Brendan Gulick and Anthony Moeglin breakdown the Browns elite defensive resurgence against the Jaguars at home.
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00:00 Man.
00:00 31-27, final score for the Browns
00:09 today over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
00:11 Glad to see Cleveland get it done in a game that early on it
00:14 looked like they might run away with.
00:16 Then they had trouble putting it away
00:17 because unfortunately the offense put the defense
00:19 in a couple of pretty tough spots.
00:22 But the defense largely did its job well,
00:24 especially considering they were, well, frankly,
00:26 tested more than normal.
00:28 This is a group that has found itself struggling a little bit
00:31 because of the fact that they're down several guys
00:34 in the secondary.
00:35 That's problematic, Anthony.
00:37 And they've got to figure out how to get healthy here soon.
00:39 No question about it.
00:40 And we've seen it from the offensive side.
00:42 The offense has been the injured group to this point in the year.
00:45 And it's like, oh my gosh, all the injuries on offense,
00:47 the defense is kind of dragging them along.
00:49 Well, today it was the injury of the secondary.
00:51 You get Denzel Ward, doesn't play.
00:53 You get Juan Thornhill, who's a scratch right before the game.
00:56 Grant Delpit goes down.
00:57 And you just got guys who are just kind of falling.
00:59 At some point, we're going to run out of safeties
01:01 and we're going to run out of court.
01:02 Like, who's going to be back there?
01:03 But they just kept battling.
01:06 And kudos to Martin Emerson and kudos to Greg Newsome.
01:10 I think that they were challenged probably
01:12 after the last two weeks.
01:13 And they stepped up.
01:15 They came home.
01:15 They felt like they got a little bit of their swagger back.
01:19 And Martin Emerson with the two picks and all over the field
01:21 making plays and Greg Newsome with the interception as well.
01:24 I thought those two guys specifically
01:26 played their tails off for this team.
01:28 They needed to.
01:29 I mean, Cleveland really had to lean on those guys
01:31 to play well.
01:31 And frankly, when your secondary is a little banged up,
01:34 it puts a little more emphasis on the guys
01:36 on the front end of the defense.
01:37 You've got to get better pressure
01:38 from your defensive line to maybe take a little pressure
01:41 off the guys there on the back end.
01:43 And I thought the defensive line did a really good job today.
01:46 Ultimately, Cleveland came up with obviously four turnovers,
01:50 including the three picks, two of those from Emerson
01:52 and then one from Greg Newsome.
01:55 Had a couple of pretty key sacks,
01:56 a couple of big tackles for loss.
01:58 Obviously, the one that I think most stands out to me
02:01 was the Miles Garrett sack on the two-point conversion,
02:05 right, because that was a defining moment in the game
02:08 where Jacksonville was basically saying, look,
02:10 our plan is to go get a two-point conversion.
02:13 And then we're going to get an onside kick,
02:14 and we're going to try to kick a field goal to win the game
02:16 instead of trying to play for overtime.
02:18 And so Miles coming up with that big sack
02:20 was huge, a total of four sacks in the game for the Browns.
02:23 And defensively, I thought they got their swag back.
02:25 They looked more like the unit that was here most recently,
02:28 not necessarily the team that was here--
02:31 or I should say the team that played at Denver and out
02:33 in Los Angeles.
02:34 Yeah, and my favorite sequence of the game,
02:37 I thought that Miles Garrett play was awesome.
02:39 But coming out of half, OK, it's 14-7,
02:42 and everyone was nervy at that point in time.
02:44 It was like, hey, we pretty much dominated the game,
02:47 and the offense is giving this Jacksonville team the game.
02:50 The two turnovers were horrible, and you're like, all right,
02:52 you have that seven-point lead.
02:54 You need to stop.
02:54 Just get a stop so that it kind of kills
02:57 that Jacksonville momentum.
02:58 Well, the defense goes above and beyond.
03:00 Not only do they go minus 11 on the first two plays,
03:02 but then Anthony Walker with the strip, and then they recover,
03:05 and now the offense is set up inside the red zone,
03:08 ready to go score.
03:09 I thought that sequence right there showed me that, hey,
03:11 these boys are back, and they're back
03:13 to pulling this team to victories
03:15 like they had been doing early in the season.
03:18 Four games left.
03:18 Chicago Bears are coming to town next.
03:20 Obviously, you got big games against Houston, the Jets,
03:24 and wrapping up the season down in Cincinnati,
03:26 but the Browns with a big win today.
03:28 Thankfully, because of that defensive effort,
03:30 now 8-5, and they are in terrific position,
03:33 nothing is clinched in terms of playoff births or anything
03:36 like that.
03:37 But this one, in my mind, goes a long way
03:40 in giving Cleveland very realistic aspirations
03:43 for having a lengthy run in the postseason.
03:45 So we'll see what happens, but certainly a good day.
03:48 The defense was a big part of it.
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