Vikings vs Browns Game Preview: Dillon Gabriel Gets the Start at QB | NFL Week 5

Vikings vs Browns Game Preview: Dillon Gabriel Gets the Start at QB | NFL Week 5

A new era begins for Cleveland on Sunday with rookie Dylan Gabriel set to make his debut as the Browns starting quarterback against the Vikings in London. Gabriel will become the 41st QB since 1999 to start at least one game for the Browns, replacing veteran Joe Flacco after a one and three start. Here’s Browns head coach Kevin Stfansky on why now was the right time to give the rookie the keys to the offense. Yeah, I I think the big thing for me is we need to all be better, Daniel. We need to coach better. We need to uh block better, catch better, run better, all the above. We need to be better. Um and I know the quarterback position gets quite a bit of scrutiny. I understand that. But uh this is uh this is about our entire team playing better. there is a lot of excitement, but with that excitement for me, it’s just extreme focus, you know, and I’ve been through weeks of prep and a bunch of them, you know, if you go back, but um you just continue to attack it with your process and how you want to uh accomplish that, but I think it’s us coming together, like I said. Um not to be, you know, cliche or keep saying the same thing, but you know, we we have to come together and create momentum for each other so that uh we can create positive plays, put points on the board, and just take it one play at a time. We now welcome in our NFL analysts, Emory Hunt, and Tyler Sullivan. Guys, I think we knew coming into the season the Browns would move on from Joe Flacco at some point this season, right? But Tyler, starting with you, are you surprised they moved on from Flaco now? And how do you think Gabriel fares in his NFL start in London of all places? Yeah, not necessarily surprised that they’ve turned away from Joe Flacco after seeing what Joe Flacco is at this stage of his career after a first month. I mean, you look at some of those numbers in terms of completion percentage, passer rating, turnovers, and all of that. Yeah, you have to credit your football team. You have to show your football team that that is not the standard. Especially when you have a defense playing as well as it is, they’re kind of playing with one hand tie behind their back when they have a quarterback that isn’t up to snuff. And if Joe Flacco is going to produce the way that he was producing, you might as well see what the young kids have and give your team a puncher chance on a week in and week out basis. And now saying that, this spot for Dylan Gabriel in particular, and we do this all the time whenever there’s a young rookie quarterback. All right, what are the pockets in the schedule? What are the windows where it would make sense? London against Brian Flores and the Minnesota Vikings defense. That to me doesn’t feel like the softest landing spot for Dylan Gabriel to make his NFL debut. In fact, there has been no quarterback in NFL history to make his NFL debut outside of the United States. So, another variable that he has to deal with playing in London, as you said, of all places. So, it’s not necessarily the softest spot, but it makes sense why Kevin Stfanski is making the move now. It would have made sense in week one. We said this during the preseason where if you look at how Shador Sanders and Dylan Gabriel played in the preseason, they were giving you at least Kenny Picket level play. And if that was the case, then why not just start one of the rookies? And so cuz what you did was just waste four games getting pitiful offense from Joe Flacco when you could have gotten growth from Dylan Gabriel or Shador Sanders. So it felt like you handicapped the team right out of the gate. And so now you’re going to start this guy against that defense in an adverse situation and he’s going to have to try to make do. It wouldn’t surprise me if it doesn’t look pretty, but that would have been fine for week one, but now you’re trying to salvage your season and you put him in a bad spot. So I’m glad he made the move to the youth movement because this is a very solid team that could have gotten growth every game from a rookie quarterback starting. But now you kind of put everyone behind the eightball because he’s going to go out there and get his first start against arguably one of the best defensive coordinators in the game against a pressure style defense that’s just like Cleveland. But maybe that’s a silver lining. He’s played against a good defense all throughout his time in with the Browns. So maybe he may be more apt to get the hit the ground running against Minnesota. So if the Browns do want to pull out this win, Emory, who do you think has to make the biggest impact? Is it Gabriel? Yes. Yeah. And the reason why you go with a guy like Dylan Gabriel is because he gives you at least a chance athletically. Flaco at 40 is not there anymore and probably never was in terms of his athleticism. So at least with Dylan Gabriel, you get a guy that can get the ball out of his hands quickly, that can scramble around to buy time to find guys down the field. He’s a point andoot passer, kind of a point guard in that sense, but we know he does have a quick twitch uh fiber in his in his in his lower half in terms of him getting outside and and being able to open up your playbook in terms of the sprint out passing game, the zone read, which was phenomenal to watch Joe Flacco run this zone read cuz who’s biting on Joe Flacco? Of course, they’re going to smash the run at the at the play side cuz who worried about Joe Flacco getting outside the back door and scrambling for yards? Now, you have to worry about that at least with Dylan Gabriel. And again, the way he can operate the short quick game that gives your chance to stay on pace offensively, which gives your defense a chance to rest a little bit and maybe you may be able to play better complimentary football as a result. Yeah, Gabriel’s certainly an X- factor here, of course, just given by the position that he plays, but the Cleveland Browns need to do everything in their power to kind of ease him into this. We were just talking about how tough of a spot it is, but one way that they could help him kind of get his feet wet, at least for the first couple of snaps, first couple of series in his first NFL start is to get the ground game going. So to me, it’s Quinn Sean Junkkins who’s kind of the impact player here. And I actually think that this could be a good spot for him in this game to really kind of continue what what this is in terms of an ascent for the young rookie running back. You look at the last few games for the Minnesota Vikings. Just go back last week in Dublin. Kennwell 99 yards in two touchdowns. Go to week two. Bean Robinson 143 yards rushing. Heck, look at Tyler Alier at 76 yards in a touchdown. DeAndre Swift even kind of crossed a serviceable number of 53 yards rushing. And I think that Quinchon Junkkins right now is an ascending young player. And if all of a sudden he starts to get into a rhythm, the Browns run running game is starting to become a factor in this game, that’s only going to ease the pressure off of someone like Dylan Gabriel to not put the entire offense on his shoulders and try to go throw forth throw with the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first QB RB duo, rookie duo that is. We saw that with Scataboo and Dart last week with the Giants as well. Now, the Vikings, on the other hand, continue their European tour after losing to the Steelers in Dublin last week. Carson Wentz though has been a pleasant surprise stepping in for the injured JJ McCarthy. Over 500 yardds passing, four Tutties, two picks, but the offense is moving. JP, how hopeful or Tyler rather, how hopeful are you that Minnesota can make it work with Wentz moving forward? Yeah, I think they can for the moment now of of course that the whole point of this is for JJ McCarthy to get fully healthy. They’re going to go into a buy next week after being in London in London and in Dublin. So, they’re going to have some extended time here to have their young quarterback get fully healthy. But certainly, it’s nice that you’re at least able to kind of tread water a little bit offensively with Carson Wentz under center. But, you know, we talked about this with Sam Donald as well. It’s hard not to tread water when you’re in this type of an offense with Kevin O’Connell at the helm. You have all of those skill position players. Jordan Addison coming back from his suspension last week. So overall, this is a really nice offense outside of the quarterback position. And if you just get capable play from Carson Wentz combined with that defense on that side of the ball with Brian Flores and all of those dudes, you’re going to be competitive in football games. Don’t let big tackle propaganda fool you guys. Everyone wants to talk about left tackle, right tackle. It’s really guard center guard play that is paramount for a quarterback to have success. Which is why I look at Jaylen Redmond of the Minnesota Vikings being the impact player that’s going to have his way with this offensive line on the inside because we saw him have two sacks last week against Pittsburgh, but this is someone that’s starting to gradually get it together and look like a superstar for this Vikings defense. He starred in the NFL over the spring, so he’s now compounding that success with NFL success. And if you have a short quarterback, the best friend to them would be an advantageous lane to step up into the pocket, find a passing window, get rid of the football. But when you have a Javon Hargrave, when you have a Jonathan Allen, and when you now have a Jaylen Rman, man, that’s kind of tough for a guy at Dylan Gabriel’s height and stature to try to find some way around. So now he’s going to try to escape out the side door. And what happens when you run up against a Jonathan Granard who’s on the edge or Dallas Turner that’s on the edge even without Andrew Van Ginko? It makes the front seven a difficult challenge for this particular quarterback in this particular offensive line in this particular matchup. Yeah, Tyler, who do you think has to step up for Minnesota to get a win this week? Yeah, I think as Jonathan Granada jives with Emory was saying in terms of this Minnesota Vikings defensive front is lethal. They apply so much pressure to the quarterback. They blitz at an extremely high rate. Routinely under Flores, they’re like top five, top two in the NFL in terms of blitz rate. And that is just going to be so tough for this young quarterback to really try to withstand. And Jonathan Gard is one of the key guys on this defense. You talk about someone who’s 15th, top 15 in the NFL in total pressures. I think that this is someone in particular along with the entire defensive front that could really be the impact of this game because if things go ary for Dylan Gabriel early, this is the type of defense that’ll make you start seeing ghosts. Now, fun fact, Minnesota is 4-1 in overseas games. The Browns have only played outside of the states once, 2017, losing to the Vikings. So, fellas, let’s get some predictions here. You taking the Vikings or Browns in this one. Starting with you, Emory. Taking the Vikings where Den Gabriel has success and where he had some success in the preseason is a short quick pass. Guess what Minnesota is going to do? Put those cornerbacks up on the line of scrimmage, force him to make throws at the intermediate to deeper levels down the field. And they have some guys on the back end that could take the ball away. So, that’s going to get him to hold the football. And we just spoke about this defensive line trying to corral him around uh that pocket and kind of collapse the pocket around him. I think this is a bad defensive matchup for this particular quarterback. And I like the Vikings to win this ball game. So I will lay the points even though their offensive line is beat up. I still trust them to do enough to come away with the win. Yeah, I cosign with that. I I don’t love it because of what you just said, Emory. The Vikings offensive line is pretty banged up, but I just look at what the Minnesota Vikings defense is able to do against a rookie quarterback making his first NFL start. that just feels like a recipe for things to kind of get out of sync pretty early and pretty fast for the Cleveland Browns offense. And I think that the Vikings offense, even with a depleted offensive line, has the acumen, has the skill at the skill position weapons to kind of put up points. I don’t know if I feel the same way about the Cleveland Browns. So, I’ll lay the points here. will take the Vikings to win. But it wouldn’t shock me if that Cleveland defense surprises us yet again like they did against Green Bay. Emory Hunt, Tyler Sullivan. Always a pleasure to get your insight, fellas. And we’ve got a great slate of matchups coming your way this Sunday. Bo Nicks and the Broncos travel to Philly to face Jaylen Herz and the undefeated Eagles at 1 Eastern. Then at 4:05 Eastern, a battle of two one loss squads as Baker Mayfield leads Tampa to Seattle to face Sam Darnold and the Seahawks only on CBS and Paramount Plus. Wasn’t too long ago Dylan Gabriel was playing in the Big 10. And speaking of the undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes sure look poised to repeat, but who are going to have to reverse a decadesl long trend for that to happen? We’ll talk about it next.

Tyler Sullivan and Emory joins CBS Sports HQ to preview Vikings-Browns in Week 5.

[00:00:00] – Browns turn to Dillon Gabriel at Quarterback
[00:04:05] – Browns impact player to watch
[00:06:25] – Vikings European tour continues
[00:07:45] – Vikings impact player to watch
[00:09:43] – Predictions

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL:
https://www.youtube.com/user/CBSSports

WATCH
CBS Sports HQ: https://www.cbssports.com/live/
Paramount Plus: https://www.paramountplus.com

FOLLOW US ON:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CBSSports/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cbssports/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/CBSSports

#nfl #preview #browns #vikings #cleveland #minnesota