Well, it’s back to the drawing board for the Cleveland Browns who were completely overmatched by divisional foe Baltimore Ravens 28-3 in their Week 4 game. While it was a sunny and warm 80-degree day in Cleveland, it should have been overcast and rainy based on how the Browns played. The team decided to sit their franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson because of a lingering shoulder injury and while that was a wise decision by the group because the team has a bye week on the horizon it spelled doom from the start.

Fans of the team were hoping that the Cleveland defense that had played so well over the first three weeks of the season would keep the team in the game. While it looked like that at the start, the defense started getting gashed by the Ravens on lengthy run plays. What was a 7-3 game turned into a 21-3 lead by half and the game was pretty much over. For the game, the Ravens rushed the ball for 131 yards.

Considering that the Browns and their head coach Kevin Stefanski had a week to prepare the new rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson for the game as Watson was limited all week from practicing with the bum shoulder, one would have thought the team could have concentrated on putting the fifth round draft pick out of UCLA in better position to manage the game.

#Browns Kevin Stefanski said he expects Deshaun Watson to be back for the #49ers Oct 15 pic.twitter.com/CRE5uCDC9c

— Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) October 1, 2023

Instead, Stefanski had DTR trying to sling the ball all over the field and that was a bad move. Stefanski can’t control how DTR actually throws the ball, but he can put his quarterback in a better position to have success and that wasn’t the case all game long.  Where were the short passes and screen passes?

It also seemed as if DTR was trying too hard and was very inaccurate, oftentimes throwing behind or over the heads of his wide receivers. He had two interceptions that were intercepted because of this. He threw a pass attempt to Amari Cooper early that was way behind him and was tipped and then intercepted. Late in the game, he overthrew Donovan Peoples-Jones by 20 yards and the Ravens easily intercepted it.

For the game the Browns offense only mustard 166 yards on 65 plays. DTR was 19-36 for 121 yards, including three interceptions, three sacks, and a lowly passer rating of 25. The team ended up with 93 rushing yards, thanks mostly to a very late-game 40-yard run by Pierre Strong Jr.

Now the team will have the bye week as they then play the San Francisco 49ers on October 15th. The Browns have a 2-2 record and hopefully, they can regroup and get Deshaun Watson back. If not, this season could get very ugly quickly.