The Cleveland Browns’ defense under Jim Schwartz is a great unit. They rank first overall in Defensive DVOA — first against the pass, and third against the run. But there is one vulnerability in that defense that Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers can and will exploit when these two teams face off this Sunday. Per Sports Info Solutions, the Browns have allowed 1.4 yards per carry against run plays without pre-snap motion — by far the NFL’s best — but 4.5 yards per carry against run plays with pre-snap motion.
This really started to show up in Cleveland’s 28-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 4. The Ravens are great with those concepts, and the Browns gave up 4.9 yards per carry against their AFC North rival — 24 carries for 117 yards and a touchdown. Against runs without motion, the Ravens were able to gain just 14 yards on nine carries — 1.6 yards per carry, which is right in the ballpark.
Meanwhile, Shanahan’s 49ers have averaged 6.0 yards per carry on their league-high 141 runs with motion this season for 725 yards, 414 yards after contact, and eight touchdowns.
As he said this week, Schwartz is well aware of the challenge.
“Yeah, I mean, about 80% of their snaps include some sort of shift or motion, including double shifts in motion. And I think on defense, we do a lot of things to try to change the picture for the quarterback after the snap. Right? I think that’s important to us just to try to buy us a little bit of time for our pass rush to get home. And sometimes it looks like, man, all of a sudden it’s zone, or it looks like zone, it’s man, it looks like you’re playing off and all of a sudden you’re up or it’s blitz, a surprise blitz, or you’re up in a blitz and it’s a bail. Well, they do the exact same thing with their shifts and motions. They present you a formation and then all of a sudden, at the last second, change it to something else. It puts pressure on your communication and your assignment.
“So I think that we have a lot of challenges in the game, but dealing with that kind of stuff is important. That’s a huge part of this game, is dealing with all that different stuff. And it’s not just on first and second down. It’s not just run game. It carries over to the passing game. It carries over to third down. It’s one of the things that they do. And our job is to try to find a way to defend it.”
The Browns have a highly aggressive defensive line — they come with their ears pinned back, and they bring multiple fronts. But opposing offenses can use that aggression against Schwartz’s defense. On this 10-yard Lamar Jackson designed run in the first quarter, the Browns were in their usual wide-9 alignment, and when linebacker Sione Takitaki bit on Zay Flowers’ motion across, Jackson had a large hole through which to run — aided by pulling right tackle Morgan Moses.
The 49ers also love to blast things open for their runners with motion and pulling linemen. This 11-yard Christian McCaffrey run against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1 shows how motion affects alignment and run strength, and how pullers can amplify that advantage.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys got into how the Browns might adjust their defensive strategy with the bye week giving them extra prep time.
Greg’s point about using Quarters coverage to balance the run strength is quite valid — the Browns played a ton of Cover-1 and Cover-3 to take advantage of safety Grant Delpit as a box defender, and didn’t show Quarters against the Ravens’ run game one time. So, we’ll see how that goes — but based on what we’ve seen, Schwartz will want a few additions to his call sheet against the 49ers.
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