Cleveland Browns two-tight-end formation underperforming
The Cleveland Browns love the two-tight-end base offense, but it hasn’t exactly been lighting it up.
Although the base formation of the Kevin Stefanski-Alex Van Pelt offense uses two tight ends, two wide receivers, one running back, so far the Cleveland Browns have not had the performances from the tight ends to justify such extensive use of the tight ends.
To be blunt, the Browns’ tight ends have underperformed more than any other players on offense.
Cleveland either needs to light a fire under Austin Hooper, David Njoku and Harrison Bryant, who they refer to as their three first-string-caliber tight ends, or they should scale back their utilization of the multiple tight end sets.
Austin Hooper was the highest-paid tight end in football at the time he signed with the Browns (since superseded by George Kittle, Travis Kelce, Hunter Henry, and Jonnu Smith, according to OverTheCap), but for whatever reason, his performance was only average. There may have been injury-related reasons, or perhaps fixable scheme-related reasons, and maybe he can come back to the All-Pro form he had in Atlanta.
But if he turns in another season like 2020, he is only an average tight end. He would be good enough to start for the Bengals in the AFC North, but would he start for the Ravens or Steelers?
David Njoku made great improvement in his blocking the past two seasons but cannot stay healthy. If he can return to the receiving form that he showed in 2018, when he had 639 receiving yards, he would be awesome. But he was not at the same level as a receiver last season. Do you see a reason to build an offense around Njoku and Hooper on the field at the same time? Why isn’t one tight end enough?
The narrative of Harrison Bryant was that the Browns were not really looking for a tight end in the 2020 draft, but there was Bryant in Round 4, and the Browns had to take him because they regarded him as a superior talent.
Cleveland claims they see him as a first string tight end, giving them three on the same team, but he has not come close to that level so far with only 238 receiving yards despite being on the field for over half of the Browns’ offensive snaps. As a blocker, he was not as good as Njoku or Hooper, either. Stephen Carlson might have been better, for that matter.
These are the Browns’ three “first string” tight ends. No one put up numbers that would make you believe they had above-average NFL talent, although Hooper and Njoku have done it in the recent past.
The 2020 Browns, for all of their talent, were scarcely above average last season in points scored last season, and one of the main reasons is that they only had a few hundred receiving yards from each tight end position, yet they were a featured part of the office.
Numbers say that the Browns scored only 25.5 points per game last season, or 0.7 points more than the league average of 24.8 points per game. It’s not that the Browns were terrible, but we are not exactly ready to get the hype machine out, either.
Are the other writers raving about the performances of the tight ends and I just have not caught on yet? Is anyone out there feeling that kind of vibe? In the meantime, the next page is a deep dive on what the numbers say, along with a few side comments about wide receivers who might deserve to be on the field.