I don’t know where to start. Our Week 1 game against the Bengals went exactly how I predicted it would, for the most part. Our defense was stifling both Burrow and Chase for the whole game. The Bengals couldn’t get anything going on the ground or through the air, and their defense – while better than I expected it to be – got picked apart by Joe Flacco with relative ease. If any one of five or six individual plays goes differently, there’s a very good chance this article gets titled “I told you so” – but instead, I had to spend ten minutes coming up with one that doesn’t mention the unbridled rage I’m feeling towards our new kicker.
First and foremost, Andre Szmyt needs to go. Now. I don’t know how it’s possible to not miss a single kick all summer and then immediately miss two in your NFL debut, but it’s evident that he couldn’t handle the pressure. I was really excited to see Dustin Hopkins replaced – especially after the new guy made his first two kicks of the day – but if he makes either of the two that he missed, then we at least make it to overtime. He left four points on the board in a one-point loss. That just can’t happen.
Another issue I noticed is that the Dawand Jones experiment might be ending soon. There were four penalties called against Jones (only two were accepted) and he allowed seven pressures. On a largely successful day for our offense, he was the one player who consistently stood out as the weak link – he’s a great athlete, but he still doesn’t have the discipline he needs.
On a much brighter note, Joe Flacco played really good football yesterday. Anyone who watched the game saw it – he was efficient, he was finding the open receiver, and he was consistently putting us in positions to win. Flacco blamed himself postgame for the two interceptions, but the only other people on Earth who are doing it are box score watchers who didn’t turn the game on for a single snap (probably because their favorite player was on the bench). The first interception bounced out of Jerry Jeudy’s hands and the second out of Cedric Tillman’s – and Jeudy’s target led directly to what turned out to be the game-winning field goal. Cedric’s drop came on the second play of Flacco’s two-minute drill, and effectively ended our chances of winning the game.
The last two plays that severely affected the outcome of the game were dropped passes as well: one from Harold Fannin and a second from Jerry Jeudy, and they came on back-to-back plays on third and fourth down in Bengals territory. If either of those passes are caught for a first down, we would’ve theoretically been in field goal range – though after Szmyt’s abysmal performance yesterday, I’m not sure we would’ve made one anyways. Flacco kept giving us chances to win, and his receivers kept dropping them. If the drops don’t become a habit (and nothing in any of our receivers’ careers suggests that they will), however, our offense looks like it’s going to be a lot better than most people thought it would.
Other than that drop, Harold Fannin was a massive bright spot on the field for us as he was Joe Flacco’s most-targeted receiver in Week 1. I was expecting a big day, but seven catches for 63 yards is insane volume for a tight end’s NFL debut. He’s going to be great for us for years to come – as is fellow rookie Dylan Sampson, who paced the backfield in carries and also caught eight passes for 64 yards. Jerome Ford got less action than most people were expecting (and didn’t do much with the opportunities he did get) – but with Quinshon Judkins expected to return soon and Raheim “Rocket” Sanders used as our goal line back on Sunday, it would only be mildly shocking to see the fourth-year RB moved to make room for all three rookies.
Of course, the biggest highlights of the game came from our defense, who are the ones that really kept giving us the chance to win all day long. Myles Garrett showed why he’s a perennial DPOY contender with five solo tackles (four for loss) and two sacks – but Carson Schwesinger also justified my DROY prediction with a very productive day of his own. Our corners locked down Ja’Marr Chase and held him to two catches for 26 yards (much like I predicted), and Jim Schwartz’s unit limited one of the best offenses in the league to just SEVEN second-half yards. They forced stops every single time that we needed them to. We beat the Bengals in sacks, TFLs, QB hits, total yards, first downs, third down conversion rate, and time of possession… and still lost.
The Good: Almost everything.
The Bad: Dawand Jones’ addiction to penalties.
The Ugly: We couldn’t catch and we couldn’t kick.
On the one hand, I can understand why people are concerned about our performance – it’s honestly heartbreaking to lose a game in which we had so many opportunities to win. But if you look at it from a different perspective, it’s actually pretty encouraging: we won that game in every way except for the one that mattered. That might sound like a bad thing, but all it means is that we were the better team on Sunday. The Bengals didn’t win that game, we lost it – and we outclassed one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. Our offense looked competent (minus the drops) and our defense genuinely looked like one of the best units in the league. While I still don’t think we’ll beat the Ravens next week, we’re going to make it much more competitive than people expect – if we can limit the Bengals’ offense, we can limit almost anybody. I am truly not worried about this season and I’m still confident that we’re going 11-6 – like I said last week, this year is going to feel a lot more like 2023 than 2024. Don’t lose hope yet.
The post The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Week 1 appeared first on Cleveland Sports Talk .