3 Cleveland Browns who shined on offense in loss to Buffalo

2. Jacoby Brissett set season highs

Once again, Jacoby Brissett was outstanding at the beginning of the game, but as things progressed, his performance leveled off. Relatively speaking, Brissett shined compared to his teammates, but angry fans might be justified in complaining that his teammates were lackluster rather than Brissett really playing an excellent game overall.

Ultimately, he finished with a season-high 324 yards passing on 28-of-41, with no INTs and three TDs. His passer rating was 116.3. He added 29 hard-fought rushing yards on 7 carries. Normally that should be good enough to win.

Much of his work was under duress, as the offensive line was banged up. Ethan Pocic had to come out with a knee injury, and Jack Conklin was hobbled by a foot injury. Wyatt Teller seemed to be not at full speed with a calf injury that has kept him out of games recently.

Though Buffalo doesn’t have the size of the Miami Dolphins who the Browns faced last week, they are very quick and swarm to the ball. Hence, Brissett had to throw on the run all game long. With better protection, his numbers could have been even better.

Brissett benefitted from the extra attention paid to the running game. With Nick Chubb at running back, Brissett and the Browns can pretty much count on facing eight in the box most of the time, meaning that the wide receivers will face man-to-man coverage.

He hurt the Bills but didn’t plunge the dagger, and they came back to life as the game went on and eventually took control.

Brissett, lest we forget, is the backup for superstar-in-residence Deshaun Watson, and his job is not necessarily to come up with 400 yards passing every week. If he manages the game, limits turnovers, and gets the ball to Chubb, then the theory is that Joe Woods’ defense is supposed to limit the opposition to under 20 points and the Browns are supposed to be competitive. That hasn’t happened recently.

Looking at it that way, Brissett is doing his job. Not everything is the quarterback’s fault. There are plenty of disasters elsewhere on the team but the quarterback has been everything you could hope for from a backup, short of Kurt Warner.

This team is just weaker overall than we thought. We ought not to hang that on the quarterback. Similarly, Nick Chubb is still the star of the Cleveland Browns, even if it did not appear so the past two weeks.