After a devastating debut as Cleveland Browns head coach, no one would have blamed Todd Monken if he placed the blame squarely on quarterback Deshaun Watson. In fact, there are plenty of fans who would have preferred he’d done just that.
Instead, Monken said there was plenty of fault to go around, including his own performance. That is undoubtedly true and easy to overlook considering how bad Watson was against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the embarrassing 34-10 defeat.
Insider Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN revealed two major issues from the Browns’ blowout loss, with a struggling defense doing nothing to help their incompetent quarterback.
“The Browns have two major issues after the blowout loss to the Jaguars in Week 1. On offense, it’s what do they do with Deshaun Watson? He struggled mightily through three quarters, and Cleveland went scoreless in the first half. After the game, head coach Todd Monken didn’t outright name Watson the starter for Week 2, but he did say that it’d be unfair to blame Watson for all the struggles on offense. On defense, that was a unit that just looked lifeless in its first game without Jim Schwartz and Myles Garrett. They couldn’t stop the run. Jared Verse didn’t get a single pressure on Trevor Lawrence, and the new changes in the secondary that coordinator Mike Rutenberg instituted had no impact on Lawrence,” Oyefusi said.
Watson set the tone for the afternoon by throwing an interception on the fifth snap of the game. But the Browns’ defense did nothing to pick him up, letting the Jaguars march down the field for an eight-play, 59-yard drive that ended with a 30-yard touchdown pass to Parker Washington on a third-and-7 play.
With Watson living down to his potential with a 1.5 QBR in the first half, the Browns did not live up to expectations on the other side of the ball. Jacksonville scored on its first four possessions to take a 24-0 halftime lead.
Then, with a chance to set a new tone to open the first half, the Browns’ defense gave up a four-play, 60-yard TD drive that ended with a 32-yard pass to Jakobi Meyers on a second-and-19 play. The Jaguars eventually took a 34-3 lead before pulling quarterback Trevor Lawrence from the game after he threw four TD passes and posted a career-high passer rating of 150.6.
Cleveland had 95 total yards in the first half, while Jacksonville had 166 yards in passing alone. For the game, the Browns had 11 penalties and were 1-for-8 on third down, which means they likely have more than just two issues plaguing them.
With a second straight road game coming up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baker Mayfield in Week 2, the Browns may not have enough time to iron out their concerns in time to be competitive in that game, either.
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