Browns’ offensive snap counts, stats, and PFF notes: Week 17

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 17 game against the Baltimore Ravens.

• In Baker Mayfield’s final game of the season, he was able to reach 27 touchdown passes on the season, breaking the record set by Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson for the most thrown by a rookie. Mayfield did it without starting every game, no less.
• In terms of performance, Mayfield was not as sharp as he has been this season when blitzed by the Ravens. Per PFF, Mayfield was “9-of-23 with one touchdown, three interceptions, and a 31.3 rating when blitzed” against Baltimore. At the end of the game, none of his four pass attempts could hit receivers for completions to get into field goal range. Still, it was a heck of a performance overall by Mayfield, who shows no hesitation about responding quickly to a score by the opposition.

• Nick Chubb’s final carry of the season came with 6:42 left in the fourth quarter, when he was hit for a loss of 5 yards, taking him back under the 1,000-yard rushing mark to finish the season with 996 yards. It was Chubb’s lowest output since becoming a starter. I wouldn’t say he did anything wrong; sometimes the flow of the game just doesn’t end up dictating the ground game like one would hope. Cleveland had a different vision entering the game: Chubb got the first two carries of the game, and they went for 6 and 13 yards, respectively.
• With the team being behind, Duke Johnson out-snapped Chubb for the first time since the Carlos Hyde trade, if I’m not mistaken. Despite that, Johnson only had 1 catch for 3 yards. In two games against the Ravens this year, Johnson had 2 catches for 10 yards.

• Jarvis Landry had an unfortunate play in which he missed out on a 93-yard touchdown pass, thanks to the ball bouncing off his helmet before it could drop into his arms. Also, on the final drive, Baker Mayfield threw a pass while under pressure to the outside. I could see what Landry was trying to do — he wanted to one hand touch the ball, and then use the plowing defender’s momentum to corral the ball in, just as he’s done a couple other times this season. It just didn’t work out.
• Antonio Callaway has become quite the red zone threat, eh? He finished the season with a team-high five touchdown receptions. I do think that he didn’t come back to the ball well enough on Mayfield’s first interception, but Callaway responded after that with some nice catches. Callaway was the second-highest graded offensive player by PFF with a grade of 79.5.
• Rashard Higgins and Breshad Perriman also did great work. When you look at the performance of the Browns’ top four receivers, you almost think to yourself, “isn’t this group good enough for 2019?” Perriman was the highest-graded offensive player (80.1) by PFF and made several more impressive catches, this time against his former team.

• It may have taken longer than I expected, but it was nice to see more athletic catches by David Njoku as the season went along. It helps that Baker Mayfield would put it up in the right spot for him. I still feel Njoku needs work on plays with tighter man coverage, such as a quick slant — a play he wasn’t able to win on at the end of the game. PFF graded Njoku as the team’s third-highest offensive player on Sunday (75.3).

• Despite all of the Ravens’ blitzes, the Browns allowed no sacks and just two quarterback hits all game. Mayfield was sacked 22 times in his first 7 games. In his final 7 games, he was sacked a total of 3 times.
• Per PFF, “Guards Kevin Zeitler and Joel Bitonio allowed one combined pressure against the Ravens, finishing the year with PFF’s best and second-best pass-blocking grades among qualifying guards (91.7 and 88.1).”