Category: The All-22

Lamar Jackson beat the Texans’ blitzes, and he can do it against the Chiefs

Lamar Jackson beat the Texans’ blitz-heavy plan last week, and he’ll now have to solve Steve Spagnuolo’s creative pressures. Here’s how he can.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is most likely closing in on his second NFL MVP award at age 27, which is pretty nifty. The primary reason that Jackson is in line for that is that he’s developed to the point where there aren’t a lot of holes in his game — there isn’t one way to beat him, and even if you land a few punches, Baltimore’s coaching staff is generally ready with the right adjustments.

This was definitely the case in the Ravens’ 34-10 divisional-round win against the Houston Texans. In the regular season, Houston blitzed on just 21.0% of their plays, fifth-lowest in the league. The plan against Lamar was to send quite a bit more heat.

The Texans sent six or more pass-rushers on 11 of Lamar Jackson’s 22 attempts. Jackson completed eight of 11 passes against that for 51 yards, 30 air yards, one touchdown, and a passer rating of 112.3.

This season, the Chiefs have sent six or more pass-rushers on 48 opponent attempts – quarterbacks have completed 23 of those 48 attempts for 181 yards, four touchdowns, two interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 68.1.

One of those touchdowns allowed was the HB Seam touchdown from Josh Allen to James Cook in Week 14 against the Bills. The Bills came out with a four-strong concept to the back side, and Cook was wide open there. 

Another was Jordan Love’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Christian Watson in Week 13 against the Packers. Here, the Packers handled the six-man pressure out of a zone exchange, and Love had time to hit Watson on the little circle post. The rest were tight red zone, so the rules are obviously different. So, as much as Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo loves to blitz, quarterbacks aren’t helpless against it. 

But here’s the thing: If you take the Texans game out, for the season against six or more pass-rushers, Jackson has completed 18 of 33 passes for 169 yards, 41 air yards, no touchdowns, three sacks, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 56.3.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said after the game that he was not surprised at how much the Texans blitzed.

“No, not at all, because they had success doing it the first game [in Week 1]. They picked their spots. They’ve been a good blitz team. We expected it. We prepared for it. We worked on blitz stuff for two weeks, and Lamar did a great job [against it]. The offensive line did a great job. We had our moments. We had to make a few adjustments in terms of how we were picking [the blitzes] up. They changed up a couple things for this game, too. We had to flip our protections.”

They also had to make some offensive adjustments.

“I think we just did a better job getting the ball out on time,” Harbaugh said. “I think [offensive coordinator] Todd [Monken] called a different game. It wasn’t so much hold the ball and try to push the ball downfield, which Lamar [Jackson] did a good job [with]. Once Lamar was able to sit back there [in the pocket] and just pick [the defense] apart and get the ball out quick, he just did a great job with that and then took control of the game.”

The touchdown against the Texans was a cool concept in which Baltimore was in 22 personnel, if we’re calling Patrick Ricard a fullback. Ricard motioned from left to right and was wide open to that side. Nelson Agholor ran a crosser from right to left, tight end Charlie Kolar blocked safety DeAndre Houston-Carson out of the route, and that block bumped cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. out of his coverage responsibility.

So, we know that Spags will send all kinds of interesting blitzes. But against the Texans, Lamar got the ball out quickly against those blitzes drawn up by Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans and his staff, and Monken did a great job of presenting Lamar with the right answers. 

Lamar also had two designed runs against six or more rushers in the Texans game – a 14-yard run with 2:12 left in the third quarter, and his eight -yard touchdown run with 6:26 left in the game.

For the season, if you take goal-line situations out of the equation and limit it to runs outside the opposing 10-yard line, Lamar has 129 runs for 780 yards, 332 yards after contact, and three touchdowns against six or more defenders in the box. This is the unique threat Jackson poses at this point – there are not a lot of holes in his game. 

So, this is a primary construct of the AFC Championship game, and we’ll just see what the designs are.

Baker Mayfield must calm his rogue tendencies to have a chance against the Lions

If Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers are going to beat the Lions, Mayfield will have to stay within himself as he didn’t in Week 6.

Baker Mayfield is on his fourth NFL team since 2021, which is an odd place for a former No. 1 overall NFL pick to find himself just seven seasons into his NFL career. One reason Mayfield has traveled an arduous road from the Cleveland Browns to the Carolina Panthers to the Los Angeles Rams to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the randomness of his play that can show up too often at the worst possible time. As great as Mayfield can be in the right situation with a coaching staff who can control his rogue tendencies, he’s a finely-tuned machine with a couple of oddly-placed springs, and you just have to live with it.

Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales has done an outstanding job with that this season, which is a primary reason that the Bucs are in Detroit to play the Lions in the NFC divisional round. Canales has a lot

In that 20-6 Detroit win, Mayfield completed 19 of 37 passes for 206 yards, no touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 56.8. It was probably his worst game of the season. Mayfield was frequently speeding up in the pocket whether he was hurried or not. He didn’t throw with good base fundamentals, and he threw off-platform more than he needed to, which led to a lot of incompletions against tight coverage. More worrisome were the incompletions in which his receivers had scalded Detroit’s defense. 

Mayfield had a wide-open shot to Trey Palmer with 2:00 left in the first half that he overthrew by a couple yards and would have been a touchdown if he’d stayed within himself. This was a deep over from the slot against Cover-4, and Palmer beat safety Kerby Joseph over the top. 

Mayfield did have defensive tackle Benito Jones pressuring him right when he threw the ball, but that’s a throw you need to make. Mayfield was pressured on 13 of his 41 dropbacks in that game, and he completed two of 10 passes for 17 yards and a sack.

This deep incompleton to receiver Chris Godwin on third-and-10 with 1:04 left in the game was one such negative example. The Lions ran a zone exchange out of Cover-4, and Mayfield was in shotgun with a 2×2 formation. The backside flat/post combination was a great design against this coverage, and Joseph was beaten again. With edge defender Julian Okwara dropping into coverage, Detroit defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn sent linebacker Derek Barnes and cornerback Will Harris on an overload pressure to the other side. Harris got through, and Mayfield threw a worm-burner to his target.

For the season, Mayfield has completed 81 of 165 passes for 1,035 yards, seven touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 78.2. So, it’s not as if he’s a complete disaster under pressure – this game was an oddity, but it presented most of the things about Mayfield that tend to give you pause. 

It’s now time for Mayfield to silence the doubters.

“When there are plays to be had, we have to take advantage of them,” Mayfield said this week. “It’s staying consistent – they play extremely hard. It just jumps out on film, obviously [with] the way [Lions head coach] Dan Campbell runs that team – everybody swarming to the ball, playing for each other, playing extremely hard with a lot of effort at all times. They’re a tough opponent and they make it hard on you.”

Mayfield will obviously have a better chance to advance to the NFC Championship round if he can avoid making it hard on himself.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys investigate the things that those around Mayfield have done to rein things in when necessary.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Jared Goff beat the Buccaneers in Week 6, and he can do it again

The Buccaneers threw everything at Jared Goff in Week 6, and Goff had no problems. Might be time for a different plan in the playoffs.

In the locker room after the Detroit Lions’ 24-23 wild-card win over the Los Angeles Rams, head coach Dan Campbell wanted everyone to know that he was more than fine with the 2021 trade with the Rams that flipped Goff for Matthew Stafford.

There was no question in that game who Campbell trusted to make the final play that sealed the game for his team.

The Lions placed their ultimate faith in Jared Goff, and it absolutely paid off

Now, the Lions are hoping to make it to the NFC Championship game, and they’ll have to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to do so. Goff will likely be a major component of that equation. When these two teams faced off in Week 6, the Lions ran the ball 22 times… for 40 yards and no touchdowns. Rookie Jahmyr Gibbs was unavailable for that game, and he’ll be ready to go for this one, but it’s not a guarantee that any team will do well against Tampa Bay’s run defense.

Detroit’s 20-6 win was keyed by a defense that frustrated Baler Mayfield over and over, and Goff’s performance. He completed 30 of 44 passes for 353 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.5. Buccaneers head coach and defensive shot-caller Todd Bowles is great at designing different and effective blitzes, and disguised coverages, but Goff had no issue with any of it. Perhaps more than any other game this season, this one showed how far Goff has come as a quarterback from a mental perspective.

In that game, Bowles sent five-man rushes on 17 of Goff’s 44 attempts, and he completed 13 of those passes for 9.2 yards per attempt, and 3.7 average yards of separation for his receivers. This 27-yard pass to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown at the start of the fourth quarter featured two staples of the Lions’ passing game — under-center play-action, and heavy personnel — in this case, two tight ends. This was a five-man rush as opposed to a blitz, but the Bucs also switched from a single-high look to Cover-6, and Goff had no issue whatsoever with that. St. Brown perfectly exposed the void in that coverage switch.

Goff’s 45-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jameson Williams with 3:27 left in the third quarter was another example of Goff’s acuity against a complex defense.

This was a zone exchange in which edge-rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka dropped into flat coverage, and safety Christian Izien rushed from the second level on the other side. At the same time, the Buccaneers showed a nebulous coverage look that resembled Cover-4 to a point, but flipped to Cover-3 post-snap. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. came down to cover receiver Josh Reynolds, making Ryan Neal the deep-third defender.

The Lions had a great plan for either coverage with a flood concept out of trips right in which Reynolds, Jameson Williams, and Amon-Ra St. Brown worked all three levels of the field with out-breaking routes. Williams had Neal beaten on the deep route, cornerback Carlton Davis was confused as to which receiver to cover, and that’s one way to get yourself a 45-yard score.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys go deeper on what Goff did to the Bucs in Week 6, and why Todd Bowles might want to investigate different parts of his playbook.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Ravens, 49ers have the advantage of defenses that can do anything… and everything

The Ravens and 49ers are the one-seeds in the playoffs, and they both have defenses without specific tendencies. That’s not a coincidence.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — the two one-seeds in the 2023 NFL playoffs — have defenses without a specific coverage type. In today’s NFL, with more formational and schematic concepts on offense, if you go out on the field without some things to mess up the opposing quarterback with different things, you’re left with an execution-based defense, and there’s very little margin for error if that’s the case.

The Cleveland Browns discovered that in their wild-card loss to the Houston Texans. In that 45-14 Houston win, the Browns stuck with their usual plan, to their direct detriment. C.J. Stroud had demolished single-high coverage all season long, and the Browns had run a higher rate of single-high in the regular season than any other defense. Cleveland decided to stay there in this game, and Stroud completed 12 of 16 passes for both of his touchdowns. On none of those 16 attempts did the Browns throw any kind of late movement at Stroud. It was line ’em up, and let’s go.

Browns’ refusal to adapt on defense cost them dearly against C.J. Stroud

When the Texans face the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday in the divisional round, Stroud will be tested in ways he certainly wasn’t last week. The Ravens do not have a specific coverage type. This season, they’ve run single-high coverage on 46.4% of their snaps, and two-high on 53.3% of their snaps. It’s been Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-6 in that order. You don’t know what you’re going to get from snap to snap, they do all of it well, and they’re very adept with coverage switches. 

The Ravens have made it very clear that the Stroud they’re dealing with now is a much more evolved than the Stroud that tried to navigate it all in his regular-season debut. The best way to counter that evolution is to make Stroud work through different coverage concepts. Mike Macdonald’s defense has no problem with that.

The Ravens know they’re dealing with a different C.J. Stroud this time around

On this deep incompletion against the Ravens in Week 1, Stroud had to manage a couple of things. First, Baltimore threw a six-man blitz at him with defensive back Kyle Hamilton off the edge, edge defender Odafe Oweh dropping into coverage, and linebacker Roquan Smith coming from the second level. And pre-snap, the Ravens showed a defined single-high look before moving to Cover-2. Brandon Stephens joined safety Marcus Williams as the second two-high defender. The combination of pressure and coverage must have made Stroud feel as if he had 13 or 14 defenders arrayed against him, and a near-interception was the result.

The 49ers, who play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, are another amorphous coverage defense.They’ve played 50% single-high this season, and two-high 50% of the time. It’s Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-2 in that order. The 49ers flip to a bit more single-high on third down, but as is the case with the Ravens, they play what works for them and they don’t change a lot from a systemic point in a situational sense. 

Packers quarterback Jordan Love has been as good as anybody playing his position in the second half of the season, but even the best quarterbacks can be made uncomfortable when faced with the right concepts in concert. In Week 2 against the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford, the 49ers got an interception by disguising their intentions. Stafford is a 15-year NFL veteran with as developed a sense of what defenses will do as any quarterback you’ll ever meet, but here, Steve Wilks’ defense won the day.

Stafford would have 2-Man coverage to deal with post-snap, but that wasn’t the look pre-snap. With a single-high safety, and linebacker Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw close to the line of scrimmage, Stafford probably thought he’d have something easy over the middle of the field. This was a four-man rush in which the 49ers plastered Stafford’s receivers all over the field, and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir jumped Stafford’s backside slant for the pick.

No matter the quarterback you’re facing, you have a better chance of beating him if your defense is creative enough to throw as many different looks at him as possible, with the discipline to have everyone together on their assignments. The Ravens and 49ers each have this on lock, and again, it’s probably not a coincidence that the two best overall teams in the Final Eight can say that about themselves.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into both defenses, and how they’re able to switch things up at such a high level.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell: Previewing the divisional round of the playoffs

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys preview all the big matchups in the NFL’s divisional round.

And then, there were eight! It’s time for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. and Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup, and Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire and the USA Today Sports Media Group, are here to get you ready for the most interesting matchups that could decide who advances to the conference championships.

Houston Texans at Baltimore Ravens: The Week 1 game between these two teams doesn’t mean a lot, because the Ravens were dealing with C.J. Stroud in his rookie debut, and Stroud is an alien at this point. The Ravens are aware, and here’s how they can counter the Texans’ outstanding defense. Also, both of these teams have a ton of great, underrated talent on defense.

Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers: The Packers have seen desperately-needed defensive improvement over the last three weeks, but is that enough to stop Kyle Shanahan’s offense? And how will Jordan Love do against a San Francisco defense that doesn’t really have one type of staple coverage?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Detroit Lions: When these teams played in Week 6, Baker Mayfield had his worst game of the season. But this is a different Buccaneers team than it was then, and there are ways for Mayfield to engineer a different result. The problem for the Bucs is that Jared Goff has proven that he’s ready for whatever Todd Bowles throws at him.

Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills: The Bills have far too many injuries on defense, and Patrick Mahomes is finding winning concepts with at least one receiver, so this will have to be a Josh Allen game if the Bills are to advance.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

4-Down Territory: Tua Tagovailoa, Mike McCarthy, Nick Sirianni, Worst of the Week

In this week’s “4-Down Territory,” the guys get into Tua Tagovailoa, Mike McCarthy, Nick Sirianni, and the Worst of the Week for the wild-card round.

Now that the wild-card round of the playoffs is over, it’s time once again for Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire, and Kyle Madson of Niners Wire, to come to the table with their own unique brand of analysis in “4-Down Territory.”

This week, the guys have some serious questions to answer:

  1. What should the Miami Dolphins do with Tua Tagovailoa?
  2. Should this be the end for Mike McCarthy in Dallas?
  3. Has Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni become more an liability than an asset?
  4. What was our Worst of the Week?

You can watch this week’s “4-Down Territory” right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to the “4-Down Territory” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Jimmy Johnson goes off on Cowboys from Fox Sports’ home office

Former Dallas Cowboys head coach JImmy Johnson had an inspiring message for his downtrodden franchise. Jerry Jones might want to hire him again.

Outside of Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson was the Dallas Cowboys’ best head coach, and there’s little question about that. Johnson took over in 1989 after new team owner Jerry Jones fired Landry, an unthinkable move after Landry’s 29-year stretch as the franchise’s only head coach. But Johnson, armed with all the recruiting information he’d gleaned as Miami’s head coach, completely redefined Dallas’ personnel at a point when it needed a clean sweep, Johnson won two Super Bowls in just five seasons as the Cowboys’ head coach, and you could say that he won three, because the Cowboys who beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX at the end of the 1995 season was Johnson’s team with Barry Switzer as the placeholder.

Well, Johnson’s old team found itself on the wrong end of quite the debacle with a 27-7 deficit against the Green Bay Packers at the end of the first half in the wild-card round, and Johnson — in his current role as a FOX Sports analyst — did his best to radar in his thoughts as to what the current Cowboys should do to get back in the game.

Frankly, I’d pay more attention to this than anything current Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy had to say at this point. And at this point, Jerry Jones might want to see if he can get Johnson on a place from Los Angeles to Arlington, Texas.

The importance of heavy play-action, with Dan Campbell and Jared Goff

Jared Goff and the Lions have been wildly successful in the passing game with two old-school concepts, and the Rams’ defense needs to be hyper-aware.

Today’s NFL is a heavy-shotgun, quick-pass league in which most play-action passes do not come from under center in the traditional ways. But the Detroit Lions under head coach Dan Campbell, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, and with quarterback Jared Goff, are decidedly old-school o their approach to play-fakes.

In the 2023 regular season, Goff used play-action from under center on 135 dropbacks, by far the most in the NFL. And on those plays, Goff completed 92 of 130 passes for 1,258 yards, 588 air yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 116.1.

Another old-school concept the Lions use in the passing game is the use of six offensive linemen. Of course, this cost the Lions their game against the Cowboys when referee Brad Allen got a bit confused as to the reporting rules for eligible receivers, but if you think that debacle got Campbell doing less of the 6OL stuff, that’s not the case — in fact, the Lions have been trolling enemy defenses with it more than ever before. In their regular-season finale against the Minnesota Vikings, the Lions put sixth offensive lineman Dan Skipper on the field for nine of Goff’s passing attempts, and on 17 offensive snaps overall.

“Oh, I thought it was great, man,” Campbell said after the Vikings game, when asked about the home crowd’s response to Skipper reporting as an eligible receiver. “Everybody loves Skip, right? That he reported, he was loud. I thought he was very clear on what he did and he got a ball out in the flat, thought he tucked it away ran up the sideline, so it was great. And look, let me say this, Brad, Head Official here, he worked our camp this year, he’s done a great job and he was great. I thought he handled everything really well, because that’s not easy to come in after what happened in Dallas and you’re going to be the guy in our game and he’s a pro. He has been and he was great with communication, so anyway everything was great. But yeah, I thought it was for the crowd to get up for Skip, that was good.”

But this is more than a gimmick. Against the Vikings, Goff completed eight of nine passes with six offensive linemen for 152 yards, 73 air yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and the highest possible passer rating of 158.3. His explosive plays out of 6OL personnel were completions of 34 and 70 yards to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown against two different Vikings blitzes.

The first play, a 34-yard gain with 10:07 left in the first quarter, was a 34-yard gain in which Skipper’s release to the left flat opened up St. Brown’s boundary route to that side. This also had Goff’s under-center play-action fake to running back David Montgomery.

Then, there was Goff’s 70-yard touchdown to St. Brown; the first play of the fourth quarter. Another blitz from the Vikings (no surprise there), and this time, Skipper stayed in to help with the protection. You’ll notice that Goff used under-center play-action again (this time to running back Jahmyr Gibbs), and St. Brown got free to the boundary.

By the way — Matthew Stafford of the Rams has the NFL’s second-most dropbacks with under-center play-action, so you can expect to see a lot of this when the Lions and Rams face off on Sunday evening.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get deeper into why the Lions are so successful with these concepts, and why some quarterbacks struggle with under-center play-action than you might expect.

You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” previewing every game in the wild-card slate, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Browns’ refusal to adapt on defense cost them dearly against C.J. Stroud

The Browns lost their wild-card game against the Texans because Jim Schwartz, their usually brilliant DC, refused to adapt to C.J. Stroud.

If you were to point to one factor that ended the Cleveland Browns’ 2023 season with their 45-14 loss to the Houston Texans in the wild-card round, you might say that Joe Flacco’s pick-sixes on consecutive drives. That obviously wasn’t beneficial, but it’s important to note that the Texans already had a 24-14 lead before Flacco’s first pick-six with 6:05 left in the third quarter, and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud had completed 11 of 16 passes for 236 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 151.0 in the first half alone.

As great as Stroud has been throughout his rookie season, this was a bit of a surprise. Jim Schwartz’s Browns defense came into this game ranked second in Defensive DVOA and second in Pass Defense DVOA, behind only the Baltimore Ravens in both instances. But Schwartz refused to bend to the one reality he had right in front of him — that Stroud was set up well to take advantage of the Browns’ primary coverage concept.

In the regular season, the Browns played single-high coverage — either Cover-1 or Cover-3 on 64% of their snaps, the NFL’s highest rate.

But C.J. Stroud against Cover-1 and Cover-3 in the regular season? Try 141 of 228 for 2,054 yards, 1,335 air yards, 11 touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 105.4. Only Dak Prescott and Lamar Jackson had higher passer ratings against middle-of-the-field closed coverage in the regular season.

How that played out in this game was in no way beneficial to Schwartz and his players. Stroud faced single-high coverage on 16 of his 21 passing attempts in the game, and at no time did Stroud have to deal with any kind of wrinkle pre-snap to post-snap to muddy the picture and delay his reads and throws.

The worst part may have been that this was the plan going in.

“I think playoffs come down to who can be themselves the best, if that makes sense,” Schwartz said last Wednesday. “Can we be the best version of ourselves versus the Texans being the best version of themselves? I think that’s when it’s all said and done. You’ve got 17 games under your belt. There’s not a whole lot you’re going to pull out that another team hasn’t seen. And really at this point of the year, people are going with what they do best. I think that has a lot to do with it. I really can’t worry about him and how he’ll treat the game.”

Sure, but assuming that a rookie quarterback (no matter how advanced) has already seen everything you might throw at him, so you’re just going to do your thing, no matter how good he might be against it? That’s a bit of a stretch, and in the end, that cost the Browns the game more than anything else.

Edge-rusher Myles Garrett confirmed this after the game.

“[Schwartz] said from the beginning he’s going to ride with what got us here, and he’s not going to change up. There’s not going to be any magic call that’s going to get us out of anything or get us through anything. I guess they were just doing things a little bit different that kept us off balance, and I think just the tempo which they were doing it, whether it was running the ball a little bit differently than we had expected, getting the ball out on time, trying to just delay us enough up front to get the ball to their skill players and make plays. We have to be able to make plays all across the field, not just up front or not just on the back end. It’s all together.”

And that’s the problem — you never want to be behind the schematic eight-ball when you don’t need to be. The play shown above is Stroud’s 27-yard completion to receiver John Metchie with 1:34 left in the first quarter; it was not the first or last time that Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik’s single-high beaters foiled Cleveland’s attempts to stop them.

This 21-yard pass to receiver Nico Collins with 11:51 left in the first quarter — the Texans’ second offensive play of the game — had Collins running the deep over out of 21 personnel — two backs, one tight end, and two receivers. Noah Brown’s vertical route from the left side cleared safety Juan Thornhill, who had to watch Brown and Collins at the same time, and afforded Stroud an easy read and throw underneath, with cornerback Denzel Ward a step behind Collins.

Stroud’s 76-yard touchdown pass to tight end Brevin Jordan with 12:13 left in the first half was a simple leak to the flat out of 22 personnel — two tight end and two backs — but as Greg Cosell and I detailed in our game preview, the Browns will tend to gear up for the run against heavy personnel (hat tip to Robert Mays and Nate Tice of The Athletic Football Show for the actual numbers) no matter the down and distance. Slowik had to know this, and he had to know that if Schwartz didn’t flip the script, his young quarterback could feast. That’s what happened here.

This is not to malign Jim Schwartz as a defensive coordinator — he’s as responsible as anybody for the Browns’ turnaround this season. But Schwartz may spend some time this offseason wondering why he didn’t tailor his game plan more to Houston’s extraordinary young quarterback — and the offensive genius behind that quarterback’s most meaningful plays.

How Texans QB C.J. Stroud can rock Jim Schwartz’s Browns defense

Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud vs. Jim Schwartz’s Browns defense is one of the best matchups of wild-card weekend. Here’s how it could play out.

Houston Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik comes from the Kyle Shanahan tree, so you know that he wants to fool your defense with personnel. Slowik had been a defensive assistant and passing game coordinator under Shanahan both in Washington and San Francisco, so if there’s a 49ers-ish tint to what the Texans are doing, don’t be surprised.

One thing you’ll see from the Texans is explosive passing plays out of heavier personnel. It’s a Shanahan staple, Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniels (Shanahan’s former run game coordinator in San Francisco) draws on it as much as anybody, and Slowik continues that trend. Rookie sensation C.J. Stroud has 62 explosive passing plays in the 2023 season, and 22 of those plays have come out of 12, 13, 21, and 22 personnel — with multiple tight ends and/or running backs on the field.

Why is this effective? In preparation for his team’s wild-card matchup with the Cleveland Browns’ outstanding defense, Slowik got into why he likes to run things the way he runs them.

“That was very intentional coming into the season that we did that,” Slowik said when asked why ne needs his personnel looks to be interchangeable. “Obviously in San Francisco that’s kind of how that offense was built. I was lucky and fortunate enough to be there kind of when that evolution happened and we really started getting different pieces like that with guys that could play multiple positions. Really, you just see how freeing it is as someone who has to game plan, as a play caller, but also, it’s freeing for the quarterback. Just being able to know, ‘Wherever I distribute this ball, on my four reads on this play, I trust and I love all these dudes. I want to get all of them the ball.’ That’s really important.”

Dec 24, 2023; Houston, Texas, USA; Houston Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik smiles before the game against the Cleveland Browns at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Slowik also deploys different guys in different positions because it makes things easier for the quarterback, giving him more pure progression reads against match-style coverages.

“I feel like a lot of it now, more across the NFL, there’s more just zones and different versions of zones, in particular soft zones where you can’t always determine where the ball’s going when teams are doing that,” Slowik said. “So sometimes – I think that’s part of why a lot of NFL teams have gone to so much pure progressions where you just go from one to two to three because it just simplifies that whole process and at some point you know you have to get a completion, and you can’t always determine who that’s to. I know for us, that’s why we coach how you handle yards after the catch, how you handle transition, how you handle when the ball is thrown to you in eight yards or less, how we’re making the most of those opportunities and getting the most yards, getting vertical on that stuff.

“We coach that a lot, namely because those are the teams that it’s really hard to game plan against when you can’t pin-point where the ball is going and the quarterback has to go and distribute it all the way across the field. That would be the No. 1 thing to me.”

One thing Slowik knows he’s likely to see from Jim Schwartz’ Browns defense is single-high coverage. The Browns have played middle-of-the-field-closed coverage at a 64% clip, most in the NFL. Now, Schwartz loves to mix that up with different looks and inverted coverages, but you know what you’re going to get there. The task for Stroud, who missed Houston’s Week 16 loss to the Browns with a concussion, is to wade through all of that with the personnel he has. And that’s tough, because the Texans are missing a lot of their top receivers right now — Nathaniel “Tank” Dell is out, and Noah Brown and Robert Woods are questionable.

Fortunately, Stroud still has world-beater Nico Collins. And this is where the matchup could tilt in Houston’s favor.

Another bit of good news for the Texans is that Stroud has absolutely annihilated single-high coverage this season. Against Cover-1 and Cover-3, Stroud has completed 141 of 228 passes for 2,054 yards, 1,335 air yards, 11 touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 105.4 – only Dak Prescott and Lamar Jackson have higher passer ratings against MOFC coverage this season. Stroud is great at challenging single-high with crossers underneath, and quick-to-intermediate out routes to displace cornerbacks playing to the numbers.

And it’s not just Collins. Stroud can find openings against anybody with heavy personnel, as he showed on this 26-yard pass to fullback Andrew Beck against the New York Jets in Week 14. It was a hard crosser underneath the Jets’ Cover-3, and another example of a great defense a step behind what Slowik drew up, and what Stroud executed.

Remember that Mays/Tice statistic regarding how the Browns stack the box as a default reaction to heavy personnel? Schwartz is smart enough to know what his own tendencies are, and how it might be time to switch things up.

CLEVELAND, OHIO – SEPTEMBER 24: Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz of the Cleveland Browns looks on during the first half in the game against the Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns Stadium on September 24, 2023 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

“Obviously a rookie, but has command that goes beyond usually the scope of a rookie,” Schwartz said this week of Stroud. “Decisive with the ball, accurate passer, buy some time time, makes big plays down the field. I think when it’s all said and done, the fact that he’s passed for as many yards as he has without turning the ball over is really impressive for a young guy. Usually the cost of doing business if you’re going to throw a lot of yards is you also turn the ball over a lot. It’s been impressive what he’s been able to do. We’re going to have to play tight coverage. We’re going to have to stay after him in the pass rush. We’re going to have to limit run after the catch because he does a good job of giving his guys opportunities to run after the catch, including Nico Collins. That’s one of the things he does best.”

Pair that with Slowik’s quote about why he aligns his passing structures against match stuff that limits YAC, and you have fodder for an amazing matchup.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys go deep into this fascinating matchup.

You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” previewing every game in the wild-card slate, right here:

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