The Chargers ran for 258 yards in their first four games of the season, but you wouldn’t know the ground game had been a slog for them if you watched Sunday’s matchup with the Browns.
Cleveland allowed the Chargers to run for 238 yards on their way to a 30-28 loss that dropped the Browns to 2-3 on the season. After the loss, defensive end Jadeveon Clowney said that the Browns have “names and the pieces on paper” defensively, but that those things don’t matter if the team can’t consistently execute at a high level.
Defensive end Myles Garrett said the team is falling short when it comes to “minor details” that get overlooked when players don’t take sufficient pride in their jobs.
“That’s all it’s been for us, making sure we’re in the right spot, communicating and executing,” Garrett said, via Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal. “That’s what we have to take care of, that’s what we have to get ahead of and we have to really take pride in it. Take pride in doing our job, and right now we have to have some more pride.”
The Browns did come up with one key stop when the Chargers went for it on a fourth down at midfield at the end of the game and that gave them a chance to win on a last-second Cade York field goal attempt, but York missed the kick. A few more stops over the course of the contest would be a good way to avoid such scenarios in the weeks to come.
