After the 33-17 season opening loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Cleveland Browns are now licking their wounds and trying to regroup. The Cleveland Browns travel to Jacksonville Florida next Sunday for game 2 of the 2024 season against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Both teams lost their season opener, and they are trying to bounce back with a week 2 win. But Cleveland’s loss seemed more disappointing, then the stats indicate.

Despite losing by 16 points at home, Dallas had only 265 yards of offense compared to Cleveland’s 230 offensive yards in the game. Both teams had exactly 15 first downs in the game. Dallas averaged 4.4 yard per play and Cleveland averaged 3.3 yards per play on offense. Cleveland won the time of possession in the game with 30:54. Dallas was 29:06.  And don’t think penalties were much of a factor, both teams had 11 penalties. Dallas’s penalty yards were 85 and Cleveland had 64 penalty yards. So, the question to ask is what went wrong for the Cleveland Browns?

To put it simply, the game got away from the team by halftime. At the half Dallas led Cleveland 20-3. The Browns offense was terrible with only 1 first down and 47 yards of total offense in the first half of the game. And it wasn’t just quarterback Deshaun Watson. The whole offense played a horrible first half. Watson did have two interceptions in the game and that wasn’t the whole story of what happened. Many times, sloppy procedural penalties were committed by the Browns offense. That puts them in a negative yardage situation. Also, poor blocking and dropped passes were a problem. It seemed as if they were completely unprepared for the game. So, what do the Browns do now?

I honestly feel that the Cleveland Browns offense is a lot better than that performance. The NFL is not a forgivable environment. They either must improve or let the season get away from them. For the Cleveland Browns Coach Stefanski and the rest of the team, it is time get back to work and get better for the next game. Because no one cares about excuses and the loyal fans want to see results.