Browns defense sees too many points allowed by other units in Week 4 vs Lions

The Cleveland Browns’ defense could only sit and watch, as the offense and special teams unraveled again, the opposite of complementary football. As highlighted below, even though the Lions scored 34 points, 24 of those points came on just 41 yards of offense. That includes:

• A field goal off the weird duck of an interception that Flacco threw (16 yards of offense).
• An interception that Detroit ran back to the 5 yard line, and getting the TD.
• A punt return for a TD.
• A fumble by Cleveland that Detroit recovered started at the 20 yard line, getting a TD.

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on defense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 4 game against the Detroit Lions.

Defensive Line

• Cleveland didn’t register any sacks on the day, which is a change from the first three games. The lone sack by Isaiah McGuire was taken off the board due to a defensive penalty. Myles Garrett and the line kept forcing Jared Goff to unload the ball quickly, though. Garrett led the way in defensive grades by PFF, registering a 90.5.
• Hopefully, we’ll be adding Mike Hall to the force of the defensive tackle room soon. Maliek Collins wasn’t as dominant as he’s been, but he still earned a solid grade at 70.5. Rookie Mason Graham hasn’t quite broken out yet, as he had one of the defense’s worst run defense grades on the day. Shelby Harris had one of his best defensive games, grading out to an 89.3 per PFF.

Linebacker

• The reps are remaining very consistent on defense throughout all the positions. Rookie Carson Schwesinger was the team’s highest-graded linebacker of 20+ snaps, as he graded out to a 78.3. Schwesinger and Devin Bush (70.8 PFF grade) were among the Browns’ leading tacklers with 8 combined tackles each.
• Jerome Baker has been making the most of his snaps the past couple weeks. Even though he only had 17 plays, he was the Browns’ second-highest graded defender overall, with a grade of 89.8.
• I’m assuming that Easton Mascarenas-Arnold’s couple of snaps came during Detroit’s kneeldowns to end the game.

Cornerback

• Despite having an interception, Denzel Ward was the worst-graded defender by PFF by far, grading out to a 33.6, including the worst run defense grade.
• Detroit’s receivers weren’t able to hang on to some great long passes by Goff.
• Myles Harden was the team’s best graded cornerback, grading out to a 75.2, per PFF. I continue to be encouraged by what we’re seeing from him.

Safety

• After a great game last week, Grant Delpit was among the team’s bottom performers this week. He also had a tripping penalty when trying to tackle RB Jahmyr Gibbs.