Browns violated a coaches commandment in 24-20 loss to Seahawks
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
SEATTLE, WA
Coaches always say their job is to put their players in a position to win. Know your players and don’t ask them to do something they’re not good at. It’s the Hippocratic Oath of coaching.
Kevin Stefanski – and his offensive staff – violated this commandment in a crucial moment late in a hard-fought contest against the Seattle Seahawks and it cost the Browns the game.
They asked P.J. Walker, Cleveland’s Cinderella quarterback promoted from the practice squad, to make a play with his arm with a 3-point lead and the game on the line. The Browns had been playing with fire while Walker replaced wounded starter Deshaun Watson the previous two games, and the football gods were on Walker’s side in two wins.
But Stefanski pressed Walker’s luck one too many times and it resulted in a 24-20 loss to the Seahawks. It wrecked an otherwise valiant game by the Browns’ defense, offensive line, running backs and even Walker, too. It wasn’t so much his fault, really, as the play-caller’s.
The Browns had the ball at their own 41-yard line and a 20-17 lead when Stefanski called time out with 2:04 to go to discuss what to do on third-and-3.
“We talked about a bunch of different options there,” Stefanski said.
Walker already had turned the ball over two times, bringing his three-game total to six giveaways in place of Watson. The Browns had overcome a 14-0 deficit with defense, sound use of the running game and Walker screen passes. Stefanski had managed the game well.
On this potential game-sealing possession, the Browns ran the ball six times for 25 yards, using Jerome Ford and Pierre Strong and even a Walker designed run for 2 yards. A Seattle defensive penalty on Walker’s only pass – errant for an open Amari Cooper – helped moved the ball from the Browns’ 11 to the 41.
During the timeout, the coaches – Stefanski generously gives them all a voice – decided to call a double slant, Donovan Peoples-Jones from the left and Amari Cooper from the right. Walker targeted Cooper, but his pass caromed off the helmet of blitzing safety Jamal Adams and was intercepted by safety Julian Love.
The estimable Lumen Field crowd, quieted most of the game when the Browns were taking control, went crazy. Jim Schwartz’s defense, which had intercepted Geno Smith two times and held running back Kenneth Walker to 66 yards, then fell victim to the moment. It instantly morphed from the league's best defense to the worst.
In rapid fire, Smith completed passes to Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf and Noah Fant. So discombobulated was the defense that it got flagged for too many players on the field – 13 or 14 -- for another five yards. And then Smith gave the crowd what it wanted with a completion to Jaxon Smith-Njigba from 9 yards for the winning touchdown with 44 seconds to go.
So Stefanski had to answer the questions: Why not play to your team strengths? Keep it on the ground and at worst, punt and put the game in the hands of your top-rated defense? Why ask Walker to be somebody he’s not?
Stefanski sounded eerily like Pat Shurmur, the former Browns coach and an associate of his with the Vikings, with his response.
“You know, obviously with the interception, with the outcome you're always thinking what can you do differently? We had options there. Certainly, you can run it, certainly you can pass it, but, you know, the result, that was tough,” he said.
Ugh.
To a direct question about not running and, if needed, punting, Stefanski said, “Yeah, definitely was a consideration. There's going to be plays that you want back. Obviously, you're also looking to try to give your guys the best chance to go make a play.”
Ugh.
In another context, Stefanski indicted his decision to pass when he said, “We can't turn the ball over. That's continuing to hurt us, so we got to find ways to not turn it over.”
No doubt. So how about running the ball when you have to?
Kareem Hunt questioned why he was benched for the entire fourth quarter after leading the Browns in rushing. He wanted the ball on the fateful third-and-3 play. (Cleveland Browns)
In a tough environment for offensive linemen, the Browns ran 40 times for 155 yards. The line committed only two penalties -- one false start and one questionable hold -- in a place notorious for sending visiting offensive lines to the looney bin.The line held its own despite losing right tackle Dawand Jones to a shoulder injury in the second half and emergency tackle Ty Nsekhe to a biceps injury.
Ford, who missed most of the practice week with a mild high ankle sprain, ran nine times for 37 yards. Pierre Strong added a spark with 41 yards on 10 attempts. Kareem Hunt had 55 yards on 14 attempts.
“We did a great job running the ball as a group,” Hunt said.
You would think Hunt, the hero of the Indianapolis game, would have gotten the call on the fateful down.
“Yeah, me, too,” said Hunt, who was visibly upset. “I didn’t get a chance the whole fourth quarter. I don’t know. I just go and play my role.”
Was he surprised by getting benched in the fourth quarter?
“I guess,” he said. “I don’t know. He [Stefanski] makes the calls. It is what it is. I felt I could’ve helped us win.”
Walker (15 of 31 for 248 yards and one touchdown) was despondent after his three turnovers – two interceptions and a lost fumble – betrayed an otherwise typically workmanlike performance, for him.
“It's tough,” Walker said. “Especially in a crucial moment in the game. Having the lead with under three minutes left in the game, you know, we got to find a way to get that first down by any means, whether it's passing or running.”
The Browns’ defense had a slow start, allowing touchdowns on Seattle’s first two possessions. Then it recovered and recaptured the game in the second, third and fourth quarters – until Smith’s scoring drive at the end. Interceptions by cornerback M.J. Emerson and defensive tackle Maurice Hurst, who made a tremendous play dropping into coverage and tipping a Smith pass and intercepting it, contributed to the Browns taking a 20-17 lead on a Dustin Hopkins field goal with 4:05 to play in the third quarter.
Rookie Cameron Mitchell also dropped an interception that had Pick 6 written all over it.“Our defense played great,” Walker said. “As an offense, we got to help them a little more. If it's putting up points, milking the clock at the end of that game where even, you know, me just not having that turnover at the end of the game, pinning them back. It could have been okay to just get an incompletion at that point and just pin them back and make them drive the field on our defense. It's pretty tough for them, but things happen that was out of my control, and that was the way it went today.”
“We got to finish,” Emerson said. “One play at a time. Just to get the win. Whatever it takes. We made some plays, but that last drive we have to step up. We have the best defense in the league and we have to get off the field and win that game for this team.”
Against an NFC team, this isn’t a season-killing loss by any means for the Browns. They’re 4-3 – tied with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, 1 1/2 games behind 6-2 Baltimore in the AFC North. They play Arizona at home next before the season-deciding back-to-backers in Baltimore and home against Pittsburgh.
Watson should be available at some point in that stretch. With Watson on the field in the same situation, you can be sure Stefanski would call for a pass rather than a run.You know what? There’s no guarantee the result would be any different.
