What happened to the Cleveland Browns 11th man on offense?

The Cleveland Browns had zero targets to extra receivers vs. Dallas

Despite the carnage inflicted on the hapless Dallas Cowboys last Sunday, the Cleveland Browns did most of it while getting very little from their 11th man on the field. Normally, KhaDarel Hodge is the Browns third wide receiver, but he pulled a hamstring in pre-game warmups.

In went Donovan Peoples-Jones, who was on the field for 44 percent of the offensive snaps, which was more than Kareem Hunt (35 percent). Baker Mayfield completed zero passes to him for zero yards and in fact, did not even target him a single time.

They still scored 49 points, so we really cannot be unhappy with our beloved Browns, but it is still a weird stat that they did not even target the third wide receiver. For other plays, the Browns used fullback Andy Janovich (32 percent of the offensive snaps) in lieu of an extra receiver. In this case,  Janovich went about his business and pancaked a few Cowboys which was great to see, so he was not under-utilized like Peoples-Jones.

However, the number of targets for fullback Janovich — zero.

Another 21 percent of the time, the 11th man would have been the second tight end, Stephen Carlson, and again zero targets.  Let’s add that up. On 97 percent of the plays, the 11th man on the field (i.e., the fifth-best skill position player) did not get a single pass target from the quarterback.  That is an astonishing stat.

What can this mean? One possibility is that the primary receivers were getting open so easily that the pass read progression never made it down to the less talented receivers. A second possibility is that coach Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt have really simplified the offense for Mayfield, so much so that they are telling him to not even look at the third wide receiver or the second tight end for now.

In any case,  we are not yet seeing the Mayfield of 2018, who was so good at quickly finding the open receiver and delivering the ball to him in split seconds. That was the speedy information processing that John Dorsey liked to talk about. Is it still there? Maybe it will take a few more weeks to get there with this new offense.

As far as extra wide receivers are concerned, what is to be made of the strange case of Rashard Higgins? He was a terrible receiver for DeShone Kizer because he could not get open enough for young Kizer to find him. Mayfield, on the other hand, would throw to a small spot on his shin or something, where only Higgins could catch it, and it seemed like Higgins would always come through with a big catch.

Higgins caught fire when Mayfield became the starter in 2018 and had 572 receiving yards that season. Then last year came a mild slump to 55 yards. That’s not 55 yards per game, that was for the entire 2019 season. Nevertheless, the Browns re-signed him, and he has been resting in Cleveland on the inactive list with one catch so far this season for nine yards in two games. What gives?

Similarly, David Njoku may be back this week, and although he is not known as a good blocker, he at least had 639 receiving yards with Mayfield. That has got to be better than zero catches, zero yards, and zero targets, which is what the Browns are getting from their 11th best player at the moment.

Again, it is impossible to be too critical of a team that has just scored 49 points, but nevertheless, lack of diversity is a  concern. If the offense is too predictable, a good defense like Indianapolis is going to take advantage of it and pick a few of those passes off. It’s all the more remarkable that the Browns were able to score all those points against Dallas while targeting only two wide receivers all game long. Is that because the extra receivers were not needed, or because the drop-off in talent was that large?

This Sunday we will have the opportunity to see if this trend continues, or if the Browns can diversify their attack a little bit. If they cannot, why not leave Andy Janovich on the field to pancake the opposition all game long?

That has to be better than having receivers on the field who are not being used as receivers.  At least, we can be sure that Janovich is making a contribution.