Myles Garrett’s Greatness — And the Cleveland Browns’ Futility — Are Each Summed Up With One Statistic
Myles Garrett chose to re-sign with the Cleveland Browns because he thought his team had a chance to be a winner. One statistic reflects how wrong that was.
You can dunk all you want on Cleveland Browns edge defender Myles Garrett after he signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension with $123.596 million guaranteed after insisting that he wanted out of Cleveland because he wanted to play with a winner. Fair game, but at the same time, it’s tough to bag on the guy when he put up a historic performance against the New England Patriots on Sunday, and was “rewarded” with a historic statement of futility as a result.
Garrett sacked Patriots second-year Patriots quarterback Drake Maye five times, which is his career high and a franchise record, and he totaled eight pressures in the game. It mattered in that when Maye was pressured on Sunday, he was obviously affected — but when he wasn’t pressured, he recorded the highest possible passer rating of 158.3 in a 32-13 Patriots win.
Overall, Maye completed 18 of 24 passes for 282 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 135.8. Garrett, on the other hand, became the first player in
The only other times in recorded NFL history in which one player had at least five sacks in a game and saw his team lose at all? It’s happened exactly three times.
- On October 2, 1983, Howie Long of the Los Angeles Raiders had five quarterback takedowns against the Washington Redskins, but the Raiders lost, 37-35, as Washington came back from a 35-20 fourth-quarter deficit.
- On November 16-, 1986, Leslie O’Neal of the San Diego Chargers had five sacks against the Dallas Cowboys, but Dallas engineered a comeback from a 21-10 fourth-quarter deficit.
- And, on November 11, 1991, Derrick Thomas of the Kansas City Chiefs set the NFL’s single-game record with seven sacks against the Seattle Seahawks, but the Chiefs lost, 17-16, because they couldn’t score a fourth-quarter touchdown, and the Seahawks could.
Those were all close games in which the result could have gone either way. This Patriots-Browns game was close in the first half — the score was 9-7 in the Patriots’ favor at the half — but then, everything capsized for the Browns as it tends to do. In this case, it was the utter futility of Cleveland’s offense, which was summed up pretty well by Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel.
Lightning win! But seriously - ugh, those refs looked like they were trying to hand us the loss. Glad the boys pushed through
There is no need to get too crazy in breaking down this game. The Tampa Bay Lightning found a way to win a game that, a week ago, they would have lost. Nikita Kucherov finished off a feed from Brandon Hagel in overtime to give them a 2-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights. For the first time this season they have back-to-back wins and a win away from leveling their record on the season.
With both teams having played tough games less than 24 hours prior, it could be forgiven if they looked a little off. Vegas, dealing with a host of injuries to key players, looked like an exhausted team as they mustered just eight shots on goal through the first forty minutes of play. Credit to the Lightning, who employed an 11/7 line-up for bottling up an offense that still featured Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner as they limited the Golden Knights to just four high-danger chances on nine scoring chances.
On the other end, the Lightning had 24 shots on goal, aided by almost nine minutes of power play time through the first two periods. Peppering rookie goaltender Carl Lindholm was a solid strategy, but while the youngster wasn’t Rob Thomas smooth in making the stops and left some loose pucks in the area, he was making the stops. At least most of them.
The one player on the Lightning roster that needed to put the puck in the back of the net more than any other was Brandon Hagel. He has hit posts, missed empty nets (and had defenders make outstanding kick saves on empty nets) and generally been bitten by a thousand snakes to begin the season. At some point he would snag his first goal of the year. That point was less than five minutes into the game.
Brandon Hagel (1) [Victor Hedman, Jake Guentzel] 1-0 Lightning
Kudos to Victor Hedman handcuffing Lindholm with the initial shot and then Hagel was able to get inside position as he cut through the middle of the crease in order to roof the puck into the back of the net.
If no good deed goes unrewarded, no mistake goes unpunished during the Lightning’s opening month of play. Late in the period, Nikita Kucherov is late to interrupt a breakout pass. That allowed Vegas to transition through the zone and Reilly Smith threw a bullet cross-ice to a streaking William Karlsson, who beat Andrei Vasilevskiy Rookie Dominic James wasn’t able to catch the man they call Wild Bill on the back-check and the game was tied.
William Karlsson [4] (Reilly Smith, Shea Theodore) 1-1
When teams are struggling, there are moments when an avid watcher can detect the plot being lost. For the Lightning faithful that point was late in the third period. A gorgeous passing play from Brayden Point to Kucherov that ended with the puck in the back of the net was erased from the record books (if not our memories) when it was determined that the play was off-side.
Shortly after that, Gage Goncalves was knocked to the ice with a violently legal hit by Brayden McNabb. Zemgus Girgensons rushed to his teammates honor, but was whistled for roughing when he was the lone combatant to remove his gloves. The Golden Knights went on the power play with 5:30 left in the game. Unlike an earlier power play in the period which was rather easily dispatched by the defense, Vegas generated chances.
Vasilevskiy, who to that point barely had to work harder than a random fan sitting in the stands, was on points as he made big stops on Pavel Dorofeyev and Karlsson. Jake Guentzel had a clever stick lift to disrupt a point-blank chance as well. The Lightning survived, and that moment of dread passed. They found a way to make it to overtime.
Securing one point against a team that had lost just once in regulation would have been, if not satisfying, at least a victory of sorts. Given the Lightning’s history in overtime this season (0-2) it still seemed to be a likely outcome. At least it was until Brandon Hagel, who had a phenomenal game, created a turnover in the Lightning zone to generate an odd-skater rush the other way.
He ran the give-and-go with Kucherov perfectly, and Jack Eichel showed why his youth coaches did not want him playing defense as he slid? rolled? in an attempt to break up the play. It didn’t work and the passing ended with the 1,000-point man scoring his third goal of the season.
Nikita Kucherov (3) [Brandon Hagel] 2-1 Lightning
The Lightning earned this victory. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it was a game where their effort level was better than their opponent. Had they not earned two points, it would still have been a good game (process over results) but the fact that they were rewarded for their effort could go a long way in their journey from the bottom of the standings.
With the two victories this weekend, some weight has been lifted off of their shoulders, but the road ahead isn’t lined with gum drops and orchids. A quick trip to Nashville is followed by a stretch of games where they take on Dallas (4-3-1), Utah (8-2-0), Colorado (5-1-4), and a rematch with Vegas (5-1-3). Those last three games are on the road.
Sunday’s win has to be the standard, not the exception, if the Lightning want to start thinking about the playoffs instead of the draft lottery at the end of the season.
