Cleveland Browns: 5 players whose stock dropped in Ravens’ Week 17 loss

Jabrill Peppers

When the Browns needed to set a tone early on, Jabrill Peppers let the team down.

On Baltimore’s first series of the contest, Peppers missed a crucial tackle right at the line of scrimmage, allowing Lamar Jackson to converted a fourth-down into a new set of downs.

On the very next play, he was beat by Ravens’ tight tend Mark Andrews for a 28-yard reception, leading to a Ravens’ field goal.

He committed a backbreaking holding penalty on Baltimore’s next drive, which happened to be on third down. The Ravens got to keep moving and and three plays later, Lamar Jackson ran around the edge on a read-option for a 25-yard touchdown.

Peppers is a former first-round pick, yet his play was inexcusable against Baltimore.

This is discouraging, because he had such a tremendous Week 16 effort against the Cincinnati Bengals.

That’s life in the NFL, though. Everyone’s capable of having a great game. It’s the really good players who do it week and week out, though.

Peppers is a talented player and seems well suited for the strong safety spot. His biggest obstacle in 2019 is consistency.

First-round picks are supposed to impact games, plural. Let’s see if Peppers can meet the challenge next season, when a lot more eyeballs will be watching the Browns.

Peppers did have the fumble recovery on the Lamar Jackson goal-line fumble. It should’ve been a 93-yard touchdown had the refs not blown it dead.