As a team, the Cleveland Browns looked very solid against the Eagles yesterday with a 22-13 win. Our defense limited the Eagles to just 88 total yards over the course of the game, and 10 of the points we gave up came off turnovers. Of course, almost no starters were playing on either side of the ball – but the sheer disparity between our backup defense and the Eagles’ backup offense is a very promising sign. We were able to get off the field on defense (limiting the Eagles to just a 4/12 third-down conversion rate) and we were able to stay on it on offense (9/16 on third downs). Our team had 6 penalties for just 36 yards, which is a relatively average per-game flag count in the NFL and a definite improvement from being the 5th-most-penalized team in the league last season. Kaden Davis and Jamari Thrash also found continued success yesterday, combining for 7 catches on 7 targets and racking up 87 yards between the two of them – each one is definitely making their case to become our WR4 (behind Jeudy, Tillman, and Johnson) as we approach the start of the regular season. Gage Larvadian also saw plenty of action and was returning kicks for us, so there’s a genuine chance he could make the 53-man roster as our 6th or 7th receiver alongside Isaiah Bond, which would likely push DeAndre Carter out of that returner role and out of a roster spot. Pierre Strong had one breakout run for 54 yards, but other than that single play, he averaged less than three yards a carry – so don’t be fooled by his box score.
Another player with a misleading box score is the one everyone tuned in yesterday to watch, however, Dillon Gabriel. If you didn’t watch the game and you’re looking at his stats, it’s easy to say he didn’t play well. After all, he ended up 13/18 (72% completion) for 143 yards, no touchdowns, a pick-six, and a lost fumble, which all add up to a QBR of 72.2. No matter how you slice it, he didn’t have a great day – especially when compared to fellow rookie Shedeur Sanders’ debut in Carolina last weekend. With that in mind, we will not be comparing their stats because the stats are only half the story – and in preseason, they’re the lesser half. What’s more important is the decision making, the awareness, and the accuracy – all of which both Sanders and Gabriel largely excelled at in their respective debuts.
To start the game, Dillon Gabriel was perfect. He was 9/10 passing through the first quarter, and his first incompletion was a checkdown placed into the hands of Pierre Strong, who just couldn’t hold on to the ball. Coming out of the commercial breaks, I was raving about him to anyone who would listen. He looked smart, methodical, taking what was given and not trying to force anything – and then on the first play of the second quarter, he threw a pick-6. Blake Whiteheart and Diontae Johnson were in the vicinity of one another near the left sideline, and Gabriel split the difference between them. It was a great play by Eagles’ cornerback Andrew Mukuba, who cut right in front of Diontae Johnson to steal the ball from midair, and it was definitely a bad pass – but the outcome of the play was worse than the play itself. A lot of people have said that he should have thrown the ball out of bounds, but Whiteheart had a step on his man, and if Dillon Gabriel’s pass was a foot or so to the right, he converts for a first down. It was the right read in my book, but it was poorly placed. Instead, Whiteheart appeared to assume the pass was for Johnson as he pulled up and stopped running, which gave Mukuba the window that he stepped into to make the play. The way I saw the play, it’s not encouraging to see from Gabriel – but it is one of the best picks he could have thrown. Throwing a bad ball after making the right decision is infinitely better than simply making the wrong decision, so while it’s a bad result, it isn’t the end of the world.
While the interception wasn’t terrible, it was still his fault. What wasn’t his fault, however, is the lost fumble – and too many people have been using it as a knock on Gabriel when they should be blaming Pierre Strong. The running back began to close his arms before the ball was even close to him, and he ended up elbowing it right out of Dillon’s hands and (once again) into Andrew Mukuba’s. I don’t know if Strong saw that the Eagles were crowding the line and he wanted to tighten up to prepare for contact, but he did it too early. A quarterback can’t hand the ball off if his teammate doesn’t give him a place to put it, and in my eyes, that fumble belongs to Strong on the box score.
Other than the pick, Gabriel made very few mistakes. He took a sack on his first passing play, dodging the first tackle but escaping directly into rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell on a play where it seemed as if every single Eagle made it into the backfield untouched. It didn’t look pretty, but there wasn’t much else the rookie quarterback could’ve done in that situation. His second sack, however, was bad to see. I’m again unsure if I’d say there was anything Gabriel could’ve done to avoid it, but the biggest issue is that he just didn’t see it. It was Azeez Ojulari this time who got around the left side of our offensive line, which is supposed to be the blind spot for righties, not for Dillon Gabriel – but Gabriel was on the ground before he ever even knew the block wasn’t picked up. Besides the interception, I’d say not registering the edge rush on that play was probably Dillon’s worst mistake of the game. I doubt he could’ve avoided the sack altogether, but it would have been good to see it recognized and at least see him prepare for the contact. It’s never a good sign to see a quarterback unaware of the pressure they’re facing.
Besides the interception and that unrecognized sack, Dillon Gabriel had a very good day. There was a pass where he floated the ball too high on a checkdown to Trayveon Williams, and there was a pass over the middle that landed nowhere near his intended target of Diontae Johnson – but those and the interception were his only three glaring misses. He was consistently making the right read and taking what the defense gave him, and the mistakes are easy to fix. He looked very composed, especially through the scripted drives – and despite the mistakes, my assertion remains that the kid is pretty damn good at football.
While his stat line was certainly worse than the one Sanders put up last week, nobody expected him to outperform Shedeur against a better team – and Dillon didn’t look nearly bad enough for the front office to justify moving him down in the QB rankings without Shedeur putting anything new on film. Against the Rams next Saturday, our wide receiver depth chart will definitely change (especially with the addition of Bond), and a few depth guys at other positions might get shuffled around – but the QB rankings going into that game will remain the same as they’ve been all offseason. Assuming that Shedeur and Dillon are both healthy enough to play, however, we’ll finally be able to watch them side by side and observe how they perform against the same competition. If our QB depth is going to change at all before Week 1, the performances put up in next week’s game will be the driving force behind it.
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