Jackson: Browns show with clear defeat against Cowboys that they are not ready for the big stage

It was just one. It was a bust of the highest order, the second straight time a Browns team with the highest payroll in the league failed to play, but it was just one. It was one-way traffic on Sunday as the Dallas Cowboys crushed the Browns 33-17 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as a quick glance at the score would suggest.

Just one. That’s also the number of first downs the Browns had in the first half. Just one.

As longtime Cleveland Browns fans will probably remember, there have actually been worse opening games at this stadium, although most of them started the season with significantly lower expectations for the home team.

According to the calendar, it’s still early September, there are 16 games left in the schedule, and the Browns don’t play a single divisional game until late October. But whether you view the opening game as a reality check, a blaring alarm, or just a soon-forgotten step in a long race, you have to be alarmed that the Browns offense came out and dinked, dunked, clunked. Then it repeated itself with penalties or disappointing sequences where quarterback Deshaun Watson was under pressure and generally missed his targets.

Let’s talk about the calendar. What the Browns did during training camp and the preseason in August had in no way prepared them for playing a big-stage game against a quality opponent on Sunday. So it was just one game and it can only get better, and of course good teams of the past have started as sloppy, flawed teams that eventually improved. But the Browns took nearly two and a half quarters to mount a drive on Sunday and sputtered afterward, a sign that they are neither ready for a marathon nor a sprint.

After the biggest pass play of the day, a 29-yard pass over the middle to Pro Bowl tight end David Njoku, Njoku limped to his feet. He did not return due to an ankle injury that will require further evaluation on Monday. The Browns scored on the drive to cut their deficit to 27-10, and they scored again later, but even when Watson threw an accurate ball near the goal line in the fourth quarter, Amari Cooper dropped it.

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Watson spent most of the day getting hit, avoiding hits, and throwing either short or completely inaccurate passes. Watson completed 24 of 45 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown to cap the aforementioned third-quarter drive, as well as two interceptions. Once the Cowboys got into the game – and that only took about 10 plays, not two quarters – they seemed to feast on a Browns offense that was sloppy and struggled on many drives, not just the crucial ones.

According to the official count, the Cowboys sacked Watson six times, along with 17 quarterback hits and eight pass breakups. The Browns managed just 2 of 15 third down attempts and allowed a 60-yard punt return touchdown by KaVontae Turpin early in the third quarter that made it 27-3.

Deshaun Watson was sacked six times during the opening loss to the Cowboys. (Ken Blaze / Imagn Images)

Watson was back in action for the first time in nearly 10 months after recovering from season-ending shoulder surgery last November. At least in part because of the team’s lack of offensive tackles, Stefanski called an audible break in late August and didn’t let Watson play at all during the preseason. The Browns’ offense was nearly complete during two days of joint competitive practice with the Vikings in mid-August.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse,” Stefanski said after the game. “I really won’t. There’s no excuse for getting injured in these games. Where is the blame? It’s mine – the coaches, the players, all of us. That’s just how it is.”

“Dallas is a good football team. We didn’t play well enough to win. You can’t do everything we did and expect to win. We’ll learn from this and be ready next week.”

Stefanski and Watson both stressed that they would not use the lack of preseason practice as an excuse. But the Browns weren’t looking for excuses or many plays, and it was clear early on that the Cowboys’ defense was confident it could dictate the game.

Although there were only three practices from the start of the team’s training camp on July 25 through the end of the preseason in which Watson and his entire squad of pass catchers fully participated, what was seen in the opening game looked almost exactly like the training camp practices – right down to the missed shots and penalties in joint practices that contributed to the offense not really getting into the flow of the game.

Watson’s pass completion rate was less than 50 percent (14 of 29) and the offense averaged just 2.7 yards per play as the Cowboys extended their lead to 30-10 with 1:27 left in the third quarter. At that point, the Browns had completed 2 of 11 third downs. An early call by Stefanski to convert a fourth down was negated by a false start call by right tackle Dawand Jones, the first of Jones’ three flags in the first half.

The Browns overhauled their offense in the offseason with a trade for wide receiver Jerry Jeudy and sweeping personnel changes, including hiring Ken Dorsey as offensive coordinator, Andy Dickerson as offensive line coach and Tommy Rees as tight ends coach and pass game coordinator. Stefanski had repeatedly said Watson was healthy and ready for his third season since the Browns’ mega-trade in March 2022, but the results didn’t show that.

.@JerryJeudy with his first TD in a Browns uniform!!

📺: #DALagainstCLE To @NFLonFOX and NFL+ pic.twitter.com/OYY5DZWWfs

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) 8 September 2024

Stefanski said he wanted to take Watson out of the game to keep him out of harm’s way, as the game was already decided in the fourth quarter. Watson refused and insisted on finishing the game. The fourth quarter of a blowout is usually garbage time, and it was. But it’s clear the Browns offense needed the reps, so maybe something good will come out of the final 17 minutes or so.

That’s the state of this offense. Anything that looks like good work counts as good work. There’s obviously a lot of work to be done, and it’s fair to ask whether the Browns shouldn’t have done at least a little more in the six weeks or so leading up to Sunday.

“We’re not the type of guys that make excuses,” Watson said. “Some people say (the lack of true summer reps) can contribute a lot to it — you know, my injury, guys missing time — but at the end of the day, once you get on the field, you just have to perform. You have to perform. And, you know, we didn’t do that overall. And yeah, it showed.”

Midway through the second quarter, the home fans booed Watson and the offense. That continued for most of the third quarter, and many seats remained empty in the fourth quarter. The fact that the guest on the field, Michael Buffer, had to cut short his typical scripted call-out just before the punch line because Buffer had forgotten the new name of the Browns’ stadium was not only embarrassing. It turned out to be foreboding.

The Browns weren’t ready to get going. They were already three points behind before they even looked competitive, and now they’re clearly forced to make up for lost time.

(Top photo of Deshaun Watson: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)