CLEVELAND — The Browns have an identity crisis. It’s not that they don’t know who they are. It’s more that they know exactly who they are and refuse to accept it.
This is a team built to run the ball and throw off play-action. It’s an offense that thrives on heavy sets with multiple tight ends or extra linemen as blockers. It’s how the Browns have been designed since Kevin Stefanski took over in 2020. When they hold close to those principles, good things typically happen. They even demonstrated late last season they can pile up plenty of yards and points — and victories — playing that way.
It’s when they try to be something they’re not that they get exposed. It happened in that embarrassing opener against Dallas and it happened again in Sunday’s catastrophic 21-15 loss to the New York Giants.
The Giants have three good defensive players: defensive ends Kayvon Thibodeaux and Brian Burns and defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. That’s it. Yet the Browns lined up Sunday insisting on trying to throw deep down the field over and over behind an offensive line that has struggled with performance and injuries and with a quarterback who at his very best remains very shaky.
It ended exactly how you might think it would: with a quarterback under heavy duress, an offense that has failed to crack even 20 points in a game this season and a deflating loss that never should’ve happened.
None of it makes sense.
Brian Burns making his presence known 💪
📺: #NYGvsCLE on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/FQ0IExNguT— NFL (@NFL) September 22, 2024
I spent last week asking a handful of players about the victory at Jacksonville. The heavy packages, the emphasis on establishing the run early … it all looked very much like last year’s offense. NFL players don’t like revealing much strategy, but yes, it also felt to them like the offense Stefanski ran with great success last season.
There was nothing sexy about the execution or style, and if we’re being honest it wasn’t good enough to beat the best teams still to come on this schedule, but it was effective enough to win a conference game on the road.
So with Jed Wills making his debut at left tackle Sunday after a long recovery from surgery and only a few practices, with Dawand Jones clearly fighting a knee injury at right tackle, the Browns went away from everything that won that game against the Jaguars seven days prior and reverted to (waives hands frantically) this.
They handed off five times to running backs in the first half. They were dominated in time of possession. Their quarterback was under duress and the offense was again unable to create much momentum.
Deshaun Watson hasn’t played well this season, but it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the game he looked best was the game that most resembled the offense the Browns have typically run here the past four years. Whoever keeps pushing them to be something they aren’t is doing a disservice to this team.
The Browns need to start being really honest with themselves before it’s too late. Their receivers are slow (collectively among the slowest in the league), they struggle to get separation down the field and, outside of Amari Cooper, they struggle to make contested catches.
Unreal body control 👏 @AmariCooper9!
📺: #NYGvsCLE on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/7UfBmZynn4— NFL (@NFL) September 22, 2024
These are not the Miami Dolphins. They aren’t the Kansas City Chiefs or Cincinnati Bengals, either.
On passes thrown at least 20 yards down the field, Browns receivers have the slowest max route speed among any receiver group in the league, according to TruMedia and Next Gen Stats data. Their receivers’ max route speed, regardless of route depth, is the third-slowest of any receiver group. The Browns’ receivers rank 26th in the league at creating separation.
Perhaps most damning, NGS has created a stat called receptions above expected. It measures the difficulty of catches, and factors include throw distance, pass rush, defender proximity and receiver acceleration. It’s complicated, but the Carolina Panthers are the only receiver group worse than the Browns.
Watson might have enjoyed playing in a freelance system four years ago, but the Browns don’t have the skill set to play that way. And at no point has Watson resembled that quarterback.
No Nick Chubb and no David Njoku certainly hurts this offense, but they still managed to run the ball effectively last week against a good Jaguars front four and they should have been able to create opportunities against a Giants defense that smelled weakness and ferociously blitzed the Browns all afternoon.
Something within this organization seems to be preventing this offense from playing to its strengths. Not their perceived strengths, but what they’re actually, legitimately good at. I don’t know if it’s Watson or ownership or something/someone in between. But it seems evident there is some force at work within the Browns that refuses to let this team be what it actually is.
That isn’t to absolve Stefanski of blame in all of this. Leaving backup tackle Germain Ifedi inactive Sunday with how thin the Browns are on the edges seemed curious before the game and a full-blown disaster in the second half when Wills, James Hudson and Wyatt Teller all went down within a handful of snaps.
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Expecting Wills to hold up for an entire game seemed blindly optimistic and probably foolish given how little he has practiced. Jones has been hobbling all week with a knee injury and Stefanski acknowledged after the game he was physically limited Sunday. Jones rarely gets beat in pass protection the way he was beaten off the edge Sunday. The knee limiting him is the most obvious explanation.
So the decision to leave Ifedi inactive is hard to justify. He isn’t great, but he at least has tackle reps. The Browns played much of the second half with a line that never practiced one snap together: Joel Bitonio at left tackle, Ethan Pocic at left guard, Nick Harris at center, rookie Zak Zinter at right guard and Jones at right tackle.
Teller will probably miss at least a couple of weeks with his knee injury, so the scramble drill continues. Oddly, the makeshift line seemed to protect better than the original starters and Watson seemed more intent on getting the ball out quicker when his guard became his left tackle and his center became his left guard. All of the shuffling seemed to heighten the urgency for all involved.
Nevertheless, Watson has failed to throw for 200 yards in any game this season and he was sacked seven more times Sunday, bringing his season total to a league-leading 16. With the Sunday night and Monday games still to go, the Browns are tied with the Miami Dolphins for the league’s worst EPA (Expected Points Added) per play on offense and they lead the league in getting booed at home.
This was a bad loss against a bad team. Awful, terrible and unacceptable. Nobody hid from that after the game. The good news is both of their terrible, awful losses this year came against NFC opponents. Their lone win was against an AFC team that could help when we start looking at playoff standings.
For the playoff standings to eventually matter, the Browns need to start being honest with themselves. The offense is in a full-blown crisis right now. Both of their touchdown drives Sunday started in Giants territory. The rest of the day was spent changing flat tires.
Their opening drive at Jacksonville was 16 plays of surgical precision. The rest of the day was less scalpel and more rusty scissors and sewing thread, but acceptable enough to win.
I don’t know if they’ll have enough healthy bodies next week to run any sort of heavy sets or return to the tenets that have given the Browns their greatest success in recent years. The eventual return of Chubb and Njoku will help, but only if they lean into their real identity. We know what works here and what doesn’t. We know when this offense has looked functional and when it hasn’t.
When will the Browns study their reflection and accept who they really are?
(Photo of Deshaun Watson: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
