We saw several great defenses stake their claim Sunday to be considered as the NFL's best in a number of different ways. The Ravens got ahead of the Lions early and delivered one of the most comprehensive victories of the season. The Chiefs shut out the Chargers after halftime to win their sixth straight game and put a stranglehold on the AFC West. And while the Browns allowed 38 points to the Colts, a defense that was on a historic pace through five games came up with multiple key plays to help swing another close victory for one of the league's most surprising teams.
After seven weeks, which of those teams has the best defense? Is it one of those three winners from Sunday? Could it be a team that spent the week on bye or one that suited up Thursday? Should we be talking about the 49ers, who line up against the Vikings on "Monday Night Football"? They've held five of their first six opponents under 20 points.
Let's sort through the data and what I've seen this season to choose the best defense in football through seven weeks. There are seven plausible candidates, with a gap between the top three and the other four. I'll list those as honorable mentions before ranking the top three. The NFL's best defense is an easy pick to me, but that team is stuck in the most impossible situation of the bunch in terms of translating its defense into competing for a Super Bowl.
I'll start with the runners-up before hitting the top three. Let's begin with a team whose defense helped it pull out a stunning upset when we saw it last:
Jump to a contender:
49ers | Browns
Chiefs | Cowboys
Jets | Ravens | Saints
Honorable mentions
New York Jets (3-3)
There's no denying that the Jets made it through the most brutal part of their schedule by winning games with their defense. Robert Saleh's group forced four turnovers in the dramatic Week 1 victory over the Bills and four more in last Sunday's comeback win over the Eagles. A New York team that forced 16 turnovers across the entire 2022 season has 13 through six games, and it has needed those takeaways to stay afloat with Zach Wilson at quarterback.
Even with those turnovers, this defense isn't playing as well as its reputation would suggest. The Jets have a good defense, but this isn't the dominant group we saw from a year ago, at least on a play-by-play basis.
Let's consider three metrics that do a good job of encapsulating team defense. In terms of points allowed per possession, the Jets rank 11th, just behind the Bucs and Falcons. A year ago, they were second in the same category, trailing only the 49ers. It would be fair to assume they have faced a ton of drives starting with terrible starting field position given their offense, but they actually have inherited the league's sixth-best average starting field position this season, up from 30th a year ago.
Drive rates don't account for ending possessions with turnovers, but what about expected points added (EPA) per play? Here, again, the Jets rank 10th, down from sixth a year ago (and third from Week 5 onward). They rate as the best run defense in the league by cumulative EPA, but they're just 15th against the pass.
Well, the Jets have played a fierce schedule of opponents, and EPA doesn't adjust for quality of opposition. DVOA does (or at least begins to early in the season), and again, the Jets don't rate out as a dominant unit there. They ranked 12th in the league in DVOA through the end of Week 6, with Week 7 as yet unaccounted for in those rankings. They were fifth in DVOA a year ago, up from 32nd in Saleh's first season with the team.
Here's one simple way to think about how the Jets have changed on the defensive side of the ball. A year ago, if you strip out all the drives that ended with a turnover for each of the league's 32 teams and reevaluate defenses on what they did on every other possession, they were right alongside the 49ers as the league's best defense. They allowed 1.7 points per drive and ranked No. 1 in EPA.
This season, if we exclude the drives that don't end in a takeaway, they are 14th in points allowed per trip and 15th in EPA per play. The 2022 Jets were a great defense that didn't force many takeaways, which is really hard to do. The 2023 Jets are a good defense that relies on forcing turnovers to be great, which is hard to do in a different way. They've also fielded the league's fourth-best red zone defense in terms of touchdown rate, which is tough to sustain over a full season.
From here on out, one of three things will happen. The Jets can continue playing average-to-above-average defense while forcing a ton of takeaways, which is extremely unlikely. They can dramatically improve their underlying level of performance while continuing to force gobs of takeaways, which would make them even better than the 2022 unit and put them right alongside the other great defenses.
The most likely scenario is they don't force three-plus takeaways a week very often, get a little worse in the red zone and play like the 10th-to-14th-best defense in the league moving forward. Where New York lands between those three scenarios will determine whether it makes it to the postseason.
New Orleans Saints (3-4)
Thursday night wasn't this unit's best performance, as the Jaguars scored 24 points on 11 drives in what would eventually go down as a 31-24 victory. (Foyesade Oluokun also scored a defensive touchdown for Jacksonville.) Amid a wildly frustrating beginning to Derek Carr's career in New Orleans, though, this defense has been keeping the Saints in games. It seems telling that their three wins are also the three games in which they've allowed the fewest points. Coach Dennis Allen needs his defense to carry the team to victories.
Unlike the Jets, the Saints have been blessed to play a modest slate of opposing quarterbacks. Outside of Trevor Lawrence, the most difficult passer they've faced might have been C.J. Stroud. Facing the league's easiest schedule is a blessing for this team, though, because things don't get too much tougher moving forward. They could get two backup quarterbacks over the next two weeks in Gardner Minshew and Tyson Bagent before their toughest opponent of the season in Kirk Cousins. After the bye, they'll have to face Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford. This is a slate the Saints should be able to attack.
The defense is trying. It has forced three-and-outs more than 46% of the time, which is the second-highest rate in football. It has forced turnovers in each of the first seven games, something only two other teams have done this season. Marshon Lattimore & Co. have done a great job of taking away big plays; they've allowed a league-best 17.8 passer rating against on throws traveling 20 yards or more, with the team producing three interceptions against 27 pass attempts so far.
My concern heading into the season was that the wholesale departure of the defensive tackle rotation would cause the Saints to get bullied on the interior, but that hasn't been the case. They rank fifth in success rate against the run. Demario Davis, who managed to avoid missing what was expected to be his first game to injury as a pro by playing against the Jaguars on Thursday, is still playing at a high level. Pete Werner has also taken a step forward, and they're both incredibly reliable against the run. They've each combined to miss fewer than 5% of their tackle attempts this season, which is remarkable considering how many plays they each make.
I can't put the Saints higher, though, because of my concerns about another one of their veterans and what it means for their pass rush. Carl Granderson has improved on a breakout 2022 season and leads the team with 4.5 sacks, but Cameron Jordan has just one sack and four knockdowns in seven games. The 2011 first-round pick was coming off what was basically a career-worst season since he took over as a full-time starter and looks worse as a 34-year-old. The latest in his series of extensions to create cap space saw the Saints guarantee Jordan $13 million in 2024 and $12.5 million in 2025, so they're priced in to believing the longtime star will return to form.
If he doesn't, there isn't much hope. The Saints rank 27th in sack rate, and while they're middle of the pack in pressure rate, I'm not sure a team can have the best defense if it can't get after the quarterback. With all due respect to Werner and Alontae Taylor, New Orleans needs its veteran stars to be present and playing at a high level. Jordan has struggled. Christian Kirk ran away from Tyrann Mathieu on the game-winning touchdown Thursday. Marcus Maye was suspended for three games.
Given the dismal play of the offense, the lack of depth and the age on the league's second-oldest defense, the Saints have no margin for error.
San Francisco 49ers (5-1)
Kyle Shanahan's 49ers have a solid case for ranking No. 1, as they've allowed a league-low 87 points, though that's partly a product of playing one fewer game than the Ravens. Being second in scoring defense is also no shame, but the 49ers have faced just 64 drives on defense and inherited the league's best average starting field position by more than a yard, which adds up over the course of a season. Through six games, the difference between what they have faced in average starting field position and even an average team amounts to more than two touchdowns worth of yardage.
After adjusting for their situation, the 49ers are out of contention by virtue of lacking a truly great pass rush, at least based on their performance this season. They rank 21st in sack rate (5.8%) and pressure rate (28.1%). They've thrived, like the Jets, by forcing takeaways; the team that led the league with 20 interceptions last season already has a league-high 10 through six games, and it would be a surprise if it didn't add another to its total against Kirk Cousins on Monday night.
The difference between the 49ers and Saints is that there's reason to believe San Francisco will do a better job of getting after the quarterback as this season goes along. Instead of relying on a 34-year-old as its primary edge rusher, it has a superstar in the prime of his career in 25-year-old Nick Bosa, who has gotten off to a slow start on paper after holding out during the preseason.
Bosa has 2.5 sacks through five games, which is remarkably low given the fact he had racked up 34 sacks over 33 games across the 2021 and 2022 seasons. It's also been unlucky. He has 16 quarterback knockdowns, which is in line with his production from years past. History tells us edge rushers turn about 45% of their knockdowns into sacks, which would have Bosa producing 7.2 sacks through six games. I would be shocked if he doesn't start generating more sacks in the weeks to come, especially given that he has no track record of significantly underperforming his hit totals.
When Bosa starts getting elite results again, the pass rush should follow. Right now, it's not quite there. The 49ers added Javon Hargrave in the hopes they could once again be an elite team when they rush four. They are, but not in the way they expected. They were right around league average in terms of sack and pressure rate when they rushed four or less a year ago. Now, they rank 16th in sack rate and 24th in pressure rate.
Instead, the secondary has been pushing this defense forward from the back. The Niners are allowing 4.9 yards per dropback when they rush four or fewer, which ranks second behind the Ravens. They're the league's best defense in terms of yards per attempt when they don't get pressure, behind the defenses that rank Nos. 1 through 3 on this list. The 49ers are perennially the league leaders in yards after catch on offense; a defense with two stars at linebacker (Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw) and an underrated secondary ranks second in average yards after catch allowed (3.72), trailing only the Lions.
With great tackling and range, the 49ers have taken big plays out of the picture. Steve Wilks' defense has allowed just four gains of 30 yards or more all season, tying the 49ers with the Packers for the fewest of any team. All four of those plays have come while they held double-digit leads, and three of them came in games they won handily. If San Francisco caps what the other offense can do in terms of creating explosives and forces the opponent to march down the field, it is going to come up with a sack or an interception and mess up a team's day before it scores.
If the back end of the defense can keep this up, the front four should be able to turn things around with their ability to rush the quarterback. A run defense that ranks 20th in success rate should also improve. Some of that is Bosa, but Hargrave should improve as the year goes along. The 49ers also made another addition in Randy Gregory, who looked like a superstar when available in Dallas before struggling to make an impact in Denver. It's tough to believe this defensive front will look average for much longer, given Kris Kocurek's track record and the names they have on paper.
Dallas Cowboys (4-2)
The last of the runners-up certainly doesn't have any concern about its pass rush. The Cowboys lead the league in pressure rate at 42.6%; the Browns are the only other team topping 35% so far. Dallas is only 12th in sack rate, which hints toward a bit of bad luck, as it has turned only 18.4% of its pressures into sacks, which ranks 22nd. Given that the Cowboys are posting a 15.7 QBR when opposing passers are pressured, the play's basically a wrap once the pass rush gets home, regardless of whether it results in a sack.
What's truly remarkable about the pass rush is just how many Cowboys players are standing out as impact performers. In addition to the incomparable Micah Parsons, Osa Odighizuwa ranks second in the NFL in pass rush win rate among defensive tackles. Five different Cowboys -- Parsons, Odighizuwa, Dante Fowler Jr., DeMarcus Lawrence and Dorance Armstrong -- rank among the top 100 in creating pressures this season.
Having a great pass rush is the best way to build a dominant defense. Last season's Eagles are a perfect example, as defenders James Bradberry, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and T.J. Edwards all had career seasons behind a dominant front four. If a team can rush the passer, it can shut down any offense, and the Cowboys have looked dominant at their best in wins over the Giants and Patriots.
When the pass rush hasn't dominated, though, we've seen this team's weaknesses. The Cowboys rank 19th in QBR without pressure, down from ninth a year ago. Brock Purdy and the 49ers shredded them on a day where the pass rush managed only one sack on 25 dropbacks. The Cardinals also upset Dallas by running directly at Parsons, taking advantage of the star defender's aggressiveness to create huge holes for James Conner. The Cowboys rank 28th in success rate against the run, although they're fourth by EPA per play.
That inconsistency sinks them, at least so far. It's too easy to tie their dominant games to performances against overmatched, dismal offenses. They were blown out by the 49ers, manhandled by the Cardinals and needed Justin Herbert to airmail a pair of long completions to Keenan Allen to escape from Los Angeles with a win over the Chargers. Nobody doubts what the Cowboys can do on defense, but let's see them do it in their upcoming home-and-home with the Eagles or crucial games down the stretch against the Bills and Dolphins.
The challengers
3. Baltimore Ravens (5-2)
If you were going to write down a list of what would have needed to happen for the Ravens to be great on defense before the season began, you would be pessimistic about their chances after seven weeks. Young edge rushers David Ojabo and Odafe Oweh have both been injured and combined for one sack. Marcus Williams injured his left pectoral in the opener, returned and suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of the Lions game. Marlon Humphrey only played a full complement of snaps for the first time in Week 7, and free agent addition Rock Ya-Sin has all but fallen out of the cornerback rotation.
And yet, somehow, the Ravens are thriving. They manhandled the high-flying Lions on Sunday. Lamar Jackson rightfully drew plenty of attention for what he did to the Detroit defense, but don't sleep on the performance by Roquan Smith & Co. They forced three three-and-outs on the Lions' first three drives, then held them on downs during the next series. By the time Detroit got the ball for its fifth drive, it was down 28-0 and the game was all but over.
Sunday's thorough dominance of the Lions made Baltimore's case as a great defense. It now leads the NFL in allowing a mere 1.1 points per possession, topping the Browns and Chiefs. The Ravens are doing this despite forcing just seven takeaways in seven games and facing 11.4 drives per game, which is the league's ninth-heaviest workload. They're allowing fewer than 1.0 point per possession on drives that start on the opponent's side of the field, eliminating the short fields they've had to face after their own turnovers. That also ranks No. 1.
How are they thriving? It starts in the red zone. The Ravens have allowed opposing offenses to score four touchdowns on 17 trips inside the 20-yard line, a mark topped only by the Buccaneers this season. The Bucs have six stuffs (red zone trips producing zero points), which is more than their touchdowns allowed (four), which includes three lost fumbles in the red zone on Sunday from Atlanta's Desmond Ridder. They still lost, which might feel even worse than the Lions getting blown out.
Neither the Bucs nor the Ravens can keep up being this efficient inside the 20, but Baltimore has a shot at still being great as the season progresses. It ranks second in EPA per play inside the 20, but it is still the fourth-best defense on plays that take place outside of the red zone. (The Buccaneers rank 25th outside of the red zone and first inside the 20.) The best way to be a great red zone defense is to be just as good outside of the 20-yard line.
Coordinator Mike Macdonald's pressure packages are quickly becoming appointment viewing during the week. Baltimore's top pass-rusher on paper is Jadeveon Clowney, who is coming off a two-sack season in Cleveland. Owing in part to a banged-up secondary, the Ravens blitz on just 21.5% of dropbacks, which is the eighth-lowest rate. This should not be a great recipe for creating pass pressure.
And yet, it has worked. Macdonald has dialed up creative sim pressures and creepers to generate overloads and create protection havoc while still dropping seven into coverage, including a pair of sacks in Sunday's win. One of those pressures saw 300-plus pound linemen Broderick Washington and Travis Jones drop into coverage while 190-pound slot cornerback Arthur Maulet came screaming off the edge untouched to sack Jared Goff.
The Ravens get pressure at the league's 10th-highest rate, and it's game over when they get after the opposing quarterback. Every defense is good when it gets pressure, but Baltimore's QBR allowed with pressure is 3.4. Opposing quarterbacks facing its pressure are 24-of-61 for 212 yards with two touchdowns, three picks and 29 sacks this season. When the Ravens get pressure, they're allowing 0.06 net yards per dropback, a figure that includes scrambles. The 2019 49ers were the last team to allow negative net yards per pressure dropback; Baltimore has a shot at joining them.
It's not just scheme, either. The Ravens are getting a breakout season from defensive tackle Justin Madubuike, who has been able to overpower opposing blockers and become a force on twists and games. His sack on Sunday tied his career high with 5.5, and he already has more knockdowns (10) than he has in any season. Macdonald needed a young front-seven player to become a star for the defense to play at a high level, and while I thought Ojabo or Oweh were the most likely candidates, Madubuike is exceeding even the loftiest expectations of what he might do in 2023. He's having a dream contract year.
I would be lying if I said I didn't have concerns about the secondary, especially if Humphrey isn't 100 percent. Guys like Maulet and Brandon Stephens should be beatable in coverage, and the Ravens have replacement-level veterans such as Ya-Sin and Ronald Darby in reserve. Madubuike is playing like he's Cortez Kennedy. He probably won't keep that up. Veterans Clowney and Kyle Van Noy, who has sacks in each of his past two games after starting the season out of football, probably aren't as good as they've looked so far.
You know what, though? Excellent defenses and defensive coaches have a way of getting more out of players than their prior stops or playcallers. The Ravens won't be the best red zone defense in NFL history, but they have more than enough to hold up their end of the bargain. If we get more games like the one we saw from Jackson and the offense Sunday, Baltimore has the upside of being a dominant team on both sides of the ball.
2. Kansas City Chiefs (6-1)
Uh-oh. Quietly, we let general manager Brett Veach and the Chiefs build a great defense around Patrick Mahomes. If you want even worse news as an AFC West fan, that defense is just getting started. The average age of their defenders on a snap-weighted basis is 25.4 years old, which makes them the youngest defense in football, too. While Sunday was the reigning MVP's best game of the season, Kansas City is winning games as much with its defense as it is with its offense this season, a scary thought for teams hoping to dethrone the champs.
The script for the Chiefs in the Mahomes era has been simple and successful: dominate on offense and hope a handful of stars and coordinator Steve Spagnuolo can create enough havoc on defense to force a few sacks and takeaways. They have posted solid raw numbers, but advanced metrics have typically rated them as a middling-or-worse defense, with 2019 as an exception.
The best sign of how dramatically the Chiefs have improved might be looking at how they perform when they don't get pressure. No team is good on defense when it doesn't get home, but Kansas City has been particularly brutal without that pass pressure in previous seasons. It ranked last in QBR without pressure as recently as last season, and the only time it ranked higher than 22nd in that metric was 2019, when it was the sixth best in football.
The 2023 Chiefs rank second in QBR allowed without pressure, which is a testament to how much work they've done developing young players at linebacker and in the secondary. The veteran imports who were on this roster for most of the Mahomes era are gone, including Tyrann Mathieu, Anthony Hitchens and Mike Hughes. The only starter on the back end who wasn't drafted by Kansas City is former Texans safety Justin Reid, who joined the team via free agency in 2022.
Instead, the Chiefs have built a talented defense with high draft picks. Second-rounders Willie Gay and Nick Bolton have formed a rangy duo when they're together, although Bolton had already missed three games before dislocating his wrist in Sunday's victory. Fellow second-rounder Bryan Cook has matured into an above-average starting safety, and it was his interception that sealed the win over the Chargers.
The standout has been second-year corner Trent McDuffie. Chiefs fans have undoubtedly been frustrated about the Tyreek Hill trade and the team's inability to find solutions at wide receiver, even in light of its Super Bowl LVII victory. McDuffie doesn't solve the wide receiver issue, but Veach used the first-round pick he got from the Hill deal to trade up and draft McDuffie last year, and he has been a revelation.
On Sunday, I'm not sure the matchup between McDuffie and Keenan Allen ever really materialized for any significant period of time, but it was more about what McDuffie could do to help free up resources for the Chiefs to focus on Allen with Reid and other defensive backs in brackets. His versatility with moving into the slot was already well-known, but they even lined him up as a half-field safety on Sunday. As the nearest defender in coverage, he allowed 51 yards on eight targets, but his receivers caught 1.1 fewer passes than expected.
Beyond McDuffie, the Chiefs are deeper on defense than they've ever been. In years past, going to the backups meant regular snaps for players such as Daniel Sorensen and Ben Niemann, who would often look overmatched in coverage. They have been relatively healthy this season, but when they've needed to turn to veterans Mike Edwards and Drue Tranquill, they've been rewarded. Edwards has made big plays all season and broke up a third-and-7 pass to Allen in the fourth quarter, while Tranquill tormented his old team by knocking out a pass to Donald Parham and bringing down Justin Herbert for a sack with 90 seconds to go.
The great thing for the Chiefs is they still can rely on Spagnuolo pulling out some exotic pressure when they need it. They're still the sixth-best defense by QBR when Spagnuolo sends extra pressure. On Sunday, they barely blitzed Herbert, who saw extra heat just seven times for 34 dropbacks.
Kansas City was able to sack him four times, but the one missing element for this team is pressure on the edge. Charles Omenihu returned from a suspension and came up with a sack and a tipped pass that led to an interception, which will help, but 2022 first-rounder George Karlaftis hasn't been able to produce steady pressure, and 2023 first-rounder Felix Anudike-Uzomah is playing in a deep reserve role. Mike Danna, a Day 3 pick in 2020, has chipped in, but this defense is still a little too dependent on Chris Jones dominating. While the star tackle has been excellent since returning from his Week 1 holdout, the Chiefs could use Karlaftis or another edge rusher to step up.
One element of the Spagnuolo-era defenses remains true: The Chiefs still struggle against the run. They rank 21st in EPA per rush attempt, which is still better than their usual performance. The case in years past has been that opposing offenses haven't been able to sustain the run throughout the game and keep up with this offense, though, and Kansas City hasn't really been burned on the ground this season. (Even in their one loss, David Montgomery's 21 carries produced just 74 yards.)
Suddenly, the Chiefs are a complete football team. A defense that has ranked an average of 17th in win probability added since Mahomes took over in 2018 is seventh this season. Harrison Butker hasn't missed a kick all season. Sunday was a reminder that Mahomes and Travis Kelce can still take over games at their best, but this season tells us the Chiefs can do just fine without A-games from their stars, too.
1. Cleveland Browns (4-2)
Even in light of a day in which they allowed 38 points to the Colts and had to be bailed out for the second week by some late penalty calls, the Browns have to be first on this list. It was comfortably their worst performance of the season, but they are lapping the league in a number of defensive categories. They have played at the level of a Super Bowl-winning defense through seven weeks, and I don't mean anything like the 2022 Chiefs or the 2021 Rams. They're playing defense the way teams that won Super Bowls almost exclusively because of their defense did during their best seasons.
There are a number of outlandish statistics I could throw out there about this Cleveland team, but I'll pick three favorites:
The Browns are allowing 18.1 yards per possession this season. Eighteen! No team is within 6 yards, and the second-place Saints are closer to 19th than they are to first. Just three teams since 2000 have kept opposing offenses below 20 yards per drive in a full season, and two of them won Super Bowls: the 2002 Buccaneers did it with Brad Johnson at quarterback, while the 2008 Steelers managed it with Ben Roethlisberger. The other team is the 2003 Ravens, who forced 41 takeaways and sent five starters to the Pro Bowl.
The Browns are preventing teams from getting a first down on 57.5% of their drives this season. No other defense since the start of 2000 is within seven points of them. If you think that's a small-sample exercise and that Cleveland is simply an outlier as a product of a short season, consider what each team accomplished through the first seven weeks of each of their respective seasons. One team (the 2011 Bengals) narrowly gets within seven points of what the Browns have accomplished, but we're talking about an incredible outlier.
ESPN has a stat called down set conversion rate, which measures how often an offense starts a series with a first down and turns it into a new set of downs or a touchdown. The league-average success rate on defense here is 69%. The Browns are just under 53%, which is the second-best mark we've seen over the past 25 years besides the 2019 Patriots. Among 2023 defenses, the second-best down set conversion rate belongs to the Saints, who are nearly 10 points behind Cleveland. Even after a rough week, the Saints are closer to Vikings in 25th than they are to first place.
The Browns rank second in points per possession allowed behind the Ravens, but they also have some conditions making their situation more difficult. Thanks to a dismal offense, Cleveland has faced an average of 13.3 drives per game on defense, the most of any team. It also has inherited the league's ninth-worst average starting field position. Few teams have had it harder, but they've thrived under pressure.
Just about everybody on this defense is playing better than they did a year ago. Safety Grant Delpit, who struggled with inconsistent play during his first few seasons, has taken a leap forward and suddenly looks more than capable of both filling against the run and holding his own in coverage against the pass. Denzel Ward had already established himself as an exciting young cornerback before struggling in coverage a year ago; he looks like a true No. 1 corner right now.
The additions upfront have taken some of the pressure off Myles Garrett, who has responded by looking more dangerous than ever. Dalvin Tomlinson has given the Browns a much-needed defensive tackle to hold up against the run, while Ogbo Okoronkwo has helped Garrett rush the passer. New defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz has given Garrett the freedom to line up where he wants in passing situations and does an excellent job of getting his defenses one-on-one matchups in pass protection.
Sunday's performance didn't give teams that vaunted blueprint, but I don't believe the Colts were a great stylistic match for the Browns. Indy used RPOs and throws into the flat to try to get the ball out quickly, eliminate the pass rush and take advantage of Cleveland's one notable weakness: yards after the catch. The Browns ranked 31st in average yards after catch before the game and dropped to 32nd after the Colts picked up several big plays. Some of that is facing a high percentage of short passes, but Indianapolis was clearly willing to put the ball in their playmakers' hands.
Indy used lots of misdirection, and there was some bad tackling from the Browns, who have been much better tacklers this season than they were a year ago, most notably on Michael Pittman Jr.'s long touchdown. They also benefited from free plays after offside penalties, leading to a long Josh Downs touchdown early in the game on what was a blown coverage when no player carried his vertical route.
And yet, at the same time, the Browns won this game because of their defense, right? Garrett & Co. forced four turnovers, including one fumble recovery for a touchdown and a second that ended the game in the fourth quarter. Garrett blocked a 60-yard field goal attempt, and Cleveland turned the short field from the block into a field goal. It allowed too many points, but the defense helped keep this afloat long enough for the offense to get on track and win in a shootout.
I mentioned the 2002 Buccaneers, who won a Super Bowl with a journeyman at quarterback in Johnson. The 2000 Ravens won with Trent Dilfer. The 2015 Broncos benched Peyton Manning for Brock Osweiler, reinstalled Manning in Week 17 and then rode Manning to one final Super Bowl before the legendary passer retired. Those teams proved a team could win a title with a great defense and average-to-below-average quarterback play.
The Browns don't have average-to-below-average quarterback play. They've gotten inconsistent (at best) work out of veteran PJ Walker, little out of rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson and just one solid start from Deshaun Watson, who was supposed to be back to his normal self as the team began its first full season with its $230 million man under center. That hasn't worked out; the Browns rank last in DVOA with a 33.9 team QBR.
Watson returned to the lineup on Sunday after missing time with a shoulder injury. It went disastrously. He threw one ugly interception and was only bailed out on a second by a drop from Kenny Moore. He was injured on that play and checked out for a concussion, but after he made it through the protocol, coach Kevin Stefanski chose to leave him on the sidelines and go the rest of the way with Walker as the quarterback. Stefanski claimed afterward that he wanted to "protect our franchise quarterback. I'm sure there's some truth to the notion, but the reality is the Browns were better off with Walker under center given how awful Watson looked before the injury.
Benching Watson isn't feasible. He's in the middle of a $230 million fully guaranteed contract. Sitting him in the final year of that deal would be one thing, but he's in Year 2. He still has more upside than Walker and Thompson-Robinson, and he did have his best start as a Cleveland player in his last game before suffering the shoulder injury in a blowout win over the Titans. The only way out is by winning in the long-term with Watson, not without him.
At the same time, an organization that is desperate to make a deep playoff run has to recognize something's wrong here. The Browns went all-in to land Watson because of his upside, but his lack of a floor might cost them a shot at fielding a legitimate Super Bowl contender. I'm not convinced Watson can be like Dilfer or even a rapidly declining Manning, and that could cost Cleveland dearly if it has captured lightning in a bottle on defense.
Is there a short-term solution? Could the Browns put Watson on injured reserve to rest his shoulder? And if they make that move, would they call the Commanders and ask them if they're willing to trade Jacoby Brissett back to Cleveland? The Commanders might want Brissett to prop up their own offense if Sam Howell continues to take sacks at astronomical rates, but they've shown little interest toward inserting Brissett into their lineup. He already knows this offense and would be a major upgrade on Walker.
Brissett can't be Watson at his best, but he can be Dilfer. And given how good this defense is playing through seven weeks, the Browns might have a special season coming if they can just find someone who won't throw the game away.