The Opening Drive 9/11: We Always Remember, and Cedric Tillman Continues to Ascend
A day unlike any other somehow nearly a quarter century ago.
It has been a whirlwind 24 hours for the country and sadly arrived on the eve of remembrance of one of our toughest days. As you know well, this is an analytical football site that almost always sticks to just that, but you just can ignore remembering those involved in 9/11. Plenty of places will do better justice for the cause, but on this day I like to remind folks of how things were around the team they care about back in those days following the awful attacks.
The NFL had a tough choice. They had games looming later the same week of the events of 9/11 and had to make a choice. The Commissioner and players arrived at the correct choice — suspended play for a week. They cancelled all Week 2 games set to be played on September 16th. The league pushed all of those Week 2 games to the end of the season and slid everything back a week in the post-season. Eliminating the extra BYE week before the Super Bowl that year kept things on schedule. Taking that week off was the right thing to do back then given the gravity of the events. It would have been too soon just five days after the devastation and still so much uncertainty happening.
The Browns had lost a brutal game in Seattle Week 1 of that season by a rare 9-6 score. The offense was sputtering in Butch Davis’s first year as head coach, but the defense was thriving. The Lions came to town for the Week 3 matchup on September 23rd and the defense nearly pulled off something that hadn’t been accomplished since 1950.
Poor Ty Detmer threw seven, yes seven, interceptions in this game. Somehow that is one less than the NFL record of eight set by Jim Hardy of the Chicago Cardinals all those years ago. It was a welcome break from the country’s dark days for Browns fans.
On this day I always find myself lost reading those same stories about the day as I do almost every year. Watching the same videos about heroes from the day like Welles Crowther and his Red Bandana. It was a different world back then and somehow the country worked through it all. It found unity. I hope something less tragic can bring together that type of unity again someday.
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Snapping back into our modern Browns bubble, something that stood out to me on Sunday was the efforts of Cedric Tillman. The third-year receiver seems to be hitting his stride, but if you think about his surge in the middle of 2024, he is just continuing his upward trend. His separation work in Week 1 was notable from those who study the topic in the NFL data world.
The impressive performances from Tillman in Weeks 7-11 last year, before the concussion that derailed his season, are well documented here at Browns Film Breakdown. He stepped into Amari Cooper’s role in the offense and found an immediate impact. That seems to be carrying over and when you analyze his opportunity and production when playing alongside Jerry Jeudy, you might be surprised.
The two have played five full games together since the Cooper trade last season. Here’s the output:
Tillman:
5.8 catches
9.6 targets
70.8 yards
18 PPR PPG
Jeudy:
4.8 catches
8.8 targets
75.6 yards
13.5 PPR PPG
That’s a meaningful trend. We will watch closely to see if this continues, but at minimum there is a belief that Tillman can accomplish the role at a similar level to Jeudy in this offensive structure. That was quite clear when watching the film from Sunday. He creates some easy separation and has the physicality you need at the top of routes for a player with his length and strength combo.
As I noted when he was drafted, all the traits are there. He struggled learning how the NFL requires its wide receivers to play against what Tennessee asked of him, but that learning curve seems gone now. He worked to overcome those issues — to his credit. Now, it’s just about consistency and staying healthy. If he can, the Browns might be well on their way to solving the top of the depth chart at receiver before sending more assets to the position.
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