If you are a Cleveland Browns fan, you don’t really care how their offense gets yards or scores points; you just want both to happen. A 15-play, run-dominated march down the field or an 80-yard bomb for a score, yards are yards and points are points.
Now, those 40 years of age and older remember the last time the Browns had a great offense, and that involved a lot of rushing yards and controlling the clock. The young pass catchers, including two rookies in the 2026 NFL draft, mean Todd Monken’s offense could
be pass-happy, despite his history of running the ball a lot.
In Wednesday’s OTA practice, we saw a look at a designed quarterback run play that could create some interesting options for the Browns:
As Pete Smith of The OBR shared, the design of Counter Bash creates a very interesting dynamic where the quarterback has a decision to make (hand off or run himself), while two plays are basically being run at the same time:
With a lot of questions at the quarterback position, this type of misdirection with options could allow Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel, and Taylen Green to find yards and success in a creative way. While only Green is considered a strong runner, with the other three having a history as more scramblers than anything, these types of plays can help keep defenses off balance and create first downs and chunks of yardage without having to have a Lamar Jackson-type at quarterback.
In the end, all that matters is if the plays work or not. Does Cleveland’s offense get yards when Monken calls these kinds of plays, or do they at least set up successful plays later in the game? If the answers are yes, great. If not, all the creativity in the world isn’t very useful.
Do you think the Browns should use the QB run to open up the offense despite not having a strong running QB at the top of their depth chart? Do you think Watson and/or Sanders could be strong running threats, but haven’t been put in a position to do so?
Share your QB run thoughts in our comment section below
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