Browns’ offensive snap counts, stats, and notes: Week 11

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 11 game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

• After his 5-touchdown performance against the Bengals, Baker Mayfield has gone the past 3 games without throwing a single touchdown or interception. It will look pretty incredible in the stat lines when we look back, because those stat lines don’t show what the weather conditions were like.
• Mayfield did have two mis-throws to his tight ends in the first quarter, which ultimately contributed to the Browns not scoring a touchdown. I like to think that the mis-throw to TE Austin Hooper was the result of a defender jumping as he went to throw, and he just airmailed it as a result. Besides those throws, Mayfield had some sharp downfield throws during the game. Despite only having 12 completions, he averaged 17 yards per completion.
• Cleveland did get incredibly lucky on their touchdown drive — on a keeper by Mayfield, he fumbled, and that could’ve been returned to the house had the officials not made the bad call that Mayfield’s forward progress had been stopped. A fumble by Mayfield at the start of the quarter led to the Eagles’ only non-garbage time touchdown of the game.

• The Eagles’ defense crowded the box to stop Cleveland’ running game for much of the game. It opened up the playaction passing game for Mayfield in a major way, but it also meant some frustration for fans who wanted to see Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt run wild again.
• No worries — Chubb came alive in the fourth quarter again, with his marvelous 54-yard run that included one of the sweetest stiff-arms you’ll ever see. And then Hunt joined in on the fun to finish off the drive when he hurdled over a defender to the pylon for the Browns’ only offensive touchdown of the game. Hunt’s average was hurt by a loss of 9 yards on one carry, but even without that, he didn’t have much room to run most of the afternoon.
• With Andy Janovich out, fullback Johnny Stanton made his debut with 12 snaps.

• How about KhaDarel Hodge and Rashard Higgins? They each made big contributions in the passing game, showing no negative effects of the rain pouring down. Hodge caught a 42-yard pass and Higgins caught a 43-yard pass. Pro Football Focus graded Higgins with the top offensive grade of the day for Cleveland (78.9).
• Jarvis Landry wasn’t involved a ton, but he got the job done when called upon, including an end around in which he faked out a defender and then pitched the ball back to Chubb. I was so nervous seeing that in the slippery conditions, but they pulled it off.

• Austin Hooper and Harrison Bryant each missed out on touchdown opportunities, to no fault of their own.
• Cleveland utilized all three of their tight ends often, as evidenced by the fact that David Njoku played 51% of the game. Cleveland threw to him on the first play of the game up the seam, and it went off his hands. It sucks because those are the athletic plays you want Njoku to make, but after the play, I almost wanted to scream at Kevin Stefanski that “Njoku is the last guy I want to throw to when the ball is wet.” Njoku was also blown up on the play where Hunt lost 9 yards on a run.

• A week after being the AFC Rookie of the Week, it wasn’t a great game for Jedrick Wills. Per PFF, it was his worst game of the season:

For the Browns, Jedrick Wills Jr. had easily his worst day as a pro. He allowed a sack and had three other losses in pass protection. After not allowing a pressure in his previous two games, Wills was uncharacteristically overmatched Sunday.

• The offensive line in general had their struggles. Joel Bitonio missed an assignment and allowed Mayfield to get hit on a backwards pass to Hunt that ended up in a loss. Wyatt Teller was beat by Fletcher Cox, leading to a strip sack. The Eagles’ defense penetrated through to stop a lot of runs for losses.
• Teller is still a beast, though. Take a look at Hunt’s touchdown and watch how he single-handedly blocked or got in the way of three defenders on the play.