Browns fans have strange memories. One thing will leave an impression on us and we’ll carry it through as a truth. The biggest example of this is that our offense carried us all year and our defense sucks. We went 10-6 despite the defense. I felt like testing the perception.

I made a spreadsheet of all the yardage, turnovers, etc. A wealth of information on the games. I split it into 2, 8 game segments. The first half of the year and the second half of the year. To make this more to the truth I did not use TEAM points scored nor TEAM points allowed. If the defense or special teams scored I took it away from the offense and vice versa. This gives us the truth of what each unit did. I also made a separate category of points off turnovers – though ones the defense allowed I included into their points allowed because the defense was on the field during the score. Same with the offense. If they were set up at the 3 and scored, the offense did the job and gets the points.

(So I didn’t go totally batty, the rushes include QB runs, not my typical real rushes I like to use).

Let’s look at the bottom line of the first 8 games:

Offense:

Points Per Game: 28

Yards Per Game: 365

Passing, Average Game: 19/33 (57%), 257 yards, 2.1 TD's and 1.2 int's

Rushing, Average Game: 25.6 for 110 yards, 4.3 avg. and 1.1 TD's

Turnovers per game: 1.8 (10 interceptions and 5 fumbles)

Sacks allowed: 13 (1.6 per game)

TOP: 27:51

The one part that really sticks out to me in the first half of the year is that they only held the ball for 30+ minutes twice in 6 games. One of those games was due to overtime. So in 6 of the 1st 8 games they lost the TOP battle. That’s really the only criticism they can be given overall. It’s being nit-picky, but it is an area that improvement was needed. Another thing to keep in mind was that the offense put up 30 points off of turnovers. So in the first 8 games, without defensive help, they put up 194 points (24.5 PPG). Just more proof the offense was phenomenal overall in half 1 of the season.

Defense:

Points Per Game: 27

Yards Per Game: 411

Passing, Average Game: 24/39 (61%), 278 yards, 2.5 TD's and .75 int's

Rushing, Average Game: 29.5 for 135 yards, 4.5 avg. and .5 TD's

Turnovers per game: 1.3 (6 interceptions and 5 fumbles)

Sacks: 7 (.87 per game)

TOP: 32:51

What really sticks out here, every possible part of the defense sucked in half one. Merely looking at statistics, the offense carried the defense for the 1st 8 games. The defense allowed 169 points when taking away turnovers (21 PPG) more proof that the D sucked. We went 5-3 on the strength of the offense.

Due to the god awful first half performance a lot of people continually talk about how piss poor the defense is. The offense needed to work on TOP and the defense needed to work on everything possible. This proves the defense sucked all year and the offense was amazing right?

For fun, let’s check out the second half of the season.

Offense:

Points Per Game: 18.8

Yards Per Game: 337

Passing, Average Game: 19/34 (55%), 210 yards, 1.5 TD's and 1.2 int's

Rushing, Average Game: 29.5 for 126 yards, 4.3 avg. and .5 TD's

Turnovers per game: 1.8 (10 interceptions and 4 fumbles)

Sacks allowed: 7 (.8 per game)

TOP: 31:10

5 more rushes and 1 more pass per game on average. That’s 6 more plays per game. We used those 6 plays to score 9 points per game LESS. 30 yards less per game and approximately 50 yards less passing. The only thing that went up was TOP and rush yards. So what happened to the offense?

The 2nd Steelers game marked game #1 of the second half of the year. In that second half the offense and Derek Anderson tanked. The Steelers took away the long pass and left the short ones open which DA consistently missed. The next 7 games the defenses followed suit. 2Two percent was knocked off his completion percentage and the offensive production dwindled. We ran more per game on average and racked up more rushing yards but turnovers seemed to happen at the wrong time. Seven of the fourteen turnovers were returned into Cleveland’s end (or for TD's) and resulted in 48 points scored for the opposition. Two of those were pick 6’s. One of which cost us the Arizona game. The Offense scored 38 points off turnovers. They scored 113 points with no help from the defense (14 PPG). More proof that they were dismal in half 2 of the season.

Defense:

Points Per Game: 16.8

Yards Per Game: 307

Passing, Average Game: 18/32 (56%), 183 yards, 1.1 TD's and 1.25 int's

Rushing, Average Game: 28 for 123 yards, 4.4 avg. and .5 TD's

Turnovers per game: 1.75 (10 interceptions and 4 fumbles)

Sacks: 21 (2.6 per game)

TOP: 29:33

As you can clearly see the defense made immense strides in the second half of the year. Points were cut by 11 per game. Yards were cut by over 100 per game. Opposing completion % dropped 5 points and the yardage dropped approximately 100 per game and rushing dropped 10 yards per game. Turnovers went up and the sacks tripled (interceptions nearly doubled). So what happened to the defense?

One thing I noticed starting in the Steelers game was that the team started to add several blitzes per game. As I stated all year, once we blitzed the turnovers raised, the pass D got ten fold better and the sacks tripled. The defense allowed 87 points without turnovers (10.8 PPG) more proof that the defense was nothing short of amazing in half 2. We went 5-3 in the second half of the year due to the defense.

We ended the year 10-6 without really playing a complete game. The offense carried half 1, which is what most Browns fans recall. The defense carried half 2 which most fans don’t realize.

What we ended up with was a tale of two halves, never made to be whole.

The good news, if we can take the first half offense with the second half defense then this going to go to the Super Bowl with no one capable of stopping them.

Happy New Year to you all, and here’s to an amazing 2008 with our Browns.

Back to DawgBones.com