JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The defense was expected to be one of the Browns’ greatest strengths and one of the best in the NFL.
The Browns traded reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett during the offseason, but they got back two-time Pro Bowler Jared Verse as a replacement at defensive end, and many of the other key pieces from last year’s unit — which finished fourth in the NFL — were back. Many inside and outside the organization touted Cleveland as a defensive juggernaut.
It looked anything but Sunday during a 34-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the opener at EverBank Stadium.
Jaguars 34, Browns 10: Atrocious opener for Todd Monken, Deshaun Watson, defense
Jacksonville scored on its first four possessions and six of its first seven. The Jaguars finished with 371 total yards — 126 on the ground — and four touchdowns.
“It looks worse than what it was,” said Verse, who finished with four tackles and was flagged for a neutral zone infraction during the fourth quarter. “It was just self-inflicted wounds, including myself. We weren’t rushing as a unit upfront, we weren’t getting to the quarterback quick enough … our DBs can’t cover forever.
“I can’t let the chips and little small things get to my head and affect my later rushes. But it was just mistakes. I can’t chalk it up to them being better than us across the board … it was just (our) mistakes.”
One of the bright spots was linebacker Carson Schwesinger, who was NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year last season. He led the team with 10 tackles — recording double-digit tackles for the eighth time in his career, including seven of his last eight games.
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“We got stuck in too many second-and-shorts,” he said. “You’re not able to pin your ears back a lot when you’re looking at second-and-4 a lot of the time. So a lot of it is figuring out what we’re doing (wrong) on first down and being able to stop the run.”
Schwesinger was a big part of the highly rated defense last season and said, despite a change in coordinators, the scheme and style hadn’t changed much during the offseason.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” he said. “It’s obviously not to the standard that we want or expect to have moving forward. I think the big thing is getting back to that and figuring out what we’ve got to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Another positive was defensive tackle Mason Graham, who finished with five tackles and his first career sack. He was credited with a half-sack as a rookie last year.
Unfortunately it was Cleveland’s only sack of the game, and the Browns were unable to earn a takeaway — cornerback Denzel Ward forced a fumble but the Jaguars recovered.
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Although it’s a bit tempered as Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was pulled after the third quarter, the Browns increased their streak of not allowing a 300-yard passer to 46 games, the longest active streak in the NFL and the longest since the Indianapolis Colts went 52 games from 2005-08.
Lawrence finished with 245 yards and four touchdowns on 18-for-23 passing for a 150.6 passer rating.
“We were getting good calls, we were communicating well, we just didn’t execute some plays … that’s pretty much it,” said cornerback Tyson Campbell, who played for Jacksonville before being traded to Cleveland last season. “With a guy like Trevor, he’s able to extend plays because of his athleticism and the ability to keep his eyes down the field and he’s getting out of the pocket. They executed and we didn’t.
“You go into a game super confident in the scheme and the guys that you’re on the field with … so we are surprised how things went. But we control what we can control, fix the mistakes and come out next week.”
