The Browns definitely missed Joe Haden yesterday. Dimitri Patterson gave Raiders receivers a bit too much room and they made some catches in front of him. That being said, the horror story that could have been written about the day the Browns were without Joe Haden wasn’t written because Patterson proved to be an adequate backup. You don’t expect a guy to come in and replace a first round talent like Joe Haden. You assume there will be a dropoff. The quality of the backup is measured by how much of a dropoff it appears to be. In this case, Dimitri Patterson did a fine job, I thought. That’s the way I felt about the whole defense yesterday.
They got gashed badly on the Raiders’ first drive. McFadden set the tone on the first play as he went for 24 yards. The Raiders moved methodically after that. Well, it helps to be methodical when you burn two timeouts on your opening drive, I guess. The Raiders finally capped the 88-yarder off with a McFadden running score and a seven point lead. That was really the only meaningful drive the Browns defense gave up all day. The Raiders scored on a kickoff return and a fake field goal following a fumble. Other than the one long drive to open the game, the Browns gave up a Janikowski field goal, but there is no shame in that. [Read more...]
