Browns: Coaching failures and 5 other terrible things in loss to Cardinals
By Chad Porto
The Bad
No protection
The Browns offensive line did dip-all trying to protect Baker Mayfield. His accuracy didn’t seem too affected because of it, but the shots he took were inexcusable. There’s no excuse for this, considering we saw exactly what didn’t work for Chicago. The Browns should’ve had far more protection packages for him that included Austin Hooper on the line and Johnny Stanton in the backfield. You have these players who can block, so use them.
Tight End Play
David Njoku is inconsistent. Prove me wrong. Not only is he terrible at blocking, which he is, don’t fool yourself, but he disappears quite often in big moments. His drop didn’t help either. Austin Hooper isn’t helping himself any either, dropping a pass himself, and getting beat on a few key blocks. These guys make about $20 million combined. That’s what we call “wasted money”.
The Malick’s ticky-tack penalties
Malick Jackson and Malick McDowell didn’t do anything to help the Browns. That’s obvious. They also didn’t do as much wrong as the penalties would say. The Browns had two of the worst roughing-the-passer penalties we’ve ever seen called on both men. The officiating wasn’t good, at all, but some of the calls were fair (Denzel Ward), but those two calls were awful.