Have Browns turned Deshaun Watson into $230M game manager?

The Cleveland Browns, perhaps surprisingly, got on the board with a win after an 18-13 sludgefest against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who fell to 0-2 on the season.

The Browns are still waiting for a big game from Deshaun Watson, but they were able to buckle in and, quite literally weather the storm in Jacksonville.

The Browns’ game plan worked well: largely let the other offensive players outside of Watson do the work. The Jaguars have a tough defense, but the Browns were able to squeak by. This may be a viable plan on offense for the Browns if Watson is going to remain a subpar starter.

What a difference a run game makes, huh? After not getting much outside of Watson scrambles against the Dallas Cowboys last week, the Browns’ running backs contributed to the party this time. Jerome Ford and Dont’a Foreman combined for 106 yards on 21 carries while Watson chipped in a score on the ground as well.

With the passing game averaging only 5.5 yards per attempt, this must be the path for points for the Browns. Granted, they didn’t score many, but they did look like a more functional offense than they did a week ago against the Cowboys.

“The run game battled and the pass game battled,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “… Again, I just go back to, it wasn’t pretty all the time. Doesn’t have to be. Just has to be a team committed to getting better.”

The biggest key for the Browns to keep winning is for the defense to continue playing like one of the elite units in the league. Time will tell how impressive holding Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars to 13 points will be, but limiting opponents to that point total is a clean way to win games.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, the Browns held the Jaguars to 6.7 yards per attempt on passes where the ball was thrown in under 2.5 seconds. That, paired with largely being able to bottle up the Jaguars’ running backs, allowed Myles Garrett and the Browns’ defensive line to pin their ears back at times and get to Lawrence, especially in the red zone.

“We’ve got to be better all across the field,” Garrett said. “We’re good in the red zone, and then we gave up some big ones for them to get there a little bit easily. But we ‘bowed up and we made sure that they didn’t put six on the board.”

Four sacks and a sub-50% completion rate showed the dominant Browns defense still exists and maybe the first game against the Cowboys was a little bit of exhaustion from being put in tough spots by an unviable offense. The special teams even chipped in on one of the sacks, with a punt downed at the 1-yard line leading to a safety on the next play. Complementary football is the best way for the Browns to win with the offense finding its way and the Browns had that in this game.

Jacksonville also didn’t overcome its own mistakes, which Cleveland capitalized on. This is not how the Browns want to be playing games with such a massive investment in place at quarterback, but this is the reality they have to embrace. Play careful games with the quarterback, run the ball and try to weather the storm until the offensive line gets healthy. They will probably get a good deal better on offense whenever starting offensive tackles Jedrick Wills and Jack Conklin can return, but even then that’s not guaranteed with the way that Watson has been playing during his Browns tenure.

Lean on tried and true strategies. Defense, run game and mitigating the quarterback’s influence on the game. This was a winning strategy the Browns can repeat, even if the margins are slim.