Sitting at 2-7, the Cleveland Browns kick off the second half of their season in New Orleans against the Saints. Here are four matchups the Browns must win to escape the Big Easy with their third win of their 2024 campaign.
As is customary, the Saints received their interim coach bump, and won their third game of their 2024 season, snapping a seven-game losing streak in the process. While both teams have underperformed to this point in the season, they each have standout players who possess game-altering capabilities. Here are four matchups the Cleveland Browns must win to escape New Orleans with a much-needed victory in week 11.
Matchup No. 1: Diabate, Hicks, and Bush vs Alvin Kamara
As poorly as the season started for Cleveland, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was in the middle of stacking back-to-back excellent seasons when the uber-talented linebacker suffered a neck injury that landed him on injured reserve. JOK’s injury came just as second-year undrafted free agent, Mohamoud Diabate was starting to show promise as Owusu-Koramoah’s running mate.
This week it will be up to Diabate, Devin Bush, and Jordan Hicks, to stop one of the most dynamic running backs in the NFL, Alvin Kamara. The Saints’ do-everything back has amassed over 11,000 yards from scrimmage in just eight seasons. Through 10 games Kamara leads the Saints in both rushing yards (715) and receiving yards (421).
The mission is simple; if you stop Kamara you stop the Saints’ offense. New Orleans’ offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak runs his offense through Kamara, which puts extreme pressure on second-level defenders. While you can’t stop Kamara from getting his touches, the Browns can mitigate the damage he causes just by getting him on the ground on first contact.
Kamara possesses deceiving play strength, which means that Diabate, Bush, and Hicks must be technically sound in their tackling. Arm tackles and whiffs are a quick way to ensure that Kamara will dictate the winner of Sunday’s game. Typically, defense comes down to three factors: alignment, assignment, and keys. When you face Kamara, you can add a fourth factor… discipline.
Matchup No. 2: Dawand Jones vs Chase Young
We have two players with a ton to prove in this next matchup. The Browns are two games into the Dawand Jones at left tackle experiment, and the results have been promising so far. With Kevin Stefanski publicly stating that Jones will be the Browns’ left tackle going forward, the second-year behemoth has eight games to make his case for manning the position in 2025 and beyond.
This week Jones will be going up against his former college teammate at Ohio State, Chase Young. The former number two overall selection in 2020 has had trouble finding his footing as a pro. After a promising rookie campaign, where he racked up 7.5 sacks and was named AP Defensive Rookie of the Year, Young has failed to live up to expectations. Due to inconsistent play and an inability to stay healthy, Young is on his third team in five seasons.
Technically Young is not even a starter for the Saints, but he has the second-most snaps of any player in the New Orleans’ edge room trailing only Carl Granderson. However, unlike Granderson, all of Young’s snaps have come from the right side of the Saints’ defense.
Young is coming off his best game of the season. In a win against the Atlanta Falcons, Young racked up four tackles, including a quarterback hit, two hurries, a sack, and a forced fumble. Young’s sack and forced fumble came at a crucial juncture late with just over 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Although the Falcons were able to recover the fumble, the play put Atlanta too far behind the sticks and essentially put the nail in their coffin.
Jones will see plenty of talented edge rushers down the stretch, but Young provides a unique blend of speed, power, and raw athleticism that not many defensive players can match. This is a tremendous opportunity for Jones to prove he can handle a physical specimen like Young and continue to make his case as the Browns’ future left tackle.
Matchup No. 3: Myles Garrett vs Taliese Fuaga
Myles Garrett is coming off his best game of the 2024 season. In week nine, Garrett racked up three sacks, something he has now done four times in his NFL career. The game snapped a three-game sack drought for the defending Defensive Player of the Year. Perhaps the most impressive feat is that two of the sacks came against Rashawn Slater, with the other coming against first-round rookie Joe Ault.
Next up for Garrett is another rookie, Taliese Fuaga. The Saints’ first-round pick is a mauler in every sense of the word. At 6-foot-6 and 334 pounds, Fuaga plays with a mean streak that has already made him one of the best finishers as a run blocker in the NFL. However, that same mean streak has caused inconsistencies for Fuaga in pass protection.
Fuaga’s aggressiveness causes him to lunge at times and overextend in an attempt to land his heavy hands on pass rushers. As a result, Fuaga has given up five sacks through the first 10 games of his NFL career. Those inconsistencies could prove to be costly against an edge defender like Garrett.
Garrett’s ability to win the first step, bend, and run the hoop, essentially forces left tackles to commit to oversetting to beat Garrett to the spot. However, against a player with a tool belt like Garrett, consistently oversetting will inevitably lead to Myles using the skills he picked up playing basketball to cross Fuaga’s face and take the inside track to Derek Carr.
Of course, Garrett also possesses the ability to convert his speed to power to bull-rush left tackles, but that particular attack would play right into Fuaga’s skill set. Garrett’s length and speed should prove to be an issue for the rookie left tackle and could set up Garrett to have multiple sacks in back-to-back games for the first time this season.
Matchup No. 4: Jameis Winston vs Tyrann Mathieu
The Saints’ defense has the fourth most interceptions in the NFL this season with 12. For a quarterback like Jameis Winston, who is coming off a game where he threw three picks, a ball-hawking secondary like the Saints could be his Achilles heel. But given Winston’s nature, and his relationships with his former teammates in New Orleans, there is no way he will shy away from going at the Saints’ secondary.
However, there is one player that Winston should be leery of on Sunday… the honey badger, Tyrann Mathieu. The honey badger has made a career of timely interceptions. Mathieu, who is in his 12th NFL season, has 36 career interceptions and has returned four for touchdowns. Although, it should be noted that Winston is not among the long list of quarterbacks that have fallen prey to the honey badger.
For Winston, Sunday’s game in New Orleans has the potential to be an emotional homecoming. The former number-one overall pick spent the previous four seasons with the Saints, and by all accounts was beloved by both teammates and the New Orleans fan base. In order to compartmentalize those emotions, Winston must live up to one of his many mantras and focus on being great one play at a time this Sunday.
