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Not much went well for the Cleveland Browns in Week 6. Baker Mayfield played poorly, the offensive line got dominated, the defensive line lost too many battles and the secondary had coverage lapses. But there was one thing I noted from the All-22 review of the game that shouldn’t have been such an issue.
In poring over the game film from the 38-7 spanking in Pittsburgh, there were plenty of negatives. Defensive tackling stood out as something that can be improved regardless of the degree of difficulty of the opponent.
Cleveland’s tackling, while generally not terrible, hasn’t been great all year. It was especially bad in Pittsburgh. The secondary in particular had major issues, with a Denzel Ward whiff here, a Sheldrick Redwine flub there, an Andrew Sendejo gaffe seemingly everywhere.
I counted 13 missed tackling opportunities in the game. Pro Football Focus credited the Browns defense with just eight, but one of their criteria for a missed tackle is actually touching the player with the ball. They tagged Sendejo with three misses, but I noted two other plays where he should have made the tackle but didn’t physically make contact because of a poor angle or getting juked out of his shoes.
There are some bright spots. Veteran LB B.J. Goodson has nicely filled Joe Schobert’s old role of run-defense cleanup man and he’s more reliable at ending the play than Schobert ever was. Goodson was the best Browns defender in Pittsburgh. Malcolm Smith has been effective at quickly closing on receivers on short pass routes, though he had a miss on that in Pittsburgh too.
It was the worst tackling performance on the season. PFF has generally liked the Browns tackling on the year; Cleveland ranks 9th in their tackling metrics through Week 6. The Browns cannot afford to start sliding down a slope here.
It’s tough to improve tackling form during the season with the limited practices and limits on contact in those practices. One thing I’d like to see defensive coordinator Joe Woods emphasize is the concept of following the initial hit with a wrap. It’s something the DBs in particular do not do well. They’ll hit — often hard — but fail to wrap up the ball carrier or just assume the big hit will end the play. That strategy failed badly against James Conner and the Steelers and will fail against Joe Mixon and the Bengals on Sunday, too.