The Advanced ScoutWe got some work to do.
This is the advanced scout with Tom Opperman and Mac Williamson. Don't need to hype up this week very much. Steelers Browns Round two in the twenty twenty three season. Both teams are six and three and each have won two straight games heading into this one. Man, I'm twenty nine years old. Steelers Browns to me, in my lifetime has been a layup. Yeah, this is just I bet. Yeah, snooze fest, easy win for the Steelers.
I bet.
This is what it felt like back in the day, this kind of anticipation leading up to a game that really swings in both teams favor whoever wins a playoff berth.
Well, I'm fifty and so when I was really young, the Steelers were unbelievably good, and then the eighties was more or less equal. From what I right, all I mean that was like Mac and Biner and Minifield and Kozar and.
Yes, Cozar comes in, and then not.
Long after that they hired me, and we were horrible well before I got there and well after. But there were it wasn't your phone, I mean the ben Era, which was the majority of my.
In my life. Yeah, this wasn't competitive, not at all. But it has been competitive recently. And these two teams, like I said, six and three. Now, the Browns are four and one at home this year. Steelers are two and one on the road. The first time that the Browns were leading last week against the Ravens was when the clock hit zero in the final buzzer. Pittsburgh is thirteen and five in their last eighteen games, So the Steelers have been great over a season's worthize that's a very good record in eighteen games. Point differential, Cleveland is plus forty four. Steelers are minus twenty six. But Steelers are now six and oh this season in games decided by one score or less, and that's pretty much the AFC North DNA. It's a one score game in these games. Steelers now have nine straight victories overall in one score games, Steelers are plus ten and turnover differential, it's the best in the NFL and the Browns are minus four. And I want to stop there real quick. It's crazy, but you sent me a chart earlier this morning. I saw it myself on Twitter. I responded to I was like, I saw that. It's nuts. Turn over contribution. It grafts on an X and y axis total points gained through takeaways and then total points lost through giveaways. You want to be in the top right corner of this thing. That means you score a lot when you take the ball away and you don't give up points if you do rarely give it away. And the Steelers are way in that top right corner. I mean they're almost off the screen in that top right corner. They are better than everybody in this metric. I mean teams that are kind of sniffing around them are the Niners and the Bengals and the Cowboys, So you know that those are great teams. Steelers blow them out of the water as far as this metric is concerned.
So is it sustainable? Is the obvious question. Can you be this good in the turnover world? Who knows?
I mean there's any team proving that you can be exactly.
I mean, that's the way that they're playing on both sides of the ball, and it's working extremely well. And the Browns are bonkers with this too, because they're great at causing turnovers. They just have they're the they're really good in one axis, really bad in the other. Access they just turn them all over a.
Ton, turn them all over a ton. I mean I mentioned their minus four. They have fifteen takeaways, so they lead the league and giveaways on the NFL States so far this year. Most recent meeting the Steelers won. Between these two teams, turnovers played a massive factor. Pittsburgh turned the ball over twice, but the Browns turned it over four times. They missed the field goal, which we know the school with Matt Williamson deems that a turnover as well, and they were zero for two on fourth downs in that game. So, I mean, that's really when you think about it, seven total turnovers.
You just hand the other team, right.
So obviously that's the way we tried to make sense of how the Steelers are six and three. It's the turnover margin. And this is a great opponent as far as that's concerned. You should be able to take the ball away from that.
They're a familiar opponent there. Watson isn't great at value in the football. They have a lot of fumbles and their offense is maybe less efficient than the Steelers offense.
Based off current EPA, only four teams have an easier schedule moving forward than the Browns. So the Steelers definitely want to take care of business against them, get two wins in their back pockets.
Say from a Browns perspective, if you get this win your rolling, you're in pretty nice shape for the getting in the postseason.
I think both teams too. I think Steers get this one. They're in great shape too.
Division for sure.
Steel Steelers are a quick series history between these two teams. I'm sure you all know it, but they've met one hundred and forty four times dating back to nineteen fifty. Of those one hundred and forty four matchups three postseason ones, Pittsburgh is two and one in the playoffs. Browns did win the most recent playoff matchup. However, overall, this series sits at eighty one, sixty two and one in Pittsburgh's favor. To begin this series, Cleveland had an eight game winning streak. They won twelve the first thirteen contests and only had two losses in the first eighteen times they met the Steelers. But in December of nineteen sixty two, things changed. The Steelers started to take control. The Browns won just four games between that point. In October of nineteen eighty three, even more extreme, starting in January of ninety four. Pittsburgh has won forty three of the next fifty one games, with a tie thrown in during that time, including a twenty six twenty two Week two victory. The Steelers have won four of the last five meetings these two teams split last year. You kind of get the vibe that that's how things work in the AFC. No, so it would be really I don't want to call it a big upset, but I'd be a little surprised if the Steelers pulled this one out.
Yeah. The one thing that's not mentioned there is kind of interesting, was very interesting, is if the Bengals beat the Ravens on Thursday. This game's for first place in the division, right, I mean, so the division is getting very crowded and they're all potential playoff teams.
Let's take a look at the Browns offense to start things out. What can you expect from that side of the ball. Cleveland's offense averages just four point six yards per play, but they are at four point nine over their past three games, seventeenth in yards per game at three hundred and thirty three, their twenty fifth in passing offense just one hundred and eighty five yards per game, their second in rushing offense, though at one hundred and forty seven yards, it's impressive that it's still that high with Chubb's injury game. They are eleventh in points per game allowed twenty three point eight. They have nineteen giveaways that is the most in the NFL, and three point one sacks per game allowed on Deshaun Watson, and let's start there because that's can be a little misleading. He holds onto the ball a long, long, long time.
Number one in terms of all the basically.
Two point eight four seconds. That is the highest of unqualified quarterbacks. And then per past attempt, only the Eagles and the Broncos holding the ball alonger.
And that's sort of the whole team. Watchington didn't play every snap, but he's even worse than their whole you know, And he does make plays, runs around, he's hard to get on the ground, all those things, but he needs to get the ball quicker in Crisper.
That was kind of his m O. In Houston, though, right head onto the ball a lot. He tried to make plays. You know, he was an athlete. He could step out of a couple of sacks and hit some receiver improvising down the field, but his game isn't really translating for that to be conducive for him.
I say, that's all well and good if you can highlight plays are more plentiful like they were they were. Yeah, I mean, he's not making the wild plays and it still turns wall over long.
Ten point six percent of the Browns offensive snaps this year have featured an extra offensive lineman. They've also used one personnel, which is no running backs and one tight end, at the league's highest rate, and in turn, the Browns are thirty first in their usage of twelve personnel are running back in two tight ends. Why is that for a team that's so run oriented.
Well, what I don't quite know is now they're on two backup tackles. Well, they bring an offensive lineman in now that they're dipped so deep into their depth chart. I don't know. I do think Najoku is much more of a receiver than a tight end, and they feature him more that way, so they need the more blocking. They know. Their defense is really stout, and frankly, I just think they want to be physical. The craziest stat of them all is their defense has been on the field for one hundred and sixty six fewer plays than their offense. And if you watch like last week's game, there were some fluky stuff that happened, but they came back against the Ravens for basically one reason is they made fewer mistakes, they ran the ball better, and they wore their butts out. They ran twenty five more plays than the Ravens. They run like eighteen more plays than their opponent every week. And if you can run those plays with three hundred pounders on the field, fourth quarters hard on the opponent.
And to fast forward to the defense, a little bite to what you were saying, they're they're the best at getting off the field and three downs, they're the best that are. It's third down, and it's going to be a fourth down with this team.
So you're in for a fifteen round fight.
Only the Ravens and the Niners run the ball out a higher percentage of snaps than Cleveland, and that makes sense because as a team, again Watson didn't start every game this year, The Browns are completing just fifty two point one percent of their pass attempts, the lowest percentage in the NFL. There is a worse passing offense in this league than the Pittsburgh Steelers, folks, and they're playing them this week. Only three offenses have a higher average depth of target of eight point nine three yards than Cleveland. Will Levis is the only qualified quarterback with a higher depth of target than Watson at nine point three. So I mean that tracks as far as I'm holding onto the ball forever. They're just running routes deep downfield.
So we had this exact same conversation last week with the Packers, and I guess with the Titans too, come to think of it, those teams throw deep, and teams are throwing deep against the Steelers. Like the Steelers have a very low completion percentage, as does the Browns offense, but they both have high depth of targets four and against, so probably be more of the same. I mean, that's what the Packers backers street outfield.
There were thirty five pass attempts last week for the Browns against the Ravens. Cooper and Joku and Moore received twenty five of those thirty five pass attempts. So those are your three headed monsters when it comes to the passing game. Marcus Goodwin's banged up. There's just no one else that you're Elijah was a good trade, but I mean there's just there's no one that really scares Yeah, it's really those three.
Other big ones and the joke then more.
Uh, Cedric Tillman did see a little bit of an uptick in snaps, but he didn't catch anything and he only had three targets in the game. So that's sometimes you see it. You see a body out there.
Yeah, I mean he's a rookie and they like him, but they didn't get the ball to him.
So Mari Cooper is the man as far as this passing game is concerned. He does have seven hundred and fifteen receiving yards, which leads the team, but it is three hundred and thirty eight yards more than any other Browns pass catcher. Cooper as the eleventh most receiving yards in the NFL and has already had his bye week. Phenomenal season for Cooper slam dunk acquisition by the Browns paying nothing but profit for them, and I'm very interested. This is one of our matchups. To skip ahead a little bit of how Joey Porter Junior handles Amari Cooper. We saw Porter junior shadow DeAndre Hopkins, which is not what the Steelers like to do on defense. I think we'll see the Titans obviously of Hopkins with the Packers and Watson. I don't know if he really had somebody that's worthy of shadowing. This guy is worthy of shadowing, though, So I'm interesting to see Matt if Porter's just on the right side all Dame, or if he does follow Amri round.
So Dale and I on the drive check that out. We're talking about this pretty exclusively today and kind of collectively came to this conclusion that against the Packers, I think they had intentions of having Porter follow Watson, okay, but then all these injuries occur, and I think it's just let's just simplify things, you know, like communications already an issue. People don't think about this. If you have Darrell Reeves follow a cor A receiver all over the field, his job's easy mentally, I got Jerry Rice, I got Randy Moss, whatever. But the other ten have to adjust accordingly wherever Darrell's running around, and I don't think they felt comfortable with that after all the injuries, you know, against Green Bay. So I'm just curious how that'll go. Will Porter shadow him or not? I don't know.
Cooper torched the Steelers in Week two, so hopefully they have an answer for him this week. And Joku did not torch the Steelers in Week two, but he has come on of late. He has now produced fifty plus receiving yards and three of his last four games after not gaining fifty in any of his first five games this year. And Joku has more yards after the catch than any tight end in the league. And he already has had his bye week. Like we mentioned when it came to Amari Cooper, so David.
Kicking things to him and go and pick up five yards after always.
Been a guy. You and I have said it on this podcast, the shows we do together. The talent has been there, the potential has been there. You've kind of just been waiting for him to break out of a shell.
Consistently.
These games of three of the past four games with fifty plus yards make me worry is he's starting to break out of the shell.
And he showed a lot of flashes last year. You know they kept him around. There is ability there. Sometimes tight ends sake a while to develop. He also had to drop he shouldn't have had last week, so there's some inconsistencies. But they get him the ball in space pretty well, and then he picks up five, six, seven eight yards on his own.
I'm looking at it right now. First round pick in twenty seventeen. He's been in the league forever, man, He's been in league forever. Yeah, this is a problem though, as far as the Steelers are concerned because of their inside linebacker injuries. If I'm game planning for the Browns from Stefanski sitting with my OC in the meeting room, it's it's a big in jokey week. In my mind, I.
Would think so. I would think so. I mean, maybe you try to get kneel on him a high amount mm hmm, and maybe of a trickle down effect. If mink Go's there, it would be great. Yeah, that would you know, obviously cause help some problems.
When it comes to the Browns, though, you obviously have to stop the run. They ran for one hundred and seventy eight yards against Baltimore last week. Jerome Ford stepped in in Nick Chubb's absence, and he's been really good. Matt four point three yards per carry compared to three point three for Kareem Hunt. Nick Chubb was at six point one yards per carry before he got hurt against the Steelers in Week two. I think he was actually going to improve that in that game. He was the Steelers on the ground.
Offense with him right now, Yeah, it would be scary.
Ford saw sixty four percent of the snaps last week and average six point three yards per carry. So despite going out and a getting Kareem Hunt after the Nick Chubb injury, it's been Jerome Ford's job since Week two on.
Yeah, he basically carries like seventy five percent of the workload.
He's the best guy, and he's pretty decent back obviously point three yards per carry. But the line I think.
For him, extra offensive lineman and they're on the field a lot. All those things help.
I also have to worry about Watson's legs. He scrambled on sixteen point seven percent of his dropbacks last week. Only Lamar Jackson, Daniel Jones, and justin fields of qualified quarterbacks are scrambling at a higher rate than Watson. Deshaun Watson also picked up a massive first down with his legs light in that Ravens game to help put them in field goal range to win it. So that is definitely a factor. And honestly, when his arm is kind of abandoning him lately, and we should mention Watson's getting an MRI today status a little bit up in the air right now, but I expect him to play. Maybe that ankle does hinder him his ability to scramble, but it is a massive factor in his game.
It is. It's something he does a lot of and he's good at it.
He's smart at it too, Like he's not the fastest guy, but he just knows when to take off.
Any smooth and yeah, one watching note first half last week, he wasn't playing great as he has pretty much his whole Brown's career, limped off and went straight to the locker room with like hardly any time on the clock. PJ. Walker had the last snap and then he came out and didn't throw any incompletions in the second.
Fourteen for fourteen and thirty four yards in a touchdown.
So and then I guess he left the stadium in a boot. So we'll see, but I would think.
He played whatever they did in that locker room at halftime, maybe he tried to do that before he came in probably his best half of a brown for sure. Let's look at Cleveland's defense. Switch over to the other side of the ball.
The Browns is a pretty quick conversation. First, at every.
Best defense football, I think it is. They allowed four point five yards per play. Did give up six point one yards per play last week against the Ravens, but last week was the outlier for this team. Number one in total yards allowed two hundred and forty two per game. That's thirty yards better than the raven to his second in total defense thirty yards.
Some of the stats that they're one in. It's a distant too. I know it's crazy.
First and past defense, they only allow one hundred and fifty one yards per game through the air, they're seventh and rush yet ninety one point six yards per game. I think that number jacked up a little bit because of who they played last week. They are sixth in points per game allowed at eighteen point nine. Three point three sacks per game puts them a tie for fourth place in the league, and fifteen takeaways is fourth most in the NFL. Talk about that pass defense being the best in the NFL, they give up a league's best completion percentage of forty nine point or the secondary is outstanding, but I will say little silver lining. Gunzel Award left the game against the Ravens. Looks like a concussion. We don't know how he could be back. You don't know how concussions go. I think that has came back after a week off of a concussion. It's trending like he might not be available though.
I mean their secondary is good without him, but he's their best.
Yeah, Newso Dell Pit. I mean those are also some that you got to worry about. What about Martin Emerson, how's he been playing in the secondary? Third round pick last year, now bigger role.
Thorn Hill is a good player. Their linebackers cover a lot of ground. They're well coached. They don't have to blitz a lot. And of course, yeah, Miles Garrettsters is the straw.
Miles Garrett Wan Thornhill, by the way, working his way back from injury, did not play against the Ravens. They're looking to see if his calf is healed enough to play this week against the Steelers. Browns have given up just eighty total yards receiving to tight ends. That's not an average per game. That is eighty total yards to all tight ends minus Mark Andrews. And but that's incredible. That's one week.
I think Moth had like three yards against.
In week one and he's trending to be back in this.
Guys, but still that's an insane It's.
A bad matchup for Firemouth.
To come back into Mark Andrews.
Well, the guys, Miles Garrett, you mentioned him eleven sacks, that's eight more than any other Browns defender. But the Browns do have a dozen different players with at least half a sack on this season. Garrett's always kind of been the one man show when it sack in the quarterbacks concerned. It's better this year that there's more depth there, but it's not a lot of volume other than Garrett.
No, No, it's definitely his best supporting cast.
But I expected Yeah, it's still translating you the same thing though.
Yeah, I didn't think Tomlinson would be their second leading sack guy, who's basically a run stuffing d tackle.
With like three with like three seconds. Yeah. The Browns are sacking opposing quarterbacks on ten point six percent of their dropbacks, the highest percentage in the NFL. Garrett has a sack on four point three percent of his pass rushing snaps. That is the highest in the NFL, and it's well above aj Epeneza, who is second at three point eight percent. All this sounds terrifying, Matt, Yeah, but then you remember, like the Steelers just have a knack for neutralizing this guy and he doesn't do for whatever reason. It really makes no sense. You can't justify it. The statistics don't back you up. But there isn't the same fear factor I think when the Steelers play a Miles Garrett Lamar Jackson for that matter too, as other teams in the NFL.
And yeah, and I think there is a little bit of the I'm gonna say, and the Steelers own the division. But over the core of Jackson and his career, the Steelers have been a big brother in some ways, or at least an a very difficult adversary without question. And there's an obvious comparison between Watt and Garrett, but when these teams meet, Watt has been dramatically better than Garrett in terms.
Of dramatically dramatic. Dan Moore has kind of had his number a lot of help with Dan Moore, but he's been doing a good job against Garrett. You know, sometimes there's just a matchup that you find in your favor, and maybe this is it for Dan Moore. Maybe he just is the guy that can beat Garrett for whatever reason.
It's the beauty of the Harbaugh's and Tomlins and Belichick's and Reeds that you really learn your division well, you know, I think that's something to do with it. I don't know if Roderick Jones has ever laid his hands on Miles Garrett or.
Not, though, And they'll move him around Garrett.
He'll he'll come up the a gaps in the middle.
That's why I think Jim Schwartz has really just evolved this defense, is that Garrett is being used in a lot more versatile ways.
Absolutely wonder if the Steeler should do more of that with Watt, but I think he's pretty comfortab where he's at.
Cleveland had allowed just two rushing touchdowns to running backs this season before giving up two to the Ravens last week. However, in that game, they gave up a thirty nine yard run to Keaton Mitchell and no other than that. It was sixty seven yards on twenty three remaining carriages shut down that running game after that one big run. Yeah, Steelers have found their running game. They hit two hundred and five yards on the ground last week. Nausey had eighty one hundred and one for Jalen Warren. There's no real weakness in this Browns defense, like, oh, you should definitely attack them that way. I guess they are seventh and rush d and you are running the ball. Well that that would be my first crack at it. Try to see if you can get it on the ground.
From what I understand, Tomlin told the team this time last week, Folks, we're running the ball no matter how this game goes. I don't think you can do that in this game, not in the Browns, you know what I mean, because you may just run into a wall and run into a wall. But it's definitely what the Steelers offense does best right now. I mean, there's no question about that. And if you can limit the time of possession stuff and turn the Browns over, you're playing your kind of game.
Brown's defense. We talked about some of the traditional stats that they're first, and analytically they're first in the NFL and EPA and success rate, and that's both by a wide margin. I think it's safe to say that this is the best overall defense in the NFL. They do it all. They sack the quarterback, they take the ball away, and they're stout against the run. They're good against the pass. You don't gain yards on them.
They start a coach. Yeah, it's a challenge.
Key matchups to highlight in this game before we wrap things up, Brown's wide receiver Amari Cooper Varus Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Junior. Obviously, the big question is will we see Porter Junior stick on Cooper? Personally, that's what I would vote for. I'd like to see him be the eraser, especially because there's no one else, Like, why waste him on Elijah Moore? Really, if he's on his side of the field. Not to say more can't hurt you, but you know what I'm saying.
Sure, no, I would like to see that matchup, you know. And it's somewhat of a misnomer. It doesn't mean he follows them every step of every play, you know, like against Hopkins, third down in red zone, every snap basically and some others. But I would think that's how the handle it.
You know, I just realized this too. I meant to bring this up with Joey Porter Junior triggered in my mind. Do you think the Browns are going to try to run towards his side on the outside, try to make him tackle. That's been his weakness and the Browns are a physical running team. They're gonna try to force him into tackling.
Yes. I hate to say it though, but Wallace and Peterson are pretty bad out it too, so they.
Should do it to everything right side, whatever corners out there. We're gonna run on the outside.
And back on a corner. You have a good matchup for the Steelers.
And then our final matchups Steelers offensive tackle Broderick Jones against Miles Garrett. Because we know what Dan Moore can do against Miles Garrett. What's the rookie going to do in his first action against the superstar.
Yeah, we'll see. I mean two fun that two Steeler high picks, the two highest picks are featured in these matchups against star players.
Yeah, no doubt. And they had great games last week against the Packers. And hey, I throw althrow Keanu Benton in there too. He had a phenomenal game against the Packers.
Washington's gonna have to be very involved with Garrett as well.
No question about it. Rookie classes paying dividends already, Hopefully that continues. Sunday in Cleveland, it's one o'clock kickoff at the Mistake by the Lake. Hopefully the Steelers get the win, get to seven in three and get to three and ozhero in. A tough AFC North Division for Matt Williamson on Tom Opferman. As always, we appreciate you guys giving us a listen, and we'll be back again next week with another Advanced Scout
