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Browns Week 8 top, bottom 5 PFF grades

Jared Mueller
·4 min read
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The Cleveland Browns had very little going for them in Week 8 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. That much was obvious watching the game live and on replay. The offense was adequate in some areas but poor in others while the defense had one very good player and a bunch of players that struggled.

One benefit of looking at Pro Football Focus’ grades is to quantify what was already seen with the naked eye. At times, those two things don’t match up but many times they do.

We already covered that PFF gave Myles Garrett their Defensive Player of the Week award. Garrett, not responding to the award but to the loss, still noted that he must do more.

Here are the top five and bottom five grades from PFF on both sides of the ball from Sunday:

Top 5 Offense

(AP Photo/Ron Schwane)

Scoring only 10 points, there wasn’t a lot of positives for the Browns offense. As we discussed in our game breakdown Sunday, Baker Mayfield played okay but not great while David Njoku and Harrison Bryant were the highest graded skilled players.

Only Wyatt Teller graded higher than an 80 overall and was the top-rated Browns offensive player.

  1. Wyatt Teller – 82.4 – Teller struggled in pass protection but had a good 83.4 grade in run blocking.

  2. David Njoku – 77.7 – Njoku was graded above 70 in the passing game as well as both blocking grades.

  3. Harrison Bryant – 74.5 – Bryant had the highest pass gaming grade, 81.9, but his poor run blocking brought his overall grade down.

  4. Baker Mayfield – 71.5 – Far from great, Mayfield was quite average with the 16th best quarterback grade for the week.

  5. Joel Bitonio – 66.6 – Demetric Felton graded higher but only had nine snaps. Bitonio struggled in pass protection and wasn’t his usual self in run blocking either. A lot of credit goes to the Steelers defense.

Bottom 5 Offense

(AP Photo/David Richard)

There was some poor play on Sunday with some important pieces grading out the lowest for the team.

  • Blake Hance – 33.4 – The worst of the bunch was Hance going up against TJ Watt. He had a 19.1 pass blocking grade.

  • Jack Conklin – 39.0 – In the 21 snaps before he went out, Conklin was somehow worse in pass blocking with a 17.1 grade.

  • D’Ernest Johnson – 46.2 – Perhaps explaining his limited use and snap count, Johnson’s drops put his passing game score down to 27.3.

  • JC Tretter – 52.0 – The center actually blocked for Mayfield well but struggled to get a push in the middle of the line with a poor 47.1 grade in the run game.

  • Odell Beckham Jr. – 52.0 – OBJ’s struggles as a Brown are mystifying. It just hasn’t worked.

Top 5 Defense

Not surprisingly, Garrett takes the top spot here but the drop-off is steep after that.

  1. Myles Garrett – 92.9 – Just a stud.

  2. Grant Delpit – 69.8 – The second-year player who missed all of his first year missed important tackles and took some bad angles and still ended up the team’s second best defender despite a grade of 60.0 in coverage and 58.9 in tackling.

  3. Jordan Elliott – 69.4 – Getting his most snaps of the season, Elliott played well and had the big hit on Pittsburgh’s kicker that changed the visitor’s game plan.

  4. John Johnson III – 69.3 – JJ3 went out with a neck injury at the start of the second half. He graded well in coverage (74.5) but poor against the run and tackling.

  5. Anthony Walker – 67.8 – Playing all of the snaps, Walker was adequate but also missed a tackle and had some angle issues during the game.

Bottom 5 Defense

(AP Photo/Ron Schwane)

There was a lot of ugly for the Cleveland defense on Sunday including Jadeveon Clowney’s grade playing hurt.

  • Malik Jackson – 38.2 – The middle of the defensive line got pushed around a lot with Jackson leading the way during his 51 snaps.

  • Andrew Billings – 48.5 – Brought in for his strength and size in the middle, Billings has not played well all season but the Browns tried to use him (18 snaps) to help stop the run. It didn’t work.

  • Troy Hill – 53.3 – Despite the loss of Denzel Ward, Hill still only played in 44 snaps. He graded poorly against the run (37.3) but was better in coverage if still not good (60.0).

  • Mack Wilson – 53.4 – More snaps were not better for Wilson this week but he did tackle well (79.2) according to PFF.

  • Jadeveon Clowney – 57.4 – Clowney was just not himself and the 26.8 tackling grade shows it. He struggled against the run and was just a little better rushing the passer. Cleveland’s defense needs Takk McKinley and Clowney to get healthy, fast.

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