The Cleveland Browns’ offense had done next to nothing to inspire confidence entering Week 3. The unit scored 16 points in Week 1 and 17 points in Week 2. The offensive line led the league in quarterback pressures and hurries allowed entering the matchup with the Green Bay Packers.
For Green Bay, it seemed simple: Don’t play conservatively, but especially don’t make any colossal mistakes. Stick to that, and it was hard to see them losing on Sunday.
Leading 10-3 with a shade more than three minutes to go, the Packers were staring down a third-and-three from their own 25-yard line. Quarterback Jordan Love hadn’t thrown an interception yet this season.
That changed on that one play.
Browns safety Grant Delpit passed off his assignment of tight end Tucker Kraft and jumped Love’s pass to wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks. On the one hand, it was a great play by Delpit, who proceeded to gallop inside Green Bay’s five-yard line on the return. On the other hand, it was an inexcusable decision from Love in a spot where the worst-case scenario should’ve been an incomplete pass followed by a punt.
Instead, a Browns offense that had no hope for 57 minutes all of a sudden had the ball at the four-yard line. Of course, they punched it into the end zone to tie the score.
After the game, head coach Matt LaFleur took responsibility for the play call that led to the interception.
So, they were playing man coverage and the guy, Delpit, did a hell of a job. He passed off Tuck to the inside backer and he fell off in the window. That’s a bad play call. We shouldn’t have called that play. That’s on me.
While what LaFleur is doing is admirable, his play call wasn’t the issue. This was a coach covering for a player — in this instance, his quarterback — who made a terrible decision in a decisive moment.
Had Love taken a sack or tossed the ball out of harm’s way, Green Bay punts it back to a heretofore hopeless Cleveland offense with three minutes to go.
Before that interception, Cleveland’s drive chart looked like this:
- Eight plays – 30 yards – punt
- Three plays – six yards – punt
- Six plays – 13 yards – punt
- Nine plays – 37 yards – interception
- Three plays – minus eight yards – punt
- Five plays – 20 yards – punt
- Seven plays – 15 yards – punt
- Twelve plays – 63 yards – field goal
There was nothing that indicated the Browns would navigate down the field on a long drive for a game-tying touchdown. Theoretically, it could’ve happened, but nothing about the game before that moment suggests it would have.
Instead, the Browns took over at the four-yard line, a defensive penalty advanced the ball to the one-yard line, and rookie running back Quinshon Judkins danced into the end zone for a touchdown.
Green Bay did the one thing they couldn’t do: make an egregious mistake.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only one.
Aided by a huge pass interference penalty against Cleveland, the Packers worked their way into field goal range on the ensuing drive and set up for a go-ahead field goal with a half a minute remaining.
Brandon McManus jogged onto the field for a 43-yard attempt, which is as routine as it gets for the veteran. The result was worse than an awkward missed FG. The Browns blocked the attempt, and the ricochet of the ball sent it near midfield for the Browns to take over. They pulled the curtains down a few plays later on a 55-yard field goal that sailed straight through the uprights.
Cleveland didn’t play like a juggernaut. The Browns have a good defense and not much else. They’re a bad team that played pretty badly but beat the better team by capitalizing on a pair of massive errors.
The penalties mattered; Green Bay had 14 of them.
Green Bay’s inability to get the running game going mattered. Josh Jacobs had 16 rushes for 30 yards.
The offensive line being really bad in pass protection mattered. Love was sacked five times and pressured on 42% of his dropbacks.
All of those things, at least in this game, were possible to overcome. The interception, which defied situational logic, and the sloppy special teams play that resulted in a blocked field goal were not.
“Our defense was doing so well,” LaFleur said afterwards, “We knew we couldn’t make a deadly mistake like that offensively to give them a short field. That’s exactly what happened.”
It seemed simple in theory for Green Bay this week. The offense didn’t have to be lights out. Special teams didn’t need to aim for perfection. The Browns were playing poorly enough, and their offense was putrid enough, that this seemed like a game Green Bay had to avoid losing rather than a victory they had to seize. Don’t make the gigantic mistake, and you should be fine, cruising to a 3-0 record and on the way to Dallas next Sunday night.
The Packers couldn’t get out of their own way, and two massive errors in big spots provided the launch pad Cleveland needed to avoid starting 0-3 by pulling off an improbable win.