Browns’ offensive snap counts, stats, and notes: Week 2

Below, we analyze the snap counts and stats on offense for the Cleveland Browns’ Week 2 game against the Houston Texans.

• The season flashed before my eyes when I saw Baker Mayfield holding his shoulder area after trying to make a tackle after his interception. The worst thing I fear in those situations is a broken collarbone. When I heard it was a shoulder, I was glad it was at least the left shoulder, and then I was surprised to see him come back to the field and finish the game.
• Mayfield was very accurate again, completing 90% of his passes. His pass to WR Anthony Schwartz might have been contested had the rookie kept running his route, but it wouldn’t have been intercepted. Mayfield also had a great throw to WR Donovan Peoples-Jones that was fumbled. I also appreciated a couple of Mayfield’s scrambles in key situations to move the chains — this was another solid game for him.

• Kevin Stefanski is doing a great job again through two games of getting Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt an equal distribution of touches. The Texans did a nice job early on coming up to stop the run, including a couple of plays in which they knifed into the backfield to force a loss.
• There wasn’t as much of the screen game on display this week, and we saw less creative innovation on offense compared to a week ago. I think the Browns went with a little more plain of a gameplan — although they did have a fleaflicker tight end screen pass in the book — to save up for a tougher opponent.
• Andy Janovich got not one, but two carries, including one for a touchdown. You know in a future week, the Browns are going to run a fake fullback dive with a pitch and reverse involved.
• D’Ernest Johnson only had snaps on the kneeldowns at the end.

• Being the star of camp doesn’t lead to a dazzling start to the regular season, it appears, for Donovan Peoples-Jones. He had one catch against the Texans, but fumbled it away.
• After Jarvis Landry’s injury, Rashard Higgins came in and played the rest of the game, catching two passes, both for first downs. That’s a prime reason why Higgins was retained — if one of the team’s outside receivers were to go down, he was next in line and you don’t miss a beat.
• I was curious how many snaps Demetric Felton had, and it was just three. So he definitely made the most of his three snaps, catching 2 passes for 51 yards and 1 touchdown. We can expect that play to be in the playbook moving forward, and you have to believe Cleveland will run some action off of that (pump fake it to Felton in the slot, and go up top to a wheel route that someone else is running).

• I loved seeing all three of the Browns’ tight ends being effective in the receiving game. They combined for 107 yards on the day.
• Harrison Bryant was the Browns’ top-graded player by PFF (85.0) on offense, and caught two of his passes after being lined up wide at the snap.

• Per PFF, Mayfield was pressured on just 3 of his 28 dropbacks.
• After Wyatt Teller didn’t have a banner day run blocking against the Chiefs last week, he helped open up this fourth quarter touchdown hole for Chubb: