Cleveland Browns: 5 reasons Browns will bounce back vs New York Jets

3. There will be fewer penalties

NFL fans know it works. If there’s an abundance of penalties of in one game, there’s usually a drop off the following week and that should be the case when the Browns play the Jets.

The Browns committed an absurd 18 penalties, missing the franchise record of 21 set back in 1951.

If the Browns’ penalties reach double-digits again, then the way Freddie Kitchens prepares his team must seriously be questioned.

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but you can give him a pass in Week 1 because his starters didn’t have a preseason. That’s on the head coach of course, but the trend in the NFL these days is to rest your starters. Kitchens did just that and that meant the first string was playing their preseason in Week 1.

Film doesn’t lie, and what we were forced to witness in that debacle to the Titans is proof Cleveland didn’t use its preseason games to get ready for the games that actually count.

The big penalties that must be taken away have to come on defense. The Browns were hit with multiple roughing the passer and defensive holding penalties. Those infractions pro long drives for the opposing offense and can serve as backbreakers to a defense.

The pressure is on Kitchens and his staff, because with the spotlight on a nationally televised game, the ESPN broadcast team will be quick to remember the day FirstEnergy Stadiumw as littered with yellow laundry.