CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Browns’ offensive has been buzzing absolutely since Thanksgiving. Kevin Stefanski’s team averages 450.5 yards per game in the last four matches and 308.3 yards of passes per game. To put it in perspective, the Kansas City Chiefs leads the league this season in yards per game with 427.9.
They have moved up to eighth place in the offensive DVOA, according to Football Outsiders, the eighth in the race and the pass, and are the 11th in yards per game in the league.
They are also efficient, ranking fifth in the movement success rate and seventh in points per movement.
The Browns are reaching an offensive peak at just the right time of year, while Stefanski and his players continue to grow together in this system. Expect more offensive fireworks on Sunday against a defender who gave up 30 or more points in nine games.
Continuing the air strike
New York, surprisingly, is not bad at defending the race. Now, the flip side is that they just lost one of their season’s best defenders to Quinnen Williams, but are taking Folorunso Fatukasi off the COVID-19 list. The Jets are the fifth best running defense in Pro Football Focus and the eighth in running defense DVOA on Football Outsiders. They are 14th in run yards per game, but eighth in yards per try.
The Browns, in theory, are made to play the ball against anyone, but with Nick Harris replacing Wyatt Teller, they are missing a key to their racing game. The Jets defense, in turn, is losing Brian Poole and Javelin Guidry is listed as iffy, so there is no reason why Mayfield and Co. would not be able to continue moving the ball effectively through the air.
Sam Darnold’s experience
Darnold comes from his best game of the season in Sunday’s win. He completed 22 of 31 passes for 207 yards and a score. He got his second best PFF game score this season. It was perfect, the timing of Jets considering they were struggling to land their replacement in the draft until victory over the Rams took them out of the driver’s seat for choice # 1 and Trevor Lawrence.
The only chance the Jets really have is if Darnold continues to play somewhere close to the player they thought they were getting when they chose him two spots after Baker Mayfield in 2018. Darnold has been an image of inconsistency. He has had 12 multi-touchdown games in his career and nine multi-intercept games. He launched four touchdown passes in one game once in his career and launched four interceptions in one game twice. He had exactly as many games with less than 200 yards of pass as he had games with more than 200 yards of pass.
It hasn’t been great for Darnold, but he can try to make the case in the next two weeks for the Jets to give him another year if they’re not in love with Justin Fields.
Preparing the battle for the north
The “take the cake and eat too” scenario for the Browns is to win on Sunday, get the help they need from the Giants or the Raiders (Las Vegas plays Miami on Saturday night) and make the Colts beat the Steelers. That would mean that they would win a playoff spot and still have a chance to win AFC North.
The alternative may be to not get help, still having a chance at AFC North next week, but making it a potential win-or-go home depending on the various scenarios. In this strange year, when even exposure to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 at the wrong time could take a key player out of a game, it would be much better to play for the division title with an already guaranteed playoff spot.
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