Our defense vs their offense: Cleveland Browns

The New Orleans Saints host Jameis Winston and the Cleveland Browns this Sunday afternoon. The Saints looked like a whole new team last Sunday when they took down the Falcons 20-17, and the Browns have looked like a shell of what people thought they would be in the preseason.

Jameis Winston, who formerly played for the Saints for four years, has taken over at QB for the Browns after Deshaun Watson went down with an achilles injury. In his first game, Winston was great, throwing for 334 yards and three touchdowns in a win over the Ravens, but his last time out, he threw three picks in a loss to the Chargers. That’s the Jameis Winston experience summed up for you.

So what version will the Saints get on Sunday? To be honest with you, I have no idea and that’s what scares me. He could come out and put 300 yards on the Saints heads, but I could also see him throwing three picks and handing the Saints their second consecutive win.

The Saints defense has been susceptible to giving up big games through the air. Even in their win last week, Cousins threw for 300+ yards, but they were able to keep the Falcons receivers out of the end zone. Luckily for the Saints, the Browns don’t have as many threats as the Falcons. Jerry Jeudy leads the team with 418 yards, but only has one score; Cedric Tillman is emerging, but still young and inexperienced; and David Njoku hasn’t really lived up to the preseason hype he always gets.

On the ground, things haven’t been great for Cleveland. The Browns got Nick Chubb back, but through three games he’s totaled 113 yards on 42 carries (2.7 average). Jerome Ford is still back there too and is averaging over five yards per carry, but he hasn’t been involved the last couple weeks. If there’s any week Chubb will get going though, it’s this week. The Saints defense has struggled to defend the run, and honestly, that’s just the type of thing that would happen to the Saints.

A good thing for the Saints defense is that the Browns rank dead last in sacks allowed per game, giving up nearly five per game, which is a big reason Watson got hurt. The Saints pass rush hasn’t been great this year – Chase Young and Carl Granderson have disappointed a bit, but we saw Cam Jordan, Chase Young and Payton Turner get sacks last week. The defense played with a lot more juice under Darren Rizzi, so we’ll see if they can keep that up.

Overall, this is a very hard matchup to predict. We don’t know which version of Jameis Winston we’ll see and we don’t know what version of the Saints defense we’ll see. There’s a world where Jameis stinks it up and the Saints play like they did a week ago and win by 14, but there’s also a world where Winston throws 300+ yards and three touchdowns and the Saints defense looks as lost as it did during the seven-game losing streak.

If I had to put money on it, I would lean towards the former. Rizzi has his guys excited to play, they’re at home, and I know these guys want to pick off Jameis. They all love him, but they know he’s turnover prone and it’s fun to get back at a former teammate. However, if you bet on that, don’t blame me if it doesn’t happen, because I truly have no idea how this game will go.

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