The defense held strong for part of the first half before things unraveled a bit.
Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on defense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 18 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
- Myles Garrett had 15 tackles over the past two weeks, giving him a career-high 60 tackles on the season. His one sack allowed him to match his career high from a year ago — although it was somewhat of a gimmie. It would be nice to see Cleveland stumble into some other threatening players up front so that Garrett could more regularly get those favorable match-ups one on one.
- Taven Bryan was the Browns’ highest-graded defender, per PFF, grading out to an 73.0. I don’t expect Bryan to be retained next season, despite a strong finish to the season. He was a one-year fill-in after the team didn’t address the position with a big splash.
- Deion Jones forced a fumble at the goal line in the first half to deny Pittsburgh from taking the first lead.
- Reggie Ragland played far fewer snaps this week (10%). The just-promoted Sam Kamara had 7 snaps.
- Greg Newsome was the Browns’ second-highest graded defender, per PFF, grading out to an 70.4. He finished with two passes defended, but had a pretty tame season in terms of production.
- Denzel Ward left the game early with an injury.
- Martin Emerson had two more passes defended to finish out the year as a PFF darling.
- D’Anthony Bell got some reps these past couple of weeks; it would be interesting to see if anyone had a chance to review how he played.
- As for the safeties (Grant Delpit and John Johnson), this game didn’t appear to be their finest hour.