4 bad things from the Browns loss to the Raiders on Monday night

The Browns fell to 7-7 on the year after the loss to the Raiders.

The Browns were given a chance to get everything back, that’s all you can ask for. They still lost, 16-14 to the Raiders with their best players not allowed to play. Frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if Baker Mayfield or Jarvis Landry was back for this game, as the Browns’ biggest issues have been exposed and shocking; they’re not new.

The receiving corp again failed to step up, something Mayfield has had to deal with all season and now Nick Mullens got to find that out first hand. Why he felt Donovan Peoples-Jones was someone to be trusted is beyond me. Playcalling also was maddening. Why the team didn’t use more of the tight ends is infuriating.

The offensive line was awful and was another reason why Mayfield and Landry wouldn’t have made a difference. If the offensive line fails, then the offense will fail around them. That’s Football Logic 101 stuff.

Defensively it didn’t matter if they lost two main starters upfront either. Malick McDowell and Malick Jackson are so bad at their jobs, the team didn’t seem to miss a beat with Tommy Togiai, Jordan Elliot, and Sheldon Day in there. They were just as ineffective as the starters.

These are three bad things from the Browns loss

The offensive line

The Browns offensive line was putrid. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, but it was a huge problem for the game plan. The running game was bad all night, and why it was so leaned on was baffling. Nick Chubb outside of a run for 24 yards, and a run for 12 yards never broke double-digit gains, and without those two specific runs, would’ve finished the game averaging just 2.6 yards per carry (55 yards on 21 carries). Those two runs made his game look decent when it was anything but. That’s not on him, either. The running back can’t make bad offensive lines good. Good offensive lines can make bad running backs good, however. The Browns have succeeded because they had a good line and a good back. When the line is bad the entire offense struggles. This has been a major issue all year that fans, for whatever reason, want to ignore. Without Jack Conklin, this is a different team offensively.

Donovan Peoples-Jones

I said it for weeks last year and weeks this offseason; you can’t rely on sixth-round picks to be your best players. Asking Donovan Peoples-Jones to be a starter is a fool’s idea. He’s not a starter and he proved that last night time and time again. “But the big play he had”, you’ll say, and I’ll respond with “what jus the one?”. See, consistency matters. It’s the only thing that matters in sports. Otherwise, you get a caricature like Clifford Franklin in the Replacements or Louis Mendoza in the Mighty Ducks movies. A guy who’s really good at one thing but is too inconsistent to be of any use.

Myles Garrett

You can claim he was double and tripled team, you can claim he was held, you can even claim he was hurt. Sure. Isn’t that always what he’s up against? Isn’t he always doubled and tripled team? Isn’t he always held? Isn’t he always banged up? He has 15 sacks in 14 games, don’t give me excuses. He’s supposed to be the best player on the team, and more than often he was handled, one on one, without holding. I’m not saying he wasn’t. Nor am I saying he wasn’t ganged up on. I’m saying that isn’t an excuse any other week and it’s not one today. We saw more than enough instances of him just not beating the tackle for me to reasonably say he didn’t show up. Garrett went missing in the game of the year. He isn’t why the team lost, but his disappearance was noticeable and it affected the game.

Playcalling

It’s systematically passive.