CLEVELAND — Following the Cleveland Browns' 45-7 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday, defensive end Myles Garrett issued an apparent indictment of his team's coaching staff.
"We've gotta go back to the drawing board and see how we can get better, see how we can scheme better, see how we can make adjustments on the fly," Garrett said. "We never had a chance just because we didn't make any adjustments on the sideline or when we had time to."
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski revealed that he had spoken to Garrett about the comments, but said that he wouldn't get into specifics regarding his conversation with the All-Pro defensive end.
"Any time you have a game like that, there's a lot of frustration," Stefanski said. "I have spoken to Myles about that. I'll keep that conversation between Myles and myself."
Asked if there was any validity to Garrett's comments, the reigning NFL Coach of the Year said: "You give up 45, you give up seven -- we didn't have a good enough plan, we didn't enough adjustments, we didn't play well enough. It's all of the above."
Garrett's comments followed a game in which the Browns scored on their first drive of the game to take a 7-0 lead, only to allow New England to score 45 straight points.
Of those 45 points, 38 were scored on drives that were engineered by Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones, with veteran backup Brian Hoyer throwing an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jakobi Meyers with 4:13 remaining in the game -- a drive that Cleveland's defensive starters were still playing on.
With the loss, the Browns fell to 5-5 on the season and now sit in last place of the AFC North. According to the advanced analytics website Five Thirty-Eight, Cleveland now possesses a 39 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 19 percent chance of winning its division.