What is the story about?
The Cleveland Browns’ offense sucked again. They mustered three field goals against a defense that was ranked near the bottom half of the league. Pittsburgh brought the heat early and often, and it worked. Cleveland has not proven they can do anything except run the ball lately, so the Steelers keyed in on that early. Then, when Dillon Gabriel would drop back to pass the ball, Pittsburgh decimated our tackles and got to the quarterback quickly. For whatever Gabriel was able to muster offensively,
mistakes and penalties prevented the drive from getting touchdowns.
Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 6 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Quarterback
- In the second start for Dillon Gabriel, he continued to look like a serviceable backup quarterback as opposed to a starter. I know it may seem harsh to pigeon hole someone into a role after two starts, and with how bad his supporting cast is, but it’s how I see him. Gabriel was under fire, being sacked six times on the day. He’s mobile, but not fast enough to escape pass rushers from behind. He zipped some nice passes into windows — some of which were completed, and some were dropped — but I still don’t get the sense that he defenses will worry about him getting the ball downfield. He also had some balls tipped, and had a few passes that were fortunate not to be intercepted. And then, when he was on the move and had a chance to hit Jerry Jeudy for a touchdown, he overthrew him in the end zone.
- If there’s one thing I’ll note, Gabriel looks better out of the hurry-up offense.
- People will harp on the 52 passing attempts, but I usually don’t get upset about the run-pass ratio when you look at context. It’s now like the Browns went out there and were running all over Pittsburgh and said, “You know what, we’re passing every play now.” No, they did it because they went hurry-up to try to see if they could quickly get down the field when down by 2 or 3 scores in the second half.
- Per PFF, Gabriel graded out to a 51.1 this week, a step back from last week.
Running Back
- The Browns could not get the run game going, as Pittsburgh seemed to load the box early and overpower Cleveland’s offensive line. Quinshon Judkins only played 40% of the snaps, with Jerome Ford having the same amount of snaps and Dylan Sampson taking the other 18%. A lot of that is attributable to Cleveland trying to go hurry-up.
- Sampson was the Browns’ highest-graded player on offense (68.0), and that’s just because he didn’t mess up in the few reps he had. Ford received a poor pass-blocking grade of 19.7 on 10 pass blocking reps.
Wide Receiver
- We saw a stretch of Jerry Jeudy making a few catches in a row, but at the beginning of the game, we also saw a sequence of him earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and then dropping a pass point blank. He also later alligator-armed a pass that was right to him for an incompletion. I would chalk this up to another negative day for Jeudy.
- I liked what I saw from Gage Larvadin, as he made two catches over the middle. On the first, he broke free of a tackle, but the play was blown dead due to forward progress being stopped. On the second, he took a big shot and was evaluated for a concussion. Isaiah Bond took a football off the helmet at the goal line, which has now become a popular clip to symbolize how things are going for Cleveland’s offense.
Tight End
- With David Njoku getting banged up a few times, Harold Fannin saw the most action at tight end. He led the Browns with 7 catches for 81 yards, but also had another downfield drop on one of Gabriel’s best passes of the game.
- Fannin was the Browns’ second-highest graded player on offense, grading out to a 67.2.
Offensive Line
- Ugh. Let’s focus on the pass blocking grades for the Browns. The guards did OK, but after that, it was brutal. KT Leverson graded out to a 23.9 by PFF, Jack Conklin graded to a 19.9, and Cam Robinson graded out to a 27.4. Ethan Pocic was graded at a 33.0. Remember, those are the pass-blocking grades exclusively.
- And then, all of the supporting cast, even in limited reps, were brutal in pass blocking too. Fannin, Njoku, Judkins, Blake Whiteheart, Ford, and Teven Jenkins were all very ready in their limited pass blocking reps. That means whenever Cleveland tried to offer help, the help failed.
- The Browns allowed 6 sacks and 16 quarterback hits.
- To compare, the Steelers allowed 0 sacks and 3 quarterback hits.
Do you find this article useful?
