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Cleveland Browns' 5-play, plus 1, path to victory against Jacksonville Jaguars
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- Cleveland Browns' 5-play, plus 1, path to victory against Jacksonville Jaguars
There are a dozens of plays run in an NFL football game. Add up all of the plays each team runs on offense, plus special teams plays, and the number can get well over 140 on a given Sunday.
Yet, there's always a handful which loom much larger than the rest of them. They're the ones, even if they don't result in points, that have a major impact on the final outcome.
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That was the case in the Browns' 18-13 win at the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday . What follows is a look at five (plus one) plays that stood out as critical pivot points in momentum during the game,
These are listed in chronological order, not in order of importance. That's because, in their own ways, they all are tied together.
8:12, 1st quarter: Deshaun Watson 's 21-yard pass to Jerry Jeudy on 2nd-and-20
The play:The Browns ' opening — and only — touchdown drive of the game was an impressive one, going 89 yards in 16 plays and taking 9:14 off the clock. At about the mid-point of that drive, though, it looked like it may have been bogging down. A holding penalty and then an incompletion to Amari Cooper — stop if you've heard either of those this season — left the Browns faced with a second-and-20 at their own 45. Quarterback Deshaun Watson took the shotgun snap and was forced out of the pocket when Jacksonville defensive end Travon Walker dipped inside of right tackle Dawand Jones . Watson eluded Walker by rolling to the right, then started to run toward the line of scrimmage, with the Jaguars' Josh Hines-Allen pursuing him. Watson was able to release the ball before being hit by Hines-Allen, as he threw it toward Jeudy, who had followed Watson to the right during the scramble, on the sideline. Jaguars cornerback Ronald Darby was in front of Jeudy and actually deflected it up into the air, but it fell into Jeudy's hands for the completion, a 21-yard gain and a first down at the Jacksonville 34.
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Deshaun Watson postgame on Jerry Jeudy:"You know, I have confidence in all the guys and Jerry does a great job and he's been to my side a lot lately whenever I do scramble. The biggest thing I tell all of them, wherever I get outside the pocket, just the play's never dead until they blow the whistle so just keep working with me and I'll find you and if I can, I'm going to get you the ball and if I can't, I'll make something else happen."
5:40, 2nd quarter: JOK drops Travis Etienne Jr. for 2-yard loss on 1st-and-goal from the 2
Jacksonville Jaguars running back Travis Etienne Jr. (1) rushes for yards during the second quarter of an NFL football matchup Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024 at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union]
The play:Why is this play here? Because it may have been the difference between a touchdown and a field goal for the Jaguars. The play before, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah had Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence in his grasp for a third-down sack that would've likely have forced a punt around the Browns 45. Instead, Owusu-Koramoah couldn't make the tackle and Lawrence got loose for a 33-yard gain to the Browns 2. The very next play, Jacksonville came out in a tight formation and Lawrence handed the ball off to running back Travis Etienne Jr. However, this time, Owusu-Koramoah came crashing into the hole and met Etienne before he got to the line of scrimmage, and dropped him for a 2-yard loss. Lawrence would follow that play up with a pair of incompletions, which led to a Cam Little 22-yard field goal which cut the Browns lead to 10-3 with 4:44 left in the second quarter.
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Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah postgame on red-zone stops:"Yeah, big stops in the red zone, man," Owusu-Koramoah said after the game. "And a lot of those big red zone stops really rely on the D-line. A lot of the times the D-line really showed up today in the red zone as you saw there. That wasn't the red zone, but nevertheless, you saw there with the safety.And we just, the defensive line is our engine, so when we have our engine moving, we could get point A to point B, we could get to Cleveland , Ohio, driving. So we give thanks for that."
3:03, 2nd quarter: Jerome Ford 's 36-yard sweep on 4th-and-1
The play:The Browns were faced with a fourth-and-1 from their own 37. If Jacksonville's defense had gotten a stop there, or the Browns had elected to punt, it could have given the Jaguars a chance to have stolen the momentum, and maybe even tied the game. Instead, head coach Kevin Stefanski called a wrinkle in their Jameis Winston fourth-down package, and it allowed Cleveland to keep the lead for itself at halftime. Nick Harris reported as an eligible player and was lined up at fullback, offset to the left about a yard in front of Jerome Ford, who was also in a three-point stance. Winston had replaced Watson at quarterback, as he had done previously in the game when he had picked up 2 yards on another fourth-and-1 play. The Jaguars were all bunched up as a defense as well, and most, at the snap, were selling out to try to stop what they clearly had expected to be a sneak by Watson. Except that it wasn't a sneak, as Winston turned and handed the ball to Ford on a sweep to the left. Center Ethan Pocic , left guard Joel Bitonio and Harris all provided the few seal blocks that Ford needed on the play, which opened up a lane down the left sideline which he ran down. Jacksonville's Andre Cisco would eventually slow Ford down long enough to give cornerback De'Andre Prince the opportunity he needed to knock the Browns running back out of bounds at the Jaguars 27. Cleveland would turn the big play into another Dustin Hopkins field goal, a 38-yarder, which gave it a 13-3 halftime lead.
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Jerome Ford on Monday on the play:"Well as I got the ball, I knew in practice there was an edge. I mean that we was going to have the edge. My only issue was seeing over Joel and I couldn't see what was on the other side of him and same thing happened at practice, so I just trusted what happened at practice and took off running and it ended up being a big play."
6:34, 3rd quarter: Myles Garrett 's strip sack of Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence in red zone
The play:The Jaguars were third-and-8 at the Browns 17, and the rain was pouring as Cleveland was nursing a 16-3 lead. That's when Myles Garrett put on his Superman cape and came up with his signature play of the game. Lawrence was in the shotgun and had former-Browns-turned-Jaguars running back D'Ernest Johnson to his left, the same side as Garrett was lined up. However, when the ball was snapped, Johnson went forward to try and block a blitzing Owusu-Koramoah, which left Garrett essentially in a one-on-one with left tackle Cam Robinson , Garrett bent his way around Robinson and got to Lawrence, stripping the ball out of his hands as he hit him. Johnson fell on the football for Jacksonville. However, the 8-yard loss on the play may have been the difference between Little's field goal try going through the uprights instead of what it actually did, which was hit the right upright and helped the Browns avoid any points allowed. The strip sack was the second such sack Garrett has recorded in as many games. He also had one in the opener against the Dallas Cowboys ' Dak Prescott .
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Myles Garrett postgame on red-zone stops:"A couple of big ones, a couple of big red zone stops. We got to be better all across the field. We're good in the red zone and then we gave some big ones for them to get there a little bit easily but we bowed up and we made sure they didn't put six on the board so that was huge. We needed that especially late in the game like that so we got to continue to stand firm, know when our backs are against the wall and keep on moving that line of scrimmage and the guys behind us will take care of everything."
1:56, 4th quarter: Corey Bojorquez 's punt pins Jacksonville Jaguars at own 2
1:48, 4th quarter: Alex Wright sacks Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence for a safety
The plays:These two are combined as one because they just have to be, because one led directly to the other. It started with the Browns self-destructing on what could've been the game-clinching drive, with D'Onta Foreman's facemask penalty the first of three flags in four plays that turned what could've been first-and-goal at the Jaguars 9 into, instead, third-and-36 from the 50. Obviously, the Browns weren't able to convert that one, so punter Corey Bojorquez was called upon to pin the Jaguars deep with Cleveland clinging to a 16-13 lead. He did just that, as his punt, which he kicked from the left hash mark, landed about four yards inbounds at the Jacksonville 1 and took a right turn out of bounds at the Jaguars 2 with 1:48 remaining. The next play was almost pre-ordained at that point. Lawrence was in the shotgun and the Browns had their push-rush group in on the defensive line, with Garrett and Z'Darius Smith on the edges and Alex Wright and Ogbo Okoronkwo on the interior. The two edge rushers collapsed the pocket around Lawrence in the end zone, who essentially then just ran into the arms of Wright for the sack. More important, it was also a safety, which pushed the Browns lead to 18-13 with 1:44 remaining. That meant the Jaguars would need a touchdown to win, and not just a field goal which could've tied the game.
Martin Emerson Jr. on Corey Bojorquez:"That's my punter. That's my punter. Thank you man. That was a great play. That was a big play. Switched the field position for us and got a sack off of it."
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Alex Wright on safety:"I just remember my eyes going left to right, left to right, I was just happy and didn't realize it was a safety and I helped the team go up two points. It was like a crazy, crazy feeling like I never had before. I put that sack on top of any other sack I ever had just because of the situation and the feeling and especially being on the road, just to get our first win of the season."
Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns' 5 most important plays, plus 1, in win over Jaguars
