Did Cleveland Browns fans miss one hand catches (drops)?

Was winning exciting enough for Cleveland Browns fans, or did you mass the iconic one-handed catch attempts, which were usually dropped? 

Cleveland Browns fans did not have the usual complement of heartbreaking fourth-down dropped passes by its exciting star receiver — the guy with the $14.5 million salary who couldn’t wait to leave the team.

Were you bored and are you unhappy, or was scoring 41 points enough to soothe your hurt feelings and misgivings about the loss of stylishness on offense?

You saw Donovan Peoples-Jones haul in a bomb from Baker Mayfield was standing on about his own 30 and hit DPJ on the Bengal 15, meaning the ball traveled 55 yards in the air, which is very respectable. The Browns superstar, like many fans, was unhappy with the quality of the passes from Mayfield. Looked okay to this observer.

However, the kid used two hands. Does that cheapen the thrill for you? Wouldn’t it have been very exciting to see a true star attempt to make a one-handed catch of that ball? Of course, it would have been dropped, however.

Mayfield, by the way, is the quarterback who has thrown the longest pass since Next Gen Stats has been recording the distance of thrown passes in 2016. His pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones versus Arizona traveled 66.4 yards in the air. By the way, Pro Football Focus says that a 2020 Mayfield incomplete pass of over 70 yards in the air was the longest incomplete pass they have ever charted.

We cannot explain how a quarterback with a weak arm manages to throw the ball farther than any other quarterback so far. This is not saying that Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Justin Herbert won’t set a new record someday. But if 66.4 yards is good enough for Peoples-Jones, perhaps it should be good enough for supposedly more glamorous wide receivers.

The iconic one-handed catch was made in 2015 on Monday night football on a game between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. And in that game, for reference, the player making the catch heard around the world was part of a losing effort that night.

Peoples-Jones made his catches with two hands rather than one hand. And helped get the W.

For the year, Peoples-Jones’ has 15 grabs in 18 targets for 83.3% catch percentage, 314 yards, 20.9 yards per catch, or 17.4 yards per target.

By contrast, our superstar had 17 catches in 34 targets for a substandard 50% catch percentage; 232 yards and 13.6 yards per catch, 6.9 yards per target. This says that throwing the ball to Peoples-Jones is a 253% better investment in terms of yards per attempt, plus it is much more likely that Peoples-Jones is going to catch the ball. There’s no question that Peoples-Jones is a better receiver for the Browns.

After Peoples-Jones, there was a substantial drop-off in terms of receiving stats. Running back Nick Chubb and tight end Harrison Bryant turned in identical receiving stats with two receptions in two targets apiece for a total of 26 receiving yards for each player.

Jarvis Landry is still Jarvis Landy, and he actually led the Browns with five targets and three receptions, but only 11 yards. Don’t look for him to complain like his good friend and former teammate at LSU. Landry had a bad game versus Pittsburgh, but rather than blame others, he accepted full responsibility for a fumble and not coming up with a reception that he could have made near the goal line. Landry will work it out.

Chubb didn’t even take to the air to get his yards. He knocked out a 70-yard running touchdown among his 14 carries for 137 yards, or 9.79 yards per carry. The Browns coaching staff decided to allow D’Ernest Johnson to have some carries as well. He had a false start penalty, indicating he probably needed the work to calm down.

The truth is, changing quarterbacks or changing teams is not going to help the superstar wide receiver. What really killed the relationship between the superstar and quarterback was the lack of reps on routine passes.

They didn’t get it done during the offseason because of the need to recover from knee surgery. As outsiders, it is hard to know for certain, but we get the feeling that he just wants to work on spectacular plays and he just has a disdain for fundamentals.

In a recent DPD article, he was referred to as a high-class Sammy Coates, and that is probably an apt descriptor. He likes going deep but is less enthusiastic about getting tough yards in the middle of the field.

Surprise, surprise, when the team needed a short-yardage pass play, it did not seem to be there. The result is an exciting “almost caught” bobble and drop. Botching these plays, especially on critical fourth down plays, caused Mayfield to lose confidence in the player’s receiving ability. It’s a results-oriented business.

Almost every game had a play that was either an outright drop or a play that an All-Pro receiver could have made. Put it this way, the team came to have very high confidence that the player was going to drop easy passes and fail in clutch situations.

A new team won’t change that unless the player is willing to recommit to fundamentals, which is seriously doubtful, based on what we have observed about his Cleveland tenure.

In the meantime, this team has a new deep threat in Donovan Peoples-Jones, who does everything that the superstar was supposed to do, except better. He is going to start with Jarvis Landry, who is still the most reliable receiver on the team. Look for two tight end formations, as David Njoku, Austin Hooper, and Harrison Bryant are all improved over 2020.