3 Keys to Browns Beating Titans
The Browns have the ability to bounce back and get a much needed win on Sunday against a Tennessee Titans team that has shown a few areas of weakness through two weeks.
As everyone has seen, Deshaun Watson and this Cleveland offense looked completely incompetent throughout most of the game in Pittsburgh. Though some of it can be placed on coaching, the real problem was how Watson conducted the passing offense. His lack of accuracy and field vision led to an abysmal loss to a below-average Steelers team on Monday night.
It's time for this team to rally and trust this coaching staff to put together a gameplan that is going to lead to a big win against a Tennessee Titans team that appears to be struggling offensively. This team needs to come together and overcome a devastating loss that also claimed the season of one of its leaders and faces of the franchise, in Nick Chubb.
1. Force Tennessee to be one-dimensional.
Everyone knows that one of the key cogs in Tennessee's offensive attack is Derrick Henry. The Titans would rather lean on Henry running the ball and wearing down defenses that way instead of having to rely on an inefficient Ryan Tannehill to win the game through the air.
Cleveland needs to continue doing a great job of rotating their interior defensive lineman in order to stay "fresh" inside. It also helps that Dalvin Tomlinson, Shelby Harris, and Maurice Hurst have been excellent at stopping the run so far this season. There's a real possibility that Henry gets 20-25 carries on Sunday, which is as much as Joe Mixon and Najee Harris had combined in weeks one and two.
If the Browns are able to shut Derrick Henry and this Tennessee run game down, then things could get really ugly for Titans OC Tim Kelly.
2. Deshaun Watson has to take what the Tennessee defense gives him this week.
It's a complete understatement to say that Watson was bad against Pittsburgh. Not only was he inaccurate on a lot of his throws, even on completions, but he wasn't seeing open receivers 10-15 yards in front of him.
It looked like he was trying to do too much, often trying to force something that wasn't there. He was seemingly speeding through his progressions too quickly in some instances as well. He would scan through his first read, then move to his second but if #2 wasn't immediately open, then he would look back to #1 without looking for his #3 option or check-down receiver. It's possible that he was trying to extend the play and go for the big gain rather than dumping it off, which was the wrong thing to do.
It's going to be absolutely crucial this week for Watson to stay calm in the pocket and be okay with checking the ball down to Jerome Ford or a shallow-crossing David Njoku for a four yard gain, rather than trying to extend and launch a 30-yard bomb to covered up Amari Cooper or take a sack.
3. The Cleveland pass defense has to remain disciplined.
Cleveland's defensive backfield has played extremely well through two weeks and needs to do the same against this Titans' passing attack.
More importantly, they've done a good job not biting on play-action or pre-snap deception by the Bengals and Steelers. The Titans don't do it a lot, roughly 25% of pass attempts so far, but over half of their passing yardage has come off of it according to Pro Football Reference.
It goes to show that this Tennessee passing game has manufactured quite a few explosive plays off of play-action and if Grant Delpit or Juan Thornhill get fooled into triggering downhill, then things could get bad for Cleveland.
It's also worth noting that Ryan Tannehill relies heavily on DeAndre Hopkins in terms of being his "go-to" target downfield. Hopkins has almost twice as many targets as the next leading receiver for Tennessee, and two out of Tannehill's three interceptions this year have come when trying to force the football to Hopkins in tight windows.
If the Browns can take Hopkins out of the equation, then this passing game is inevitably going to struggle in week three as well.
The importance of this week's game can't be overstated enough, and these three factors could help lead to an emotional win for both the team and the city of Cleveland on Sunday.
