Browns’ offensive snap counts, stats, and PFF notes: Week 13

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns' Week 13 game against the Los Angeles Chargers.

• There were a couple of impressive seam throws that DeShone Kizer made to his tight ends that were good NFL throws. Overall, though, this was right up there with his worst performances of the season, something which came to light all-the-more when you see Josh Gordon run past defenders, yet Kizer can’t time him up. Yet in the nightcap, I watch Russell Wilson float deep passes with ease to his receivers right in stride.
• Kizer could’ve made up for it with a gutsy win, but with under five minutes to go, he showed some more poor situational awareness. After a timeout, Kizer took the field again on 3rd-and-goal from the 15 yard line. Down 19-10, if nothing is there, he needs to know that a field goal is still a win at that point. He bought some time rolling to his left, but then just held on to the ball with no concern that a defender (Joey Bosa) might pursue him from behind.
• Then, on the first play of the two-minute warning, Kizer rolled left with a defender in hot pursuit. He clearly needed to just throw the ball away. Instead, he tried to do some head fake that failed, and was tackled in bounds. 37 seconds wasted. On the next play, he basically said ‘f it’ and just threw an interception over the middle.
• PFF liked what Kizer did when he wasn’t pressured, but he reverted back to bad habits when pressured. He was pressured on 13 of his 37 dropbacks (35.3 percent), and was 1-of-9 for 24 yards, 1 interception, and 3 sacks (0.0 QB rating).

• The Chargers came in with the league’s worst run defense, but Cleveland couldn’t get that area of their game going as a run defender often shot clean through a hole. That was particularly true for when Duke Johnson received his carries, including on a 4th-and-1 run in the first half that was stopped short.
• Johnson did have a couple of nice elusive plays, making something out of nothing. Per PFF, Johnson forced four total missed tackles in his nine touches.

• At least Hue Jackson got something right, and that was starting Josh Gordon and allowing him to have significant reps in his first game back. Gordon looked good in his first game back, and his effort was never questionable throughout the contest. He broke open on two deep balls, but was overthrown the first time and underthrown the other time.
• If there was one area I thought Gordon could improve on, it was the plays in which he was underthrown on a few comeback routes. Those are the type of things I think you can’t really practice — catching bad balls while you’re falling away from them — but expectations for who I consider to be an elite receiver are going to be heightened.
• Per PFF, Gordon (83.3 overall grade) had the ninth-best yards-per-pass-route-run this week (2.83). That was also the second-best wide receiver grade the Browns have had all season, and the second-most yards someone has had against the Chargers.
• This wasn’t a good game for Corey Coleman. I think you can argue that he dropped the pass before Kizer’s fumble, and a few plays before that, his first down holding penalty is what set Cleveland back. He finished the game with an empty stat sheet, as did Rashard Higgins and Ricardo Louis.

• After an early drop, David Njoku made some nice downfield grabs the rest of the game. He also had an athletic sideline catch that was out of bounds. Because of his potential, Njoku is one of those guys who I don’t mind the Browns force-feeding the ball too, even if there are some rookie growing pains.
• Per PFF, “Njoku (86.2 overall grade) played his best game as pro; his 3.73 yards-per-pass-route-run was third among all tight ends this week.”

• The Browns allowed 3 sacks and 6 quarterback hits, but half of that came from the blitzing nickelback, Desmond King. I wouldn’t say the Browns held Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram in check, but they generally did a good job minimizing their rush, although PFF says that Spencer Drango and Shon Coleman combined to allow 11 pressures.
• The guard play remained stable -- PFF says “Joel Bitonio and Kevin Zeitler allowed zero pressures in their 86 combined pass blocking snaps.”

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The Browns have four more games to go, and I just bought cheap tickets to watch the final two home games, in part due to wanting to see Josh Gordon in person (and hoping to be there for the first win).