10/30 Opening Drive: The Browns Offense Was Supposed to Resemble the Old Version You Remember
It doesn't look like anything like that old version for a few very specific reasons.
As you all know, I watch this offense about as closely as anyone. Outside of those who get paid by the organization, I think I have a pretty firm grasp on what his happening. And, even considering that fact, I am more confused as ever about where the vision is going for this year based on what we anticipated. The messaging was a return to what Kevin Stefanski found success with in the past, and it was echoed by Joel Bitonio over the offseason when discussing his reasoning for returning for a 12th season with the franchise.
“For me it feels like a 2020, 2021 install of the outside zone with power schemes mixed in, which I think is a strength of what our O-line does,” Bitonio said. “I think it fits us so much better. And I think the way we won in the past is our defense was fresh. The games that they played great, they played 50 or 60 snaps, not the 70 or 80 snaps a game. And so if we can control the ball and handle those things, I think it’s a big step. But from the installs and from what I’ve seen, it’s going back to what Coach Stefanski has been known for.”
While Stefanski never said it directly, a leader and veteran like Bitonio noting this felt significant. He wouldn’t make up the fact the Browns planned to return to that schematic baseline.
When Stefanski was hired in 2020, the main selling point about his offense in Minnesota, the one he would bring to Cleveland, was the marrying of the run and pass. Dressing up their pass structure to mirror run styles as best they could. Keep defenses guessing as often as possible about what was coming.
Stefanski noted previous conversations with his All-Pro safety in Minnesota. “I can tell you in putting our scheme together last year -- it was very comforting when you had a player like Harrison Smith come up to you and tell you, ‘Man, that is a tough scheme that you are running. This is really hard on the defense.’ That gave us great confidence knowing that we were down the right path.”
Stefanski worked with former Texans and Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak, who was the assistant head coach in Minnesota, to create a Kubiakian-style scheme that marries the running game and the passing game. Kubiak has influenced offensive play-callers like Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay who seek to make the run and pass looks appear exactly the same, and Stefanski emphasized elements like play-action passing and rollouts that are essential elements in a Kubiak offense.
Stefanski summed up this philosophy best during that first year. He told NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero his plays need to “look like, taste like, and smell like the run.”
All of that made sense at the time and they lived in that world. It did look and feel the same so often, and the Browns found many explosive plays from their baseline structure.
They used the threat of wide zone, and specific gap schemes, to make the run and pass feel similar in a way that made defenses struggle to keep respect for both phases and defend every inch of the field.
They leveraged those bootleg concepts well. Selling wide zone and returning to the opposite side to either hit flood concepts for cheap yards, or chase those shot plays downfield that would spring open in a variety of ways.
The Browns sold us a return to this baseline but this offense has been anything but that. Let’s look at the details.
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For the season, the Browns have run the ball 190 times. Of those runs, the Browns have only run wide zone on 28 of those snaps. Just 14% of their snaps in the run game — 29th in the NFL. That number is staggeringly low for a team that referenced returning to this form of run game as a baseline.
They also have refused to run the ball on the perimeter in general. They only put the ball on the perimeter in pin/pull and toss on 15 runs for the entire season. That number is 30th in the NFL.
They have run base/man concepts (duo variations) on 25% of runs, inside zone on 19% of the runs, and then power/counter on 17%. When you add up all of those interior runs you have well over 75% of their running back driven run game — 4th most in the NFL. Most of it bunched inside the tackle box inviting bodies inside the tackle box.
While the usage of gap schemes is not foreign to how Stefanski has operated, it has slowly taken over just about every approach they have to running. No longer do you get consistent lateral schemes that stretch opposing defenses hortizontally. In fact, the outside zone runs have gone down year over year and now sit at an all-time low.
In 2020 the Browns ran outside zone 182 for the year. That was the 4th most in the NFL. Since then, the number has gone down for the most part year-over-year:
2021: 142x (9th)
2022: 160x (5th)
2023 125x (10th)
2024: 110x (17th)
2025: 28x (8 games, 29th in the NFL)
Given this information, They are further away from what Stefanski used to be than ever before. Especially when you consider how poorly they have leveraged play-action this season. They are performing among the worst in situations where the team could leverage predictable run into downfield chunk plays and it comes from a play-action setup that in no way mirrors the run game they try to use.
In 2020 the Browns had the 3rd most PA bootlegs in the NFL — 56 in total. Since then they have been up and down in application but over the last two seasons they have found very little application and even worse success.
2021: 42 (5th), and 0.17 EPA/DB (21st)
2022: 25 (20th), and 0.52 EPA/DB (7th)
2023: 44 (3rd), and 0.62 EPA/DB (4th)
2024: 27 (17th), and -0.14 EPA/DB (28th)
2025: 12 (23rd), and -0.14 EPA/DB (28th)
Look, the NFL is also evolving but those who are good at these concepts, including the trademark names, don’t totally abandon the core principles as they evolve as play-callers. For example, the Shanahan 49ers don’t run as many bootlegs as he did early in his 49ers tenure, but they remain at the top of the NFL in wide zone usage yearly.
The Rams and McVay don’t run as much wide zone as they did when he first arrived with the Rams but he consistently has bootlegs usage at the top of the league. They keep some of the core intact for who they are and what their philosophy has always been.
The Browns, and Kevin Stefanski, seem to have lost their way, and despite talking about returning to that world, they have moved even further in the opposite direction. This is why they feel lost when you watch on Sunday. Because, in fact, they are.
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Great analysis Jake! However I still think players over plays and the OL is not cutting it on any level going by your film break-downs...your film has shown guys getting stuffed on double teams.
The next question is why? Why has/is this happening.