Cleveland Browns vs. New York Jets: 5 matchups that will decide Week 3

O-Line vs. D-Line

I try to avoid position groups when making these matchups, but considering the Cleveland Browns’ offensive line has all graded poorly in run blocking, the whole unit has to be thrown to the wolves here.

As previously covered, the Browns’ struggles to run the ball could be chalked up to Tyrod Taylor’s inability to stretch the defense for 3 1/2 quarters.

Hoels just aren’t going to magically appear with seven or eight guys playing close to the line of scrimmage, and when your’e quarterback averages 6.0 yards per attempt as he did in the first half against New Orleans, well, you saw what we got from the rushing attack.

The line played reasonably well in a hostile environment at the New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome. They didn’t commit any pre-snap penalties and did a solid job of protecting Taylor.

Winning the battle of trenches and setting up Carlos Hyde to be successful will be essential to victory. It’s one component of the offense that just hasn’t been close to being there during the first two weeks.

Left tackle Desmond Harrison draws plenty of attention because of the position he plays, but the right side of the line has to start producing as well.

Kevin Zeitler is one of the highest paid guards in the league, while the Browns signed Chris Hubbard in free agency to fix the right tackle problem created when Sashi Brown let Mitchell Schwartz leave a few years back.