Jameis Winston did his best with a one dimensional offense

It's now December and Cleveland Browns fans are experiencing something they haven't in two years: meaningless football down the stretch. While wins won't lead to anything and Cleveland is all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, it's still fun to watch a competitive game.

Fans got that on Monday night watching the Browns score a season-high 32 points in a loss to the Denver Broncos. While quarterback Jameis Winston threw for a season-high four touchdowns, he also threw three interceptions, two of which were returned for a touchdown.

Read more: Browns' playoff chances are non-existent ahead of last 5 games

A lot of the media and fans were quick to blame Winston, but this kind of performance was bound to happen when the run game was an utter failure.

Against Denver, the Browns ran for a total of 77 yards. That's tied for their third-lowest game total all year, making it the 9th game the team failed to reach the 100-yard mark for total rushing. They only ran it 23 times but to their defense, it wasn't working.

Their average yards per carry was an abysmal 3.3 yards which is half a yard lower than their 2024 seasonal average. It's tough sledding all season for Browns running backs as 71% of their yards have come after contact, and Monday was no different. This forced the Browns into obvious passing situations to where the team threw 58 times.

When an offense becomes one-dimensional like the Browns did on Monday night, it makes it harder to move the ball up the field. The defensive front can rush upfield without fear and defensive backs can drop back into coverage knowing they can focus purely on the route concepts and not someone running the football.

Despite this predictability, Jameis Winston set a franchise record of 497 passing yards. It is also worth noting his four touchdown passes were the most in a game by a Browns quarterback since Baker Mayfield did it back in Week 13 in the 2020 season.

NFL history shows with a high volume of pass attempts, comes bad quarterback play on average. When looking at performances of the top ten highest pass attempts in a game, Winston actually performed pretty well. These ten quarterbacks all threw at least 65 times but not a single one had more than two touchdowns.

Also, four of the ten threw for three interceptions in the game and half had a completion percentage below 57%. Winston completed 58 percent on a Broncos defense that only allowed over 250 yards twice before Cleveland came to town.

Now, this isn't to dismiss the mistakes by the QB. Throwing three interceptions and having two returned for touchdowns is backbreaking, but at the same time what were you expecting when you asked your signal caller to throw 58 times in a game? At the very least it was admirable Winston was still able to score four times and help Jerry Jeudy have a career day against his former team.

This week, they travel to Pittsburgh to face their division rival in the Steelers for the 2nd time this season. Cleveland hasn't swept Pittsburgh in a season since 1989 and hasn't won a regular season game in their rival's stadium since 2003. If Winston can lead the Browns to a victory on Sunday, that warrants forgiveness from the fans.