Cleveland Browns expanding use of wide receivers depth chart

WRs have been getting more play for Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns have getting better use out of their depth at wide receiver than in previous weeks, topped by three grabs by the number five wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones. Of course, the last catch of the day snuffed the life out of the courageous but outgunned Cincinnati Bengals. The Browns passing game has evolved week to week, as offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and head coach Kevin Stefanski have opened up the playbook as the season progresses.

Cleveland, of course, was installing a new offense this season with a new head coach in Kevin Stefanski and a new offensive coordinator in Alex Van Pelt. In the ugly opening game loss to Baltimore, the Browns started the season with Baker Mayfield staring down Odell Beckham, Jr. when he got in trouble, which happened a lot. Consequently, he targeted Beckham far too often. That had to be fixed.

After that bitter experience, the Browns emphasized a run-first offense, utilizing both Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt on the ground. The third wide receiver was usually KhaDarel Hodge and was often ignored as a receiving threat, and  instead was used as an extra blocker. Mayfield was given a very vanilla game plan, and the team relied on the run through the Dallas game. The numbers show that Mayfield didn’t throw the ball to the third wide receiver very often in these games.

Amazingly, in Week 4 versus Dallas, the Browns had zero targets for any wide receiver other than Jarvis Landry and OBJ. That might be some kind of record for post-1970s football. Of course, when your team is running for over 300 yards on the ground, how clever does your passing game really have to be? Both Hodge and Chubb were injured in that victory, however, and Kareem Hunt was not at 100 percent.

Consequently, the Browns started to rediscover the third wide receiver against Indianapolis, and Mayfield started targeting Hollywood Higgins, the nominal fourth best receiver on the team. The graph contained in the tweet shows the number of targets divided by snaps played in the game times 100; i.e., targets per 100 snaps. To clarify, in the first six games, OBJ is WR1 and Landry is WR2. WR3 actually is the sum of everyone else.  However, in the Cincinnati game, Landry became WR1 and Higgins WR2. Stats and game snaps were dowloaded from game charts from NFL.com.

Pittsburgh was a debacle, but one significant feature was that Higgins was on the field for 60 percent of the offensive snaps, and Donovan Peoples-Jones also took the field for a handful of snaps. The intention was to open up the passing section of the playbook a little more for Mayfield, though it did not work too well against the stout Pittsburgh defense.

Versus Cincinnati, of course, we saw a starring role for Peoples-Jones, the nominal fifth best receiver on the team (maybe sixth depending on where you place injured JoJo Natson), while Higgins had to take over the routes normally run by OBJ. Peoples-Jones was targeted three times, and had caught all three for 56 yards and the game winning touchdown.

Higgins was equaly unbelievable. He was targeted six times for six catches and 110 yards, an 18.3 yard per reception average. That’s pretty good for a fellow who was not good enough to play for former coach Kitchens. Well, maybe that is why he is a fomer coach.

Mayfield seems to be able to throw the ball into a very small window to Higgins, where only he can catch it, and he usually makes the catch. Mayfield seems to have chemistry with Higgins, knowing exactly where he will be at all times. In any case, the Browns were lights out using WR2, WR4 and WR5 on the nominal depth chart.

The Browns figure to throw the old depth chart away, and forgotten man Higgins may now be a starter alongside Landry. Hodge and Peoples-Jones will assume the role of deep threat, when the team is not running two tight ends or using fullback Andy Janovich. Cleveland has not brought their A game running attack since Chubb went down. Hunt has been playing hurt and league rules forbid playing the Dallas Cowboys every week.

That means that they will continue to use frequent multiple wide receiver sets against the Raiders.