The Sports Xchange

BEREA, Ohio — Head coach Mike Pettine has no plans to make another quarterback change before the Cleveland Browns head west to play the San Diego Chargers on Sunday.

Josh McCown, charged with the loss in the season opener even though the score was 0-0 when he was knocked out of the game with a concussion in the first quarter, passed for 341 yards in a 27-20 loss to the Oakland Raiders on Sept. 20.

McCown threw two touchdown passes but also fumbled (the Browns recovered) and threw an interception with 38 seconds left when the Browns were driving for the tying touchdown.

Johnny Manziel started at quarterback in the only game the Browns won this season, but Pettine said no thought was given to going back to Manziel to face the Chargers.

“I thought overall, (McCown) has showed what he’s capable of doing, and hopefully, he’ll only get better and learn from some of the situations that came up (against the Raiders),” Pettine said.

Pettine is more concerned with getting the defensive problems worked out. The Browns are last in the league in run defense after three games, allowing an average of 158.3 yards.

Cleveland finished the 2014 season last in run defense, allowing an average of 141.6 yards per game.

“It’s the missed tackles,” Pettine said. “There were 14 that we charted (from the Oakland game). We do a lot — how we play blocks and how we get to the ball, how we fly to the ball — we get guys in a position to make tackles at the point of attack, and when you miss them, that’s hard to handle.”

Running back Melvin Gordon leads the Chargers with 190 yards rushing on 44 carries, a 4.3-yard average. Danny Whitehead has the Chargers’ only two rushing touchdowns.

Stopping the run isn’t Pettine’s only headache. The Browns’ own ground game isn’t clicking despite getting center Alex Mack back from a broken leg that caused him to miss the final 11 games of 2014.

“Any time you lose, everyone has to do a better job,” left tackle Joe Thomas said. “It doesn’t do any good pointing fingers because we’re all in it together as an offense.

“When you don’t get the win and you don’t get the production you want, it’s everybody. It’s a team sport.”

The Browns rank 25th rushing with an 86.3-yard average. They have one rushing touchdown. Last year, they finished 17th in rushing and scored 17 rushing touchdowns.

“We are capable of executing that plan and we are not going to deviate from it or panic from it,” Pettine said. “We need to play better. We need to execute. If you want to look at the biggest reasons why we’ve lost two of three games, it’s because we didn’t run the ball well enough and we didn’t defend the run well enough.”

The Browns rushed the ball 30 times for 116 yards to beat the Tennessee Titans 28-14 in the only game they won. Johnny Manziel threw the ball only 15 times.

McCown threw 49 passes in the loss to Oakland. McCown and Manziel combined for 32 passes in the 31-10 loss to the New York Jets in the season opener.