Tommy Rees regrets fourth-and-1 call, 'should have run the ball'

BEREA — Tommy Rees had the same reaction as many fans after Dillon Gabriel was sacked on fourth-and-1 against the Jets."I should have run the ball," Rees said Thursday.The Browns offense had positives in Rees' first game since taking over as play caller from coach Kevin Stefanski. It reached 20 points for the second time this season, receiver Jerry Jeudy had his best game of the year (six catches, 78 yards, touchdown) and the 23 first downs were a season high.Dawand Jones took latest season-ending injury hard but is trying to stay positiveIt wasn't good enough to overcome two kick return touchdowns by the Jets, and the Browns couldn't afford to waste the fourth-quarter scoring opportunity that ended with the Gabriel sack.The Browns, who fell to 2-7, trailed 24-17 with 10 minutes left and had the ball at the Jets 33-yard line. Rookie running back Quinshon Judkins was stuffed on third down, and Rees called a pass on fourth down, lining up Jeudy and Judkins (22 carries, 75 yards) wide in the backfield where a handoff was impossible.The Jets blitzed into Gabriel's face, and he was unable to escape to that side because left tackle Cam Robinson was driven backward. The pass was supposed to go to Jeudy, but he was covered and hadn't made his cut before the pressure arrived. Tight end David Njoku came open on the second level, but it was supposed to be a quick pass."Talk about a play call you want back, you start there," Rees said. "Had a lot of confidence in the call on third down that we'd pick up the first. Felt like we maybe lost a yard there. We made an aggressive play call. It didn't work out. They had a good call on defense, and we just didn't execute it."Those are ones as a play caller that you want to always put your guys in the right position. We were running it pretty good at that point on that drive, so certainly could have handled that differently and executed it differently. I'll learn from it and get better on it."Dillon Gabriel wants to pride himself on accuracy, eliminate bad missesThe Browns had converted a third-and-1 in the second quarter on a Judkins run with rookie defensive tackle Adin Huntington at fullback. In hindsight, Rees would've gone back to Huntington as a blocker for the fateful fourth-and-1 but didn't love that with the slightly longer distance needed for a first down."He's done such a great job for us in his role," Rees said. "We do have a lot of trust in him to get his job done."Left guard Joel Bitonio said Rees told the players he wished he would've called a run."Tommy is a straightforward guy. He's going to tell you how he feels, good, bad or indifferent, and tell you what he expects," Bitonio said. "When you have a leader that takes accountability, I feel like that's all you can really ask."The 20 points and 278 yards don't qualify as an offensive explosion, but they were progress.Bernie Kosar asks for love, support and prayers as wait for liver transplant continues"Some of the things we wanted to focus on, get Jerry going, get the ball to the perimeter … felt like there was progress there," said Rees, who had called plays at Notre Dame and Alabama but never in the NFL. "Felt like our guys had a really good week of prep, really disappointed in the result. Felt like we put our guys in a position to have success throughout the game, and then when you do that and you don't have success, you always look to why and what you can do during the week to help your players have that success."Some of the things that we wanted to emphasize, without going into too much detail, schematically we got done and we got to build off that and start winning some games."The Browns had to burn a timeout due to a substitution issue and later took a delay of game penalty, but Bitonio thought the operation was mostly "pretty smooth." He said moving the pocket and getting Gabriel in space was a good adjustment."Skill set, those plays to get outside the pocket allows us to get on the move, allows the line to block a little bit differently. There's a lot of benefits to those," Rees said.At 5-foot-11, Gabriel's height is a factor, as well, but Rees said that can be overblown."Brock Purdy has this quote, and he talks about like 60 percent of the passes you don't see it," Rees said of the 49ers quarterback. "And other tall quarterbacks have said the same thing. You're playing with big men out there and windows close fast. And he said you have to trust the look you're seeing."You have to anticipate, you're really throwing to spots versus different coverages, and that takes time. And I think Brock in the quote talks about how he's grown into that and the comfort in that and his confidence in that. So much of our stress right now with the young quarterbacks is, hey, when we get looks that we know we like this concept versus, we gotta trust in that, anticipate, let it go."Gabriel had a handful of ugly misses vs. the Jets and ranks 32nd of 33 qualifying quarterbacks with a 58.6 completion percentage."Evaluate it sometimes, hey, is there something mechanical or fundamental we want to correct? Is there something from an understanding during the week game plan that we want to correct?" Rees said. "Sometimes quarterbacks miss, sometimes rain or weather can affect it. So you try to boil each play down to its own individual play and then what caused this and then how can we correct that?"Look, I've had my fingers slip off a ball and you miss. If that's the case, great, we'll get the next one. If there's, hey, I wasn't quite sure on the coverage, then that's where we dig back in as coaches and talk through the reason of why we're doing things. And all those are really important."Rees said Gabriel consistently does a good job seeing the field and making decisions."He grades out where we want him," Rees said. "Dillon's prep and where he is mentally for a rookie is really well beyond. He's mature in that way and we want to make sure that those things that are happening during the week, we go ahead and execute them on Sundays."The members of the new play caller-quarterback combination feel they can build on a solid start."Want to and have to, honestly," Gabriel said. "Excited about the positives, efficiency, and always room for growth.""I think that rapport grows as you continue to call it for the whole offense," Rees said. "You start to build that relationship as the play caller and the offense, and the more swings you get at it, the closer that gets."The post Tommy Rees regrets fourth-and-1 call, 'should have run the ball' first appeared on BrownsZone with Scott Petrak.