The love affair with Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson is quickly coming to an end, after a stretch of rough performances following his return from suspension in the middle of last season. After another dreadful performance on Monday night in the Cleveland Browns loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night Watson will have to get things turned around rather quickly and he will now have to do it without their all-pro running back Nick Chubb in the backfield behind him. As Cleveland moves on to their game against Tennessee in week number three of the National Football League season, Deshaun Watson and the offense will have to answer plenty of questions with their performance.
Not only will the quarterback have plenty of questions to answer, but so will left tackle Jed Wills after his less than impressive performance on Monday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played a hand in the TJ Watt touchdown when Alex Highsmith came right off the edge and sacked Deshaun Watson, while knocking the football out of his hand, which was eventually scooped up by TJ Watt, and ran into the endzone for a Pittsburgh Steelers Touchdown. He will have to be much better pass blocking, and run blocking throughout the game next Sunday against the Tennessee Titans and another pair of solid edge rushers.
Predictable Play Calling
Head coach Kevin Stefanski will also be questioned throughout the week about how the Steelers defense made it known that his play calling was pretty predictable throughout the game, especially on that crucial strip sack that led to the second defensive touchdown of the game for the Steelers. He will certainly have to switch up his style of play calling if Cleveland wants to be more successful against the Tennessee Titans defense next Sunday at home. As he will have to be less predictable with his playcalling, especially with Nick Chubb out of the lineup, and Watson will have to execute better after several plays ended up broken or ended with throws missed.
The Cleveland Browns will also have to deal with life after Nick Chubb, after the all-pro running back, and arguably the best running back in the league, suffered a gruesome knee injury early in the second quarter that took him out for the remainder of the game and the remainder of the season as well. Jerome Ford looks solid stepping up in Nick Chubb’s absence but it awaits to be seen if that is something that is sustainable. If that is not the case, then Cleveland may need to go out and make a trade for Jonathan Taylor or Cam Akers, or or potentially bring in free agent running backs, Leonard Fournette or Kareem Hunt.
Dynamic Defense
I’m sure this has been said over 1 million times over the last couple of weeks but thank god for the Cleveland Browns defense this season. They have directly won them games like the opening week win against the Cincinnati Bengals and in the case of Monday night, they have kept them in the game, and given the offense an opportunity to win the game late. They have been tremendous throughout the first two weeks of the season as they did not allow the Pittsburgh Steelers to run a single play inside of the Cleveland Browns redzone, which in my opinion makes that loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers much harder to swallow. However, we did see late in the game several key players on the defensive end of the football, limping or coming out of the game with injuries, which could be a concern heading into this game with the Tennessee Titans.
As edge rushers, Myles Garrett and Za’Darius Smith, both had injury problems of their own throughout the game. In Myles Garrett case he was limping and for Za’Darius Smith, it seemed much more serious at the time as he appeared to get his ankle rolled up on, and he had to have help coming off of the football field. Greg Newsome made a play late in the game and he came down awkwardly on what appeared to be his arm or his wrist, and he left holding it, and he appeared to be in a great deal of pain. As of this writing, there has been no update given on the condition of Greg Newsome, Za’Darius Smith, or Myles Garrett. Denzel Ward also exited the field on Monday night with cramps, and that is yet another issue to keep an eye out on early on in the season.
Conclusion
The Cleveland Browns certainly have to make a lot of improvement within the next six days if they want to pick up a victory at home against a very solid Tennessee Titans team. They had trouble stopping a speedy running back like Jalen Warren the other night against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and now they will have to deal with one of the best running backs in the league in the form of Derrick Henry. It is important for Cleveland to stop the run against Tennessee on Sunday, and the defense will have to continue to be as stellar as they have been throughout the first two weeks of the season if the Browns want to escape with a victory and week number three of the year.
On the other side of the football, Cleveland will have to get Jerome Ford or whoever is running the ball for them on Sunday going as it is a key to establish the running game to set up the success for Watson in the passing game. They did a good job at including both Elijah Moore and Amari Cooper in the game plan on Monday night, and that will have to continue if they want Watson to get rolling in the right direction throughout the remainder of the season. If Deshaun Watson doesn’t get up to par within the next few weeks, it could be a long season for the Cleveland Browns as he still has several things he needs to get back up to speed after having so much time off of football periodically throughout the last three years.
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