Browns: 3 good and 3 bad against the Chiefs in Week 1

Bad

Ronnie Harrison

Some people will want to defend Ronnie Harrison with the “oh, he slipped!” or the “the coach pushed him first!” routine. Doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you can’t put your hands on a coach, even in retaliation. This isn’t some street fight, there are no bonus points for flexing your manhood. Harrison should’ve walked away. If he had, he’d of played this game. Instead, proving he was tough was more important than the game. It’s not “instinct” either, it’s learned behavior. The Browns need players to not retaliate. Two wrongs don’t make you right. His actions may have cost this team a win and for what? To shove a 50-something-year-old man? What did that prove? Players need to be smarter than this. Just walk away. It happens every play. Just walk, the heck, away.

The entire defense

Just trash. That’s the best way to describe this unit after today. It may get better, that is an absolute possibility. It may not. That’s also a possibility. After all, the same issues that plagued them all season long reared their heads once again. They played soft coverage and allowed a lot of underneath stuff, and had no ability to get to Patrick Mahomes on a consistent basis. Either Joe Woods is a bad coach, or Andrew Berry has yet to give him the players needed to run the defense. One of those is going to be found true and if the team defense continues to be this awful, one of, or both men, may find themselves gone. Giving up six scoring drives out of eight possible is horrid. Chiefs or not. After all, how are you going to get to the Super Bowl if you can’t stop an offense like the Chiefs? So it being the Chiefs isn’t an excuse.

Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney were nowhere to be seen, plus each jumped offsides. That alone is bad enough, you’re right there. You can see the football. You don’t move until it does. Takk McKinley blew his containment on Patrick Mahomes on a 3rd and seven. It was all a wreck.

Scoring 29 points should win you a game.

The special teams

Yikes, who saw this happening? Firstly, Demetric Felton is looking rough as a returner. Twice he took the ball and slipped (or tripped) and allowed a Chiefs’ defender to catch up to him and tackle him for barely any gain. Jamie Gillan, in his only punt of the day, miffed the snap and forced a turnover on down. Then there was Chase McLaughlin who nearly shanked one of the extra point attempts. The team clearly has no faith in him.