Pro Football Focus: Nuggets from the Ravens Game

Each week, Pro Football Focus takes a quick look back at each of the games that took place in the previous week and analyzes them. Their review of the Browns vs. Ravens game is now live. Below is a recap of some of the interesting things they had to say, along with my own commentary.

• They evaluated QB Brandon Weeden as having a mixed day. He had a low completion percentage at 48.1%, but his receivers did not help him with seven dropped passes. PFF was not fond of the pick six he threw or another pass before the end of the game that "should have been picked," and they felt he was inaccurate on a few plays. However, they cite that Weeden did a good job not pressing the panic button even though the Ravens blitzed on 49.1% of Cleveland's pass plays.
  
• PFF also notes that if you counted the dropped passes as completions and took away things like throwaways, Weeden's completion percentage would've been 68.1%. I think that is a fairer percentage of how he actually threw the ball on Thursday night.
  
• Over the first three weeks of the season, I have pointed out Jabaal Sheard's lack of impact play on the defensive line. I had a tough time telling if it was because teams were just paying extra attention to him or not, because the rest of the line was doing pretty well. He seemed to have a strong performance against the Ravens, though, and the guys at PFF noticed too:
  

  Through three weeks of the season, Jabaal Sheard (+5.1) hasn’t exactly impressed. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that after an impressive rookie year he looked to have taken a step back. Well going up against rookie right tackle Kelechi Osemele, he seemed to find some of the form that caught our eye last year. Sacks will always get you noticed, and his sack and two hurry (with one more negated by a penalty) performance did exactly that. With 0:40 to go in the second quarter he brushed past Osemele as if he wasn’t there to record a much needed sack that effectively ended the Ravens’ hopes of a late score to end the half.

  Yet it wasn’t his pass rushing that caught our eye the most. Instead it was some top notch work in run defense where he picked up two tackles for no gain, another for a short gain, and one more for a loss as the Raven’s rookie right tackle looked overmatched. Browns fans will hope this is the performance that kick starts his season.

• Any time the Browns generated pressure against Joe Flacco (15 times), the Ravens quarterback did not respond too well, taking four sacks and only completing 27.3% of his passes. Also, for being a great duo at tight end, the Browns' defense was credited for Ed Dickson and Dennis Pitta each having terrible days (0 catches, 2 targets, bad blocking, penalties).

• At the safety position, PFF thinks that Usama Young is doing a fair job and that the Browns would be better off not rotating lesser players like Tashaun Gipson in; Young should just see all the snaps. I agree; if Eric Hagg was seeing all the snaps when he started, why is Young only seeing about three quarters of the snaps when he plays? Maybe things will change when Joe Haden gets back.