BEREA, Ohio — The Browns’ loss to the Jets on Sunday left lots of people with lots of regrets. Count offensive coordinator Tommy Rees among them.
The new play-caller had his offense facing a fourth-and-1 at the Jets’ 33-yard line down seven points with 10:21 left in the game. They had moved the ball 33 yards on that drive with six consecutive run plays.
Rees sent out 12 personnel — one running back and two tight ends. He bunched wide receiver Cedric Tillman and tight end Harold Fannin Jr. to the right, had tight end David Njoku split out wide to the left, running back Quinshon Judkins essentially lined up at tight end on the right and wide receiver Jerry Jeudy in the backfield, to the left of quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who was in the shotgun.
Gabriel looked to his left after taking the snap. He never appeared to make it back to the right, where he might have been able to hit Tillman for a first down, before taking a sack.
“Talk about a play-call, you want back, you start there,” Rees said on Thursday.
Rees said he liked the call they had on third-and-2, a run by Judkins. It got stopped for a yard, however, and left the Browns with fourth down.
“We made an aggressive play-call (on fourth down). It didn’t work out,” Rees said. “They had a good call on defense, and we just didn’t execute it at the end of the day.”
It was the first time all season the Browns failed to convert on fourth-and-2 or less.
It was also an outlier call. In nine previous attempts, the Browns called a run in that situation and they converted all nine.
The Browns opened that drive from their own 34 with a 9-yard run by Judkins. After Judkins lost a yard on the next play, wide receiver Malachi Corley broke off a 16-yard run to get into Jets territory.
Then Dylan Sampson ran for three yards and Judkins for five before the third and fourth down plays.
“We were running it pretty good at that point on that drive, so certainly could have handled that differently and executed it differently. So, we’ll learn from it. I’ll learn from it and get better on it.”
Sunday was Rees’ first go-around as a play-caller in the NFL and the offense had its highest yardage output since the team’s Week 5 game in London against the Vikings. There’s still plenty of work to do on this offense, though.
Gabriel was sacked six times and completed 17-of-32 passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns. They ran for 158 yards, but 86 of those came from Gabriel and Corley.
Regarding the run game, Judkins faced boxes of eight defenders or more 42.86% of the time, second most last week according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, contributing to his 3.4-yard per carry average. For the season, he is second in running against boxes of eight or more at 43.94%.
Rees and Gabriel need to figure out the passing game to open up more room for Judkins.
Maybe that was part of Rees’ thinking in not running the ball on fourth-and-1 and maybe the play would have worked had Gabriel been able to get to Tillman more quickly, but Rees wasn’t going to entertain what-ifs.
“I don’t want to get into the specifics of the play itself,” he said. “You can freeze almost any play and say, ‘Hey, this guy’s open.’ Great. I want to make sure I’m putting our players in the right spot. I made a call, an aggressive one, it didn’t work.”
At least one veteran Browns player appreciated Rees’ candor regarding the call.
“Tommy is a straightforward guy,” left guard Joel Bitonio said. “He’s going to tell you how he feels, good, bad or indifferent, and kind of tell you what he expects. And after the game, there’s a few plays where he’s like, I wish I would have called it this way. Wish I would have called that. That was one of them. He’s like, I wish I would have ran the ball.”
Rees echoed that when asked why he regretted the call on Thursday.
“I should have run the ball,” he said.
As the Browns navigate this frustrating season, that type of self-reflection is appreciated.
“When you have a leader that takes accountability,” Bitonio said, “I feel like that’s all you can really ask.”
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