'This is our time to show ourselves': Browns eyeing Chargers' top-ranked passing offense
BEREA − It's almost like it's history repeating itself. It's Week 5 of the NFL season, and for the second year in a row, the Browns will face the Los Angeles Chargers, only this time in Cleveland.
"They have a little stuff that’s different," cornerback Greg Newsome II said Thursday, "but when you’ve got the same quarterback, same receiving corps, same coach, everything’s pretty much going to be kinda similar. They obviously always will continue to get better and continue to have little things in the system."
The Browns defense is hoping the same thing can hold true for them as it does for the Chargers since their meeting nearly 365 days ago in Los Angeles. Much like the Chargers, they have a lot of the same players back, depending on the official availability of All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett.
What they don't want to have happen is what happened to them on that afternoon at SoFi Stadium. Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert completed 26 of 43 passes for 398 yards with four touchdowns to help his team rally for a 47-42 win.
The Browns led 27-13 midway through the third quarter, and 42-41 with 4:45 remaining in the game. However, they couldn't keep the Chargers offense in check, as they rolled up 259 yards on 26 fourth-quarter plays prior to one last kneel-down.
It was a painful lesson the Browns have carried into their rematch against the league's top-ranked passing offense.
“That the game is never over," defensive coordinator Joe Woods said. "That was a very tough game just because the first half, I thought we played really well. Then we gave up that big explosive. Just had something in, and it didn’t work out. Then the second half, it was wild. It was a wild game. I don’t want it to be that way. I hope it is not that way, but you have to play for 60 minutes.”
The Chargers do come to Cleveland with some question about the status of receiver Keenan Allen, who has missed the past three games with a hamstring injury. Allen had six catches for 75 yards in last year's game.
Allen may be out, but the receiver who hurt the Browns' the most last Oct. 10 is still there. Mike Williams had a game-high eight catches for 165 yards and two touchdowns a year ago.
It was two big touchdown throws to Williams, a 72-yarder in the second quarter and a 42-yarder in the fourth, that stood out the most. Both came on blown coverages by the Browns, something that has been a topic of conversation this week after similar issues led to fourth-quarter troubles in three of the first four games this season.
"Discussion is just to trust our eyes, trust our technique," Newsome said. "Communication is something you're discussing every week, no matter what happens the week before or the weeks prior. You always want to discuss communication. Yeah, he was definitely left open once last game, but we'll be OK. We'll have our communication on point."
The communication which led to big pass plays from both the Carolina Panthers and New York Jets in the first two weeks appeared to be cleaned up substantially against the Pittsburgh Steelersand through three-plus quarters against the Atlanta Falcons. However, on second-and-10 from their own 9, the Falcons hit a 42-yard pass to Olamide Zaccheaus to set up the go-ahead field goal with 2:28 remaining in the Browns' 23-20 loss.
The Browns' defenders, though, believe that pass play was more a technique miscue than a communications one. The linebackers seemed to get sucked up into the run, which the Falcons had been very successful doing throughout the second half, and Marcus Mariota found the wide-open Zaccheaus in the zone behind them.
"We have a progression on defense as well and that was a long, drawn-out play and we just lost the guy," safety John Johnson III said. "He got lost, we didn't get eyes to him and he ended up wide open, so it wasn't really a communication thing, it was just like Mariota made something happen and we just lost a guy. It's something we can easily fix, but it can't happen."
It certainly can't against a quarterback like Herbert. A third-year pro out of Oregon, Herbert has already blossomed into one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and his stats back up that status.
Herbert is leading the NFL in total passing yards with 1,250, and he's in the top five in completions (111), passing touchdowns (nine) and quarterback rating (102.2). Since coming into the league in 2020, he's posted the most 300-yard passing games with 19, the second-most completions with 950 and the third-most passing yards with 10,600.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s tall, like 6-6, giant quarterback," safety Grant Delpit said. "Got a big arm on him. Makes the right decisions. He checks the ball down when he needs to, so he’s got it all, man. He’s a good quarterback. Can’t take it from him and that’s a good challenge for us.”
There's one more aspect of the Chargers' challenge the Browns defense believes it has to be aware of at all times. The Chargers are the No. 1 in passing offense and No. 32 in rushing offense in the NFL, but they still have a weapon out of the backfield in running back Austin Ekeler.
Ekeler has only carried the ball 45 times for 140 yards this season. Focusing only on how he impacts a game running the ball is to lose sight of exactly what it is that makes him so dangerous.
The leading pass catcher for the best pass offense statistically in the league is Ekeler with 27 catches. His 188 receiving yards is also third on the team.
Ekeler, who had 66 rushing yards on 17 carries and 53 receiving yards on five catches with one touchdown each in last year's meeting, presents an issue along the same lines the Browns saw in the opener with the Panthers' Christian McCaffrey.
“I would say very similar," linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah said. "Looking for him in the pass game. The quarterback loves to check down a lot, so he'll be looking for him if his first and second options aren't open. He's an amazing player, able to shift from one point to another.”
That's just another reason why the Chargers have the top passing offense in the league. It's just another reason why no lead is safe as long as the Chargers have the ball and time on the clock.
It's just another reason why the Browns' defense is looking toward Sunday as a way to vanquish some of the demons. Demons that come not just from breakdowns previously this season, but from breakdowns almost exactly a year ago against this same Chargers team.
"We're excited," Newsome said. "I feel like, as a secondary, we haven't really played up to our standard the first few weeks. I think the last two games, honestly, we've been doing pretty well. This is our time to show ourselves right here. We're just going to stay quiet, grind and try to put on a performance on Sunday."
Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.
On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns defense looks to flush bad memories of Chargers passing game
