With just four weeks to go in the 2023 season, the Cleveland Browns sit with an 8-5 record and an 81 percent chance to make the playoffs, holding the fifth seed in the AFC. Looking to improve those odds this week at home, Joe Flacco, Myles Garrett, and company will host the Chicago Bears at Cleveland Browns stadium.
Getting past the Bears first, however, is no shoo-in toward their ninth win of the season as Chicago has won two straight and three of their last four as quarterback Justin Fields has returned from injury. Everyone in Chicago is playing for their jobs, so there is a level of desperation to almost fear as Cleveland looks to solidify their spot in the postseason.
It does not help either that the Browns have been ravaged by injuries, placing three starters on Injured Reserve this week alone. Crawling toward the finish line, the Browns have seen 16 significant contributors miss significant time this year and still sit with eight wins.
If the Browns want to make it nine, here are five things that must be keyed in on against Fields and the Bears.
Putting the microscope on their linebackers in the passing game
The Bears have been a top-five unit against the pass in the league over their last five games in Expected Points Added per play. Much of that has to do with the extraordinary play of cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who the Bears still do not have under contract beyond this season and who will have a top-tier price tag when it comes time to talk dollars this offseason.
Johnson is allowing just a passer rating of 26.2 on the year when targeted, second in the NFL to only Jalen Ramsey of the Miami Dolphins (Browns cornerback Martin Emerson Jr. sits fourth in the NFL, just by the way).
While some of these numbers may be inflated by the type of quarterbacks they have played in that span, including five interceptions from Jared Goff in two games, and four interceptions from Joshua Dobbs when they played the Minnesota Vikings, Stefanski and Flacco are going to have to get creative with how to attack this unit through the air.
The Los Angeles Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars, the two teams Flacco has faced thus far, rank 20th and 25th respectively in the same time frame discussed above. Flacco either has an opportunity to continue his fun story in 2023, or it could be a “coming back down to earth” of sorts this weekend against Chicago.
The key, perhaps? Putting the microscope under their linebackers in coverage. Tremaine Edmunds has been hard to watch in coverage all season, and according to PFF, T.J. Edwards is giving up catches at a 76 percent clip, allowing an NFL passer rating of 97 (although his numbers have been significantly better in coverage over the last three games).
Could it be another big game for David Njoku in this one?
Stop turning the ball over!
Somehow, despite the NFL’s fourth-worst turnover differential and league-leading 27 giveaways, the Browns still sit at 8-5. They now get set to take on a defense that has forced 11 turnovers in the last three weeks, the Browns must play turnover-free football to come out with another grimy win.
This is easier said than done, however, as the Browns have gone a full game without an offensive turnover just once in the entire season. The Bears will play stout defense up front, led by pass rusher Montez Sweat, defensive end Demarcus Walker, and defensive tackles Andrew Billings and Justin Jones.
Last week we saw a Flacco interception on a miscue on a rub route, a careless fumble from wide receiver Amari Cooper, and another fumble lost on a strip sack of Flacco. We have seen countless fumbles in plus territory from ball carriers that have killed drives, ugly picks, and freak accidents all season.
The Browns are already facing an uphill battle due to injuries, they cannot afford to shoot themselves in the foot even further.
Getting after Justin Fields and a Myles Garrett explosion
While the Browns have been turnover-prone, so has Chicago quarterback Justin Fields. The third-year quarterback takes sacks at a higher rate than any other quarterback in the NFL, holds the ball longer than any other quarterback in the NFL, and has fumbled the football a massive seven times this season (three in the last two weeks).
The Cleveland pass rush has been rendered ineffective over the last couple of weeks by quarterbacks who know how to get the ball out fast. Defensive end Myles Garrett routinely beat the Jacksonville offensive lineman across from him, whether it was Blake Hance or Ezra Cleveland. However, Lawrence hit the top of his drop and got the ball out quickly to avoid taking sacks. Stafford did the same.
The story is different this week as Garrett will go against second-year left tackle Braxton Jones. While Jones has been playing dominant football since returning from his injury, Garrett has not stopped playing dominant football (he was PFF’s top-graded defensive player last week despite a lack of a sack).
Even with injuries along their interior to Jordan Elliott and Maurice Hurst, the Browns and Garrett should have plenty of opportunities to have a Fields day against the Bears on Sunday.
Playing behind a bandaged up offensive line
Both Jedrick Wills Jr. and Dawand Jones are done for the season. Center Ethan Pocic has not practiced this week after suffering a stinger in the win over the Jaguars. The Browns may be playing with three backups along their offensive line, two backups for sure as Geron Christian and James Hudson III will bookend the unit.
And they will do this against a stout run defense that Chicago fields. The Browns already have a spotty run game, which has been average at best, to begin with as Jerome Ford has been inconsistent at best, and Kareem Hunt has found his use as a short-yardage battering ram.
Flacco is not a mobile quarterback either, although the Browns have found success with short-yardage packages with backup quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson. They even lack a gadget game as none of the receivers have made plays in space with the football in their hands either.
The Browns and Stefanski are going to have to get creative on the ground in this one, but we may be looking at another game they need to win behind the arm of Flacco instead.
But even then behind a bandaid of an offensive line, the screen game is going to have to be on-point as it usually is, and Flacco is going to have to get the ball out fast. We have seen them sprinkle in RPOs with Flacco under center, as well as hurt teams with quick slants.
Can these same concepts help them overcome steep injuries upfront?
The need to rally to the football
The Browns have been burned twice before by teams with mobile quarterbacks and by zone-read and bootleg concepts. The Indianapolis Colts had a field day against Cleveland’s defense by catching them being overly aggressive, as did the Denver Broncos just a few weeks ago.
They now go against the quarterback second to Lamar Jackson in terms of his ability to use his legs as a weapon. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz has to have pounded the film from those other two games and has to have figured out an antidote to defending the read-option and boot (which is quite an antiquated concept to be struggling with in 2023).
However, the Browns also have to keep an eye on the other Chicago playmakers who are quite capable of making defenders look silly with the football in their hands. Namely wide receiver D.J. Moore.
Getting cornerback Denzel Ward back in this game would be a massive boost, giving Cleveland a good tackling cornerback duo as he and Martin Emerson Jr. show no issues breaking down in space to make a tackle. Linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is a firecracker who gets sideline-to-sideline exceptionally well as well.
However, potentially down their top-three safeties in this game with Grant Delpit heading to Injured Reserve and with Juan Thornhill still yet to practice, the Browns must seek to cover up any lapses they put on the field.
If they let Fields and Moore wreak havoc in the open field, we could be talking about another defensive outing like we saw in Indianapolis or Denver.
