The Cleveland Browns defense versus the New Orleans Saints had a pretty good performance when you consider that it was up against one of the most dangerous units in the league. The Browns won their first game of the season on Sunday with a dramatic 26-24 win over the New Orleans Saints large in part to the defense being able to hold the Saints to only 10 first-half points. The pass defense held quarterback future Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees to 237 passing yards and forced a big interception. The secondary played well against the Saints receivers, allowing at game-best 37 receiving yards to one receiver. The only player who had his way in the passing game was tight end Jimmy Graham—a mismatch for everyone. The Browns tried playing man, zone, and the kitchen sink against Graham, but he was just too good to control. The run defense was the area the Saints took advantage of, tallying 174 total rushing yards in the game.

In this week’s film room of the defense, I am going to highlight three plays from Sunday. The first one will be the good, the second the bad, and the third will be the game changing play of the game by the defense. So take a seat and grab some popcorn for this week’s film of the defense!

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The Good

This play was one of the biggest plays of the game because the Browns went up 16-3 and it slowed the momentum of the Saints offense. Here is how the play went down.

The Saints line up with an empty backfield with five wide, including tight end Jimmy Graham and running back Travaris Cadet. The Browns are in single-man coverage on every receiver. Inside linebacker Chris Kirksey is in zone coverage over the intermediate middle of the field. Safety Tashaun Gipson is the deep man who is assigned to the middle of field in zone coverage. Gipson’s job: Read Brees’ eyes and rotate to wherever he throws the ball.

The Browns rush four on the play with two defensive linemen and two outside linebackers. The Saints just have five linemen blocking with no other help.

As the play develops, the Browns have good coverage on every target. Joe Haden, Buster Skrine, and Justin Gilbert blanket the three receivers on the outside running downfield. Cadet is covered by safety Donte Whitner with help from Kirksey in the inside. The only slightly available receiver is tight end Graham running the seam and cutting over the middle at the 10-15 yard mark. Inside linebacker Karlos Dansby covers him underneath with Gipson behind him reading Brees’ eyes. Dansby is making it difficult for Brees to throw to Graham because of good coverage underneath. This is key in helping the pass rush have time to get to the quarterback.

Because of the good coverage, outside linebacker Paul Kruger has enough time to slip by the left tackle and force a throw from Brees. Brees is hit while throwing so he does not have the accuracy to place the ball to Graham. Kruger is key in causing an overthrow by Brees that was intercepted and taken to the endzone by Gipson.

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The Bad

This is one example of a couple runs that exposed the Browns defense on the outside. Rookie wide receiver Brandin Cooks runs for a 28-yard gain in this end around. The Browns had problems on a multiple plays toward outside, including the previous play of 26 yards by Mark Ingram. On those plays the edge defender loss contain on the line of scrimmage and allowed the runner to go outside. Here is the breakdown of what went wrong on this Cooks run.

Wide receiver Brandin Cooks motions to the left to receive the hand off from Drew Brees. Running back Pierre Thomas will pretend to take the handoff from Brees and run toward the right side of the line.

This fake handoff to Thomas really fools the Browns defenders. The three defenders who are circled are still focusing to the right side of the line. They do not know that Cooks took the handoff and that he is headed their way. This slight hesitation by Jabaal Sheard at the edge of the line allows the speedster Cooks to speed by and break contain.

As you can see here the edge is completely gone and Cooks has an open lane downfield. Sheard is seemingly the only one of this side to know that Cook has the ball. Safety Tashaun Gipson and linebacker Chris Kirksey are completely fooled by the fake handoff and so they both are not even facing Cooks.

Luckily, Buster Skrine is able to break away from this block and make the tackle after 28 yards. Skrine is the last man in front of Cooks and so he has to make the stop or the Browns are looking at a 45-yard end around for a touchdown.

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The Game Changer

This 3rd-and-12 play ends the Saints drive and allows the Browns to gain the ball back for their winning drive. Karlos Dansby makes the game-saving sack that pushes the Saints out of field range and forces them to punt on fourth down. Here is how the play happened.

The Saints are in a shotgun with a running back to the right of Brees. On the left side is a three-receiver bunch (or “trips”) at the end of the line. The right side is a receiver out wide. The Browns have four down linemen with two linebackers in the middle.

The blocking scheme for the Saints is what causes the sack. The five offensive linemen are the only blockers available because the running back leaves the backfield on a route. The main problem of the blocking scheme for the Saints is center Jonathan Goodwin (55) and right guard Jahri Evans (73). They both end up blocking Armonty Bryant and leaving a major gap in the middle of the line.

This gap allows Karlos Dansby to slip right up the middle on a blitz. The gap is enormous—even Trent Richardson would’ve seen it—and it gives Dansby a straight line to Brees. Armonty Bryant wont’ get credit in the box score, but he is a huge factor in this play because he is taking on two blockers allowing Dansby a lane to the quarterback.

The final piece to the sack is the coverage. As Brees tries to flee Dansby to the right, he looks downfield for a target. But there is no quick safety valve, resulting in the huge sack. The left side of the field is cut off because of the roll out to the right by Brees. The three other targets (circled here) are all shadowed by a defender resulting in no clear throw.

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Defensive Standout

My defensive standout this week is safety Tashaun Gipson. He is shaping up to be one of the best free safeties in the league with another great week. His biggest play was obviously the pick six he had in the second quarter off of the overthrow by Drew Brees. But this was not the best part of his game on Sunday. According to ProFootballFocus, he only allowed four yards in coverage this week. On the day, he had eight tackles, a pass defended, an interception, and a touchdown.

Defensive Lowlight

My defensive lowlight was the Browns run defense especially on runs on the outside. According to ProFootballFocus, The Browns gave up 90 rushing yards on runs to the outside of the left tackle, including 31 yards from receiver Brandin Cooks on two end arounds. They gave up 27 yards on the outside of the right tackle. The main cause of this was the lack of contain, allowing the runner to get around the edge. The outside linebackers and sometimes defensive ends need to improve their ability to keep the edge and push the runner inside for the inside linebackers and defensive linemen to make the play.