'It's always good, bad and ugly': Browns try to rectify offensive woes against Jaguars

BEREA — Amari Cooper understands it's never as good as it seems and never as bad as it seems. The Browns wide receiver also knows just how bad it looked last Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys came to Cleveland and spoiled opening day.

Cooper knows it was most notably bad on offense , especially in the moment. He also said he can pinpoint one major reason for the struggles.

"Yeah, it's always good, bad and ugly," Cooper said Thursday. "We definitely, when we executed, we made some plays. When we didn't execute, we didn't make plays. Obviously that's the standard notion of why offenses struggle versus why they don't. But it was what was true when I looked at the film."

The Browns' 33-17 loss to the Cowboys was supposed to be the grand debut of a new-look offense. Even though most of their regulars had barely stepped on the field during the three preseason games, the Browns had hoped to make their first game the kind of performance that, if not put all of the offseason concerns away, at least put away many of them.

Instead, the Browns went out and ruined things with an offensive performance to basically forget. It was an all-systems failure that only ratcheted up the questions and the importance of Sunday's game at the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"It's all about perspective," Cooper said. "It's easy to Monday morning quarterback that line you just mentioned. At the same time, if we went out there and won a game, you probably would be saying because we didn't play and things like that, we were well-rested and we were ready to play for the game. So it's all about perspective. I don't think it necessarily had anything to do with how we performed."

The Browns averaged just 3.3 yards on 70 plays, and scored just 10 points in the first 59:31 of the game. The running game was nonexistent, either by choice or by game flow, while the passing game was, at best, choppy.

The Browns also hope they've overcome some of the pre-snap issues that hampered them with against Dallas. A lot of those came on early downs, which as a significant reason why the offense stagnated.

They drew five pre-snap flags against the Cowboys out of the 11 penalties they had in the game. They had two of those on the opening drive, including one that prevented a fourth-and-2 try from the Dallas 28, which instead turned into a 51-yard field goal by Dustin Hopkins.

"That was frustrating because you don't want to put yourself behind the chains, especially [against] a team like Dallas," left guard Joel Bitonio said. "First-and-15, second-and-15 are just not the position that you want to be in, and we had way too many of those and those are correctable. Snap count, alignment issues, all types of things like that, formations, you can fix those things and that's been a huge emphasis.

"It's always an emphasis, but when you have five of them you want to try and correct those, and if we can stay in front of the sticks and have third-and-5 instead of third-and-12, you have a lot better chance to convert those.”

Getting behind the chains only put more pressure on quarterback Deshaun Watson to make a play. It was Watson's first game since a win last season at the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 12, after which he needed season-ending shoulder surgery.

Watson completed 24 of 45 passes for 169 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in his first game since the surgery. And that was when he was able to throw the ball, considering he was sacked six times and hit 17 times by the Cowboys.

"I think the biggest thing, we got to be successful on first down," Watson said. "You know, we got to start off positive. You know, we got to start the drive, we got to get a first down on the drive. You know, if we got to create some type of success, you know, early in the downs to be able to open up the playbook and do what we exactly want to do."

The start was just Watson's 13th with the Browns since they acquired him in 2022. Two years ago, he lost 11 games to league suspension; last season, he lost 11 games to multiple shoulder injuries.

That's a lot of time for Watson to regress in terms of his pocket presence and internal clock. Those seemed to be the biggest issues for him Sunday as he constantly seemed to struggle to hold onto the ball a little too long at times.

"I think Deshaun, he’s played in this league for a while," offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey said. "He’s a pro when it comes down to being able to evaluate what happened the week before, and then when game week rolls around and the next opponent’s up, not making one game into two games. And, obviously, this [Jaguars] defense poses a lot of challenges that we’re going to have to overcome and play better."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'It's always good, bad and ugly': Browns try to rectify offensive woes against Jaguars