The new Browns' regime probably didn't learn much from the Green Bay Packers that they didn't already know. You beat the Pittsburgh Steelers by throwing on them.
DALLAS -- The Browns have been banging their heads for years on how to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, their biggest rivals.
Then you see an unfamiliar foe like the Green Bay Packers handle the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV and you say, "Throw on them. Of course. What a concept."
That's the simplistic lesson from Green Bay's close but convincing 31-25 destruction of the Steelers' vaunted defense Sunday night in Cowboys Stadium.
The Packers, who never trailed, controlled the game from beginning to end by spreading the Pittsburgh defense across the field with mostly four-receiver alignments. The object was to weaken the Steelers' front defensive seven. Force them to remove quality starters with backup defensive backs to cover the pass.
It's not brain surgery and it's not a function of the larger-than-life West Coast offensive system the Packers have perfected and the Browns hope to employ. The Browns used this offensive strategy in the 2002 season playoff game.
The Steelers' defense was not as strong back then as the current edition, but their scheme hasn't really changed much. The Browns racked up a lot of yards and points in that playoff game with Kelly Holcomb at quarterback distributing the ball aggressively.
Since then, various Browns coaches generally have genuflected to the Steelers and tried to timidly possess the ball by handing off and throwing safe, but wholly ineffective, passes. The "keep the game close" gameplan then called for the special teams to pull off some game-changing play to put the Browns over the top.
It's been successful about once every 15 games.
The Packers don't worry about special teams or "establishing the run." They don't want to be horrible in either discipline, but their gameplan centers around one thing -- controlling the game with their quarterback. Had they held a safe enough lead in the fourth quarter, they may have iced it on the ground. That's the way they use the NFL-ancient notion of running the ball on the Steelers.
"A huge part of our gameplan was really putting the ball in Aaron Rodgers' hands," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said the day after his team humbled the Steelers. "He did a great job at the line of scrimmage. A majority of our plays were run and pass options. We were really feeding off of how they were going to play our personnel groups, and Aaron's discipline, ability to throw the ball away when it wasn't there, didn't take any chances, just gave me the ability to be aggressive as a play-caller."
In the Packers locker room after the game, receiver Greg Jennings put the gameplan against the Steelers more succinctly.
"Put them in vulnerable positions, make them a little uncomfortable. We were able to expose them," he said.
Here's a few other things we learned from Super Bowl XLV:
* Rodgers has a rare combination of skills that can't be found in every quarterback.
"I think he has the best set of skills in the league, as far as his pinpoint accuracy, his athletic ability," McCarthy said.
Rodgers completed 24 of 39 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns. That 61.5 percent completion mark rises to 74 percent if five of his catchable passes were not dropped. His yardage also would have approached 400 yards without the drops.
The accuracy of his throws is not totally reflected in the numbers. Except for a little wildness early in the game, the vast majority of Rodgers' passes were placed exactly where they needed to be.
Frankly, Rodgers made a high number of throws that Colt McCoy may only dream of making. Rodgers' amazing strength and accuracy combination serves him well in chilly Green Bay. They are accentuated in a dome -- where Super Bowls often are held.
* The Packers' starting offensive tackles, Chad Clifton and rookie Bryan Bulaga, effectively took Pittsburgh rush linebackers James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley out of the game by themselves. That enabled Rodgers to work on safety Troy Polamalu and take the 2010 defensive player of the year out of his element.
"You've got to be aware of where he's at at all times," Rodgers said Monday. "But he has to respect where my eyes are looking. It was important to me to use good eye control and not stare anybody down because he can cover a lot of ground quickly. And when he was down in the box, make sure he was picked up. Sometimes when he came on blitzes, we adjusted protection. And when he was high at deep safety, I had to make sure just to do it with my eyes."
* The elite quarterbacks make the receivers. It's not the other way around.
Neither team had a receiver on the roster drafted in the first round. Rodgers made a star out of Jordy Nelson, a second-round pick in 2008, who had nine catches for 140 yards and one touchdown. Next-best was James Jones, a third-round pick in 2007. After him was the team's best receiver, Greg Jennings, a second rounder in 2006.
* Both teams were built by shrewd drafting and not by free agency. But that doesn't preclude them from looking outside their organization for help.
McCarthy called defensive coordinator Dom Capers "one of our biggest free-agent transactions."
"We get beat up so much about not acquiring anybody, but Dom has done a tremendous job," McCarthy said.