Brendan Gulick and Anthony Moeglin give their thoughts an opinions on Browns Head Coach Kevin Stefanski.
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00:00 There are a lot of people that are not
00:05 seeing eye to eye with Kevin Stefanski's decision
00:08 to run the ball as few times today as he did.
00:12 Let's see, the Browns finished the day with 107 yards
00:18 on the ground.
00:19 They ran it 24 times.
00:22 And obviously, they were a little bit more
00:24 willing to air it out a bit with DTR throwing 29 times.
00:28 PJ Walker threw it 13 times.
00:30 So 42 passing attempts, substantially more
00:34 than the run game.
00:36 I don't know that I agree with everybody
00:38 that's hounding Kevin.
00:42 I actually really like the creativity
00:44 in some of the formations today.
00:46 I didn't have a problem with it.
00:51 And for everybody, it's like, oh, Denver's got the worst rush
00:53 defense in the NFL.
00:54 Run the ball.
00:57 It's not quite that straightforward.
00:59 And by the way, they gave up 350 of those rushing yards
01:02 in one game against Miami.
01:05 So take out one outlier, and maybe we're not
01:09 talking about a team that's been torched on the ground.
01:12 They gave up 70 points in one game.
01:15 Look at a better sample size of the day.
01:17 And I would also add the issue to that, too,
01:20 is we sit at home and listen to the broadcast,
01:22 and all Sanchez kept saying was run the ball, run the ball,
01:25 run the ball.
01:25 Well, guess what?
01:26 You're not going to-- you can't just get into an I formation
01:29 and run it right down your throat.
01:31 How you can open stuff up in the run game
01:34 is having a successful pass game.
01:35 And guess what?
01:36 What is Denver thinking?
01:38 Hey, Cleveland has a rookie quarterback, a fifth rounder,
01:40 who's played two starts.
01:41 They're going to try to stuff it down our throat.
01:43 And Stefanski said it after the game.
01:45 He's like, hey, a lot of it's formational-based,
01:47 and a lot of it is personnel-based.
01:49 When they sub in a certain amount of guys,
01:51 we know we have an advantage in the pass game.
01:53 Well, you're not just going to roll DTR out there
01:55 and run it on first down, run it on second down,
01:57 and give them third and eight or third and seven.
02:00 So with that said, I think that they were getting to it.
02:03 You're down 14 to 12 in the third quarter.
02:07 You had a great mix.
02:09 If Dorian Thompson-Robinson finished the day,
02:11 29 pass attempts, I think that's a little high.
02:14 And if you were to ask Kevin yesterday, hey,
02:16 I'd like him to be somewhere between 22 to 27-ish.
02:21 That's kind of where the sweet spot would have been.
02:24 But I thought they were doing a nice job balancing
02:26 with Jerome Ford and Kareem Hunt.
02:29 Yes, I think they should have ran it more.
02:31 I don't think it should have been 30 rushing attempts--
02:34 or three rushes to one pass, or even two to one.
02:37 I thought it was a really good mix and a healthy mix.
02:39 And it was working.
02:40 Let's tell the truth.
02:41 It was working.
02:42 And so if you're Denver and you self-scout, you're like, look,
02:45 we haven't been very good against the run this year.
02:47 And Cleveland's got a banged-up offensive line
02:50 with a rookie quarterback making his first NFL
02:52 start on the road.
02:54 And by the way, they've been one of the best rushing teams
02:56 in the NFL this year.
02:57 What do you think they're going to do?
02:59 We think they're going to run the ball.
03:00 They stack the box.
03:01 They put themselves in positions to stop the run.
03:04 Well, I mean, it's a numbers game, man.
03:07 Like, you're only good at one thing
03:11 if you have elite-level talent or you got more hats
03:17 than blockers, right?
03:18 Exactly.
03:18 If you got more guys there to stop the run,
03:20 I don't have an issue with them throwing the ball.
03:22 I thought DTR made a bunch of good throws today.
03:25 It's not Dorian's fault that the Browns had five more drops
03:28 and a few others that I thought should have been caught.
03:30 Yeah, and guess what, too?
03:31 When he left the game, the situation, 17 to 12,
03:35 yes, they were backed up.
03:36 They would have ended up punting away had he not gotten hurt.
03:40 But you're still in it, right?
03:41 The final score is 29 to 12, and Denver goes on a 12-0 run
03:45 to kind of end it.
03:46 But it was working.
03:48 The game plan was working.
03:49 I'm getting texts from all sorts of people,
03:51 like fire Kevin, fire this, fire that.
03:53 I'm like, guys, what are you watching?
03:55 This game plan was working.
03:57 It was happening.
03:58 And you lose your quarterback, then you lose your receiver,
04:00 and then everything just fell apart.
04:02 Well, sure, and then when you're chasing the game late,
04:05 you can't really run power.
04:08 So the discrepancy on the play-calling sheet
04:11 is going to get a little wider there.
04:13 So yeah, look, I'm not going to sit here and say,
04:17 that's the finest game Kevin's ever called.
04:20 No.
04:20 It wasn't Seattle.
04:21 It wasn't Indianapolis.
04:23 And I know they ultimately lost in Seattle anyways.
04:25 It wasn't the Colts.
04:27 It wasn't what we saw him do against Baltimore, or Pittsburgh,
04:30 or Arizona, or San Francisco.
04:33 But I thought it was a good game plan,
04:35 and I thought the Browns did what they largely could
04:39 control.
04:41 Maybe a little, like, two in his bag of tricks
04:46 on the ball that was fumbled on the reverse.
04:49 But even at that, I didn't look at that
04:52 and be like, that was stupid.
04:53 Why did they do that?
04:54 Right.
04:55 You got to find creative ways to get a defense's eyes moving
04:58 in different directions.
05:00 And I just didn't--
05:02 I didn't have a problem with that play.
05:04 Handle the football.
05:05 Don't go in--
05:05 Oh, and Brennan, mind you, that was PJ Walker's first snap
05:10 in three weeks, coming off the bench cold.
05:12 Like, what are you going to do?
05:13 At that point, what are you going to do?
05:14 He's going to sit there and be like, all right,
05:15 I got backup left tackle and right tackle.
05:18 No running back, no receiver, and I got my backup quarterback.
05:21 I have to make something happen.
05:22 I'm going to give it a shot.
05:24 Yeah.
05:24 If it would have worked, great.
05:26 The real bummer of the situation is on first down
05:29 before DTR gets hurt, he hits Ninjoku in the hands,
05:33 and he would have slipped out and had a massive gain
05:38 on first down, potentially one that blows the doors off.
05:41 Instead, he kind of bobbles it around, drops it.
05:43 Then on second down, you get nothing.
05:44 Third down, he gets hurt, and then the sky is falling.
05:46 It's just a frustrating day again from your pass catchers.