's man-heavy defense, having two backend players perform at this level will only add more stress on the defensive line to win in a hurry. Baltimore did a great job at figuring out how to create leverage and put these two in tough one-on-one situations, and teams are likely to continue operating in that manner, especially if Ward has to miss any time.