Browns’ offensive snap counts, stats, and notes: Week 7

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 7 game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

• You’ve heard the stats everywhere by now, but Baker Mayfield started the game 0-of-5 and 1 INT in the 1st quarter, only to go 22-of-23 for 297 yards and 5 TD over the final three quarters. That included 21 straight completions, a new franchise record, before he had to spike the ball prior to the touchdown pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones. It was truly a historic game we witnessed.
• ESPN’s Next Gen Stats excluded the spike. Given the compounding of conversion probability on each throw, there was only a 1-in-19,062 odds of Mayfield completing 22 consecutive passes. And with how the defense played, Mayfield literally needed every one of those completions to pull off a win for Cleveland. This is also Mayfield’s first clutch fourth quarter performance in his career.

• Per Pro Football Focus, Mayfield was the Browns’ highest-graded offensive player with a grade of 91.2. Two more Browns players — Rashard Higgins (90.8) and Harrison Bryant (90.4) — also received very high scores for the offense.

• Kareem Hunt dominated the running back touches, turning in another solid performance as we await the return of Nick Chubb. There were some early runs that Hunt found space and moved piles when it didn’t look like he good, but then there were other plays in which he was chopped down a bit easily. Although he dropped a screen pass in the first quarter, Hunt again proved his heavy value as a receiver in the second half.
• D’Ernest Johnson only had one carry this week with two snaps.

• The news wasn’t good for Odell Beckham and his knee injury. Earlier this year, some fans wondered why the team was keeping Rashard Higgins at this point if he was being inactivated on gameday. I said that the reason was simple — the Browns preferred KhaDarel Hodge as the blocking slot receiver, but if Beckham or Jarvis Landry were injured, then Higgins is the insurance policy to fill in there.
• Higgins came up huge, and the chemistry between he and Mayfield is just so damn evident. I know Higgins has had a couple of touchdown catches over the past two years, but this was the first time since 2018 that he truly had a chance to show the skills we know he’s capable of, and I couldn’t be happier for him. It’s great that he was able to make that impression for Kevin Stefanski and company too, because that trust will go a long way.
• Besides Higgins, how about Donovan Peoples-Jones coming through with an unbelievable touchdown catch to win the game? It was his third catch of the game, but also just the third catch of his NFL career. These outside throws are what Peoples-Jones did well with in college too. I asked one of our readers to compare the play to the Quincy Morgan catch against the Jaguars in 2002, and I’m drawing that parallel because that was the last year that the Browns made the postseason:

• We can’t forget about Jarvis Landry. Playing through cracked ribs, he caught Mayfield’s first completion in the second quarter and played the Swiss Army knife role. He ran for a first down on an end around, and also threw a pass on a trick play, completing it to Peoples-Jones despite a defender bearing down on him with a big hit (by the way, Mayfield gave a chip block on that play too). And also, there is this:

• With Austin Hooper out of the lineup, Harrison Bryant and David Njoku also stepped up with some big-time catches. Bryant had a stretch in the third quarter where I started to think, “Whoa...this guy might have the ‘IT’ factor.” And then Njoku came up with perhaps the most athletic catch of his career in the end zone. I’m still not a fan of his blocking, but it is what it is.

• In two games against the Bengals this year, the Browns’ offensive line did not allow a single sack. They did allow five quarterback hits this week, four of which were at the hands of defensive end Carl Lawson.
• PFF liked the job that Jedrick Wills did in pass protection against the Bengals, but they feel like his run blocking has been slipping a little bit.
• JC Tretter was writhing in pain on the same play that Beckham was injured on, but he didn’t end up missing any snaps.