Los Angeles Chargers: Quick offense key to beating Browns
In Week 6, the Los Angeles Chargers will travel to FirstEnergy Stadium to face the Browns. These aren’t your ‘Same Old Browns’, but they still have a major Achilles heel in the quick passing game.
Coming off a big divisional win against the Oakland Raiders, the Los Angeles Chargers will travel east to the shores of Lake Erie, and a Week 6 matchup with the Cleveland Browns. Despite their demolishing of the Raiders just last week, Philip Rivers and company should not take the Browns lightly, no matter the history of the past two decades.
Your grandfather’s Same Old Browns look to be a thing of the past, as the Browns have held firm to a 2-0-1 record at home this season. Led by No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield, the offense still has some work to do, but is steadily improving.
But despite an up and down offensive unit, Cleveland’s current squad pride themselves on a shut-down defense and hard-nosed football. That is, until you start hitting them with serious quickness on the offensive side.
That’s not to say that the Browns can’t keep up. After all, it takes a special kind of defender to make Baltimore Ravens wide receiver John Brown look slow, and cornerback Denzel Ward did just that in Week 5. However, it does mean that teams like the Chargers can beat them with a quick passing game, and constantly “dink and dunk” their way down the football field.
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The Browns have a tendency to over-pursue on defense, mostly because of how aggressive their schemes are. Because of this, screen passes and the short game have been the bane of Cleveland football’s existence this season, despite an otherwise solid defensive unit. This makes the use of Melvin Gordon and other running backs even more vital to the Bolts’ success.
Cleveland lives and dies by their defense, and thrives off of opposing offenses’ mistakes. With a quarterback like Philip Rivers at the helm in Los Angeles, the Chargers can exploit various weaknesses. Quick passes should be the bread and butter of our beloved Bolts against the Browns. Swift throws out of the backfield and multiple outside runs should make Gordon the centerpiece of week six’s offensive gameplan.
Further building Gordon’s case, the Browns’ run defense is not as staunch as it was last year. Good for seventh in the NFL in 2017, Cleveland’s run stoppage has all the way dropped to 22nd this season. Now, the name of the game is blitzing and getting to the quarterback. Myles Garrett, Emmanuel Ogbah and Larry Ogunjobi will be all too eager to get to Rivers in this game. But, such an aggressive defensive coordinator as Gregg Williams can be schemed around.
The Browns can blitz all they want, but if they never have time to get to the quarterback, they’re never going to hit him. Head coach Anthony Lynn should know that thew Chargers have to be quick if they want to win this one. The Cleveland Browns are not going to lie down anymore, and they look like a legitimate NFL team. However, they still have flaws, and the Los Angeles Chargers are just the team to exploit those flaws.