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The Cleveland Browns lost to the Baltimore Ravens today by a score of 28-3 in embarrassing fashion today at the stadium. The late scratch to Deshaun Watson who had his first good game in three years last week, certainly didn’t help, but no one could have imagined everyone’s preseason favorite Dorian Thompson-Robinson would be as awful as he was today.
There was very little good, a lot of bad, and some ugly from today’s game. Let’s take a look at all of it, starting with the good.
The Good
Dustin Hopkins appears to be the best kicker the Browns have had since Phil Dawson departed over a decade ago. Hopkins was one of one again today, with the field goal coming from 52 yards. He has only missed once all season, and appears to have a strong and accurate leg which is tough to do at the former First Energy Stadium.
The Browns defense forced three, 3 and outs in the first quarter, and pretty much kept Lamar Jackson in check early. The only scoring the drive the Ravens came up with in the first quarter, started at the 10 of the Browns off the DTR interception.
The Bad
Myles Garrett continues to line up in the neutral zone. For everything Myles Garrett does great, we’ve never seen a guy line up in the neutral zone more times than Myles Garrett. You can count on 3-4 times every single game; Garrett being called for that flag. There’s no excuse anymore.
Creating points off of turnovers is nonexistent right now. Can the Browns create turnovers this season? And the few times that they have, can the offense turn those into points? Both answers appear to be no.
Where is the run game? In a game where you needed the run more than ever, they completely abandoned it. Hunt should be the feature back, and he isn’t. Hunt, was limited to 5 carries for 12 yards. Even worse, Jerome Ford who needs the touches now more than ever was limited to 9 carries for 26 yards. Listen, Chubb isn’t coming back, time to form your new identity with Ford and Hunt before it’s too late. Especially during a game like this, when you had zero passing game.
The Ugly
How many times are you going to let Lamar Jackson beat you? Dating back to his rookie season in 2018 when the Browns should have drafted either him or Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson is now 6-1 against the Cleveland Browns. Several defensive coordinators have had chances to stop him in Cleveland, and none of them have been able too. His numbers today were 15 of 19 for 186 yards with 2 touchdowns. Jackson also ran at will, 9 times for 27 yards and two touchdowns.
Is DTR really worthy of playing backup QB in the NFL just yet? The Browns could have stayed with Josh Dobbs at backup, and let DTR learn from the sidelines or practice team for a full season behind Dobbs and Watson, they didn’t and had to use him far too early. Dobbs is doing a great job in Arizona and would have given the Browns a much better chance to win today. Meanwhile DTR went 19 of 36 for 121 yards with 3 interceptions in one of the worst quarterback debuts since Johnny Manziel in 2014.
Baker Mayfield is now 3-1 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has tossed 7 touchdowns in the first four games of the season. Mayfield has looked great, just a little extra salt in the wounds of the Browns who were dreaming of a 3-1 start of their own, just 10 hours ago when they woke up this morning.
DTR was totally overmatched and not ready for prime time.