Category: Browns

An Aggressive Approach Defines Todd Monken’s Offense

Browns
Comments


The Cleveland Browns officially announced their new coaching staff on Monday, with Freddie Kitchen at head coach and Todd Monken, formerly with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers serving as his offensive coordinator.

Monken, the former head coach at Southern Miss, spent the past three seasons as the Bucs offensive coordinator but only took over the play-calling duties in 2018. Former Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter had given Monken the duties during the preseason (as the Browns did for Kitchens), but Monken was so efficient that Koetter never took them back (except for one bizarre week in November which resulted in a loss to the Giants).

Monken didn’t get the offensive genius label as quickly as Sean McVay in Los Angeles, but his impact on Tampa’s offense was arguably just as meaningful. Unfortunately for Monken, he simply didn’t have the talent to get the same instant results as McVay.

The Browns announced that Kitchens will call plays, but given his lack of experience and Monken’s success, it’s likely the two will work closely and Monken will have significant input in designing the Browns offense. And while Kitchens dramatically improved the Browns offense after taking it over from two relics of the game (Hue Jackson and Todd Haley), there are still areas where Monken is dramatically more innovative in his approach.

Using the indispensable advanced data from Sports Info Solutions, here’s a look at a few areas where Monken’s offensive philosophy could transform the Browns offense:

 

Aggressive Play Calling Limits Third-and-Long Attempts

Last week I wrote about how the Seahawks ultra-conservative play calling on first and second down was setting Russell Wilson up for failure by forcing a disproportionate amount of his dropbacks to come in third-and-long situations.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum was Monken’s offense in Tampa Bay. According to Sports Info Solutions, Buccaneers quarterbacks attempted the fourth lowest rate of passes in third and long:

The fact that Monken was avoiding these less favorable passing situations at a rate equal to the best offenses in the sport is a testament to just how valuable his play calling was to the Buccaneers.

Monken achieved this result by being aggressive on early downs. The Buccaneers attempted a pass on 55.7 percent of their first-down plays, the seventh highest rate in the league.

 

Downfield Throws Drive the Offense

Perhaps more important than just his tendency to throw on early downs is the fact that Monken prefers to throw downfield on early downs.

According to Sports Info Solutions, no team in the league threw the ball 10 or more yards downfield on first down more than the Buccaneers (30.9 percent). This was far and away the highest rate, with the Browns coming in a distant second at 23.7 percent. The league average was 17.2 percent.

Further evidence that Monken is committed to aggressive downfield play calling is his tendency to continue throwing downfield when his first-down call doesn’t work.

In second-and-10 situations, when most coaches get ultra conservative and play for the mythical “third-and-manageable,” Monken remains committed to the downfield pass at a high rate. 28.4 percent of the Buccaneers second-and-10 plays resulted in a throw 10 or more yards downfield, once again the highest rate in the league, edging out Sean McVay’s Rams at 27.6 percent, per Sports Info Solutions.

How will this affect Mayfield? Well, according to SIS’s Independent Quarterback Rating metric (similar to regular quarterback rating, but accounting for plays out of his control, such as drops), Mayfield ranked 14th out of 38 quarterbacks on throws 10 or more yards downfield in 2018. No other rookie ranked higher than 31st.

Mayfield’s natural development from his rookie to his sophomore year, plus Monken’s aggressive play calling, will likely give Mayfield the ability to dramatically improve upon his 2018 numbers.

 

Personnel Decisions Set Run Game Up for Success

As I mentioned in a previous article, Nick Chubb was forced to run into a loaded box at a higher rate than any running back in the league in 2018. Overall, the Browns ran the ball with eight or more defenders in the box on 30.7 percent of their attempts, according to Sports Info Solutions. Only the Giants had a higher rate.

In Tampa, Monken had one of the worst rushing attacks in the league thanks to a shaky offensive line and Peyton Barber in the backfield. However, he did what he could to set them up for success.

The Buccaneers ran into eight or more men in the box on just 19.2 percent of their attempts, the eighth lowest rate in the league.

One of the reasons Monken was able to avoid running into loaded boxes was his tendency to run from three (and sometimes four) wide receiver sets.

According to Sports Info Solutions, Tampa ran the ball with three or more receivers on the field 59.9 percent of the time in 2018, the eighth highest rate in the league. The Browns ranked 23rd at 47.0 percent.

If you’re skeptical that all of this matters, that’s fair. After all, the Browns still had a better running game than the Bucs. But you have to consider the talent with which both coaching staffs were working. So consider these numbers: when carrying the ball with three or more receivers on the field Barber averaged just 4.05 yards per carry (ranked 30th out of 36 running backs). Meanwhile Chubb averaged 5.56 yards (ranked eighth).

Monken should be able to put Chubb in more favorable situations in the run game, further unlocking his potential as a feature back in this offense.

Nick Chubb’s Rookie Success Came Despite Inefficient Playcalling

Browns
Comments


Nick Chubb is coming off one of the best rookie seasons by a running back the Cleveland Browns have seen. While starting only nine games, he fell just four yards short of joining Kevin Mack as the only first-year players in team history to reach the 1,000 yard mark.

Despite his success, some data suggests the Browns may not have been efficiently using Chubb in 2018—and this holds true even when looking at the numbers pre- and post-Hue Jackson.

36.5 percent of Chubb’s rush attempts came when the defense had 8 or more men in the box—among running backs with at least 150 total carries, that was the highest rate in the league, according to Sports Info Solutions.

Chubb fared reasonably well against the loaded box, picking up 3.11 yards per attempt, which ranked 14th out of 28 qualifying running backs. But it’s obviously not ideal for the team to consistently be attempting to run into a mass of defenders at a clip of just over three yards per touch.

One possible explanation for a running back having an elevated rate against a stacked box would be if he were a short-yardage back. However, even when we remove short yardage attempts (two or fewer yards to go on third or fourth down), Chubb still attempted 35.7 percent of his attempts against a loaded box. Here’s what that leaderboard looked like:

On the opposite end of the spectrum from that crew were running backs such as Ezekiel Elliott (17.5 percent) and Todd Gurley (8.9 percent). This begs the question: if some of the best running backs in the league are seeing fewer eight-man boxes, what are those coaches doing differently to trick defenses into sub-optimal formations against their run game?

The answer is fairly simple: they run from three-receiver formations.

In Los Angeles, Sean McVay ran Gurley from a three-receiver set on 97.7 percent of his carries, according to Sports Info Solutions. That was an extreme rate (no one else was above 75 percent), but the majority of the league’s top running backs received at least 50 percent of their carries in three-receiver formations, including Elliott, Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara and others.

Chubb, meanwhile, only carried the ball from a three-receiver set 33.9 percent of the time, the fourth lowest rate in the league.

When given the opportunity to run from a three-receiver set, Chubb picked up 5.6 yards per carry. And it should go without saying, but the overwhelming majority of those attempts came with fewer than eight men in the box.

In addition to putting the right personnel on the field, Freddie Kitchens could further tinker with the playbook by incorporating more motion and misdirection into the offense. Perhaps no one does this better than McVay in Los Angeles.

Here’s an example from Saturday’s victory over the Cowboys in which the Rams fake a reverse to Josh Reynolds, setting up a long run by Gurley:

Watch as Cowboys safety Jeff Heath (No. 38) hesitates at the sight of Reynolds just long enough for left tackle Andrew Whitworth to get to him at the second level. Without the added motion in the backfield, Heath is likely a step quicker to react to Gurley, and meets him in the hole for a short gain.

These types of plays are common in college offenses, but have been slow to trickle up to the NFL. However, McVay—and likely the slew of coaches already hired off his tree—will continue to prove their value in the coming years.

Freddie Kitchens fixed a lot of issues with the Browns offense, but this was one area he did not addressnz after taking over. In fact, Chubb’s rate of running into a loaded box actually increased after Kitchens took the reigns in Week 9. For all the good Kitchens accomplished in 2018, this shows that there’s still room for him to grow as a play-caller, and potentially an area where new offensive coordinator Todd Monken can help further modernize the offense.

Joe Schobert: A Liability in the Run Game?

Browns
Comments


The run game is less important in the NFL than ever before as the passing game continues to evolve. That said, it’s still part of the game and as offenses stock up and more athletic and versatile running backs, defenses need to respond with better athletes on their side of the ball as well.

Unfortunately for the Cleveland Browns, middle linebacker Joe Schobert is one of the weaker athletes at his position.

Based on on Schobert’s numbers from the 2016 scouting combine, here’s a look at how his measurables compare to other off-ball linebackers, via MockDraftable:

Due to his limited speed and change-of-direction ability, Schobert lacks the range necessary to play linebacker at a high level in today’s NFL.

In 2018, Schobert was used almost exclusively as an off-ball linebacker—this is extremely common for players in his role in today’s NFL, as the increased passing rate forces teams to be prepared for the pass on nearly every down. However, due to Schobert’s limited range, this role often leaves him in no-man’s land, unable to recover and make an impact play on the ball carrier once he diagnoses the run play.

To demonstrate Schobert’s lack of range, I charted all of his tackles versus the run in 2018. Here’s what his season looked like in heat map form:

As the heat map demonstrates, the overwhelming majority of Schobert’s tackles in the run game were made on rushes between the tackles after the running back gained a few yards.

Of Schobert’s 69 tackles in the run game, only eight were made at or behind the line of scrimmage (11.6 percent). That rate ranked as the eighth worst among linebackers with at least 50 run-game tackles, according to Pro Football Reference.

We can further evaluate Schobert’s performance with data from Sports Info Solutions (these overall tackle numbers will be slightly different, and probably more reliable than PFR’s which come from the unreliable tackle stats generated by teams). According to SIS, Schobert made 44 tackles on running plays and 34 (77.3 percent) were against runs classified as dive or power plays (typically runs up the middle).

Schobert’s role in the Browns defense dictates that he will have an elevated rate of tackles on plays up the middle, but even compared to his peers this is an extreme rate. No other linebacker with at least 35 run-game tackles had a higher rate than Schobert.

In other words, no one has a more limited range than Schobert.

Now that we’ve established Schobert’s inability to have a sideline-to-sideline impact on the game, we should also addressnz the issue of bringing the ball carrier to the ground. Not only does Schobert struggle to get in position to make plays, but once he’s there, he has a tendency to whiff.

According to Sports Info Solutions, Schobert’s missed tackle rate of 9.82 percent ranked dead last among linebackers with at least 50 tackles (tied with teammate Jamie Collins).

Those who defend Schobert’s role in the Browns defense will point to his success in coverage (there’s some truth to this, and I’ll addressnz this in another piece in the near future), but strictly based on his performance against the run, his long-term viability in the defense is a question mark. And with the ultra-athletic Lamar Jackson now taking up residence within the division, the Browns should seriously consider finding a more capable middle linebacker for the job of spying on Jackson twice per yer.

Freddie Kitchens Increased Browns Play Action Usage by 20 Percent

Browns
Comments

As we gain access to more advanced data in football, we’re learning more about how our perception of certain types of plays may by skewed.

One of the types of plays that NFL coaches may be using inefficiently is the play-action pass. We’ve known for years that the play-action pass works, but it’s typically deployed only a handful of times per game under the assumption that defenses will adjust if it’s used more frequently. Essentially, it’s treated by coaches as a quasi-trick play.

However, recent data supports the theory that you can’t overuse the play-action pass—or at least no one has overused it yet. FiveThirtyEight’s Josh Hermsmeyer recently released an in-depth study using Next Gen Stats which demonstrated that if there’s a point of diminishing returns with the play-action pass, no NFL coach has reached it.

This finding turns traditional play-calling theories on their head. Old school football minds will tell you that you have to run the ball to establish the play-action pass, and if you run it too often, the defense will stop being tricked by it. Perhaps there’s some truth to those theories, but if so, NFL coaches have yet to reach those limits.

With that in mind, every offensive coordinator should be trying to increase their play action usage to push those boundaries because, as Hermsmeyer discovered, defenders are getting tricked by it almost every single time.

Fortunately for the Browns, when Freddie Kitchens took over for Hue Jackson and Todd Haley, he began to push the Browns offense in that direction.

According to Sports Info Solutions, under Jackson and Haley, Baker Mayfield attempted 19.3 percent of his passes from play action, which ranked 27th out of 34 quarterbacks through Week 8.

After Kitchens took over in Week 9, Mayfield’s play-action rate increased to 23.2 percent, ranking 15th out of 33 quarterbacks in the second half of the season—that’s a 20.2 percent increase in the rate at which the Browns were using play action.

Unsurprisingly, Mayfield was more efficient on those play-action passes, as is the case for the vast majority of quarterbacks:

The question now is: did the Browns improve simply because Kitchens brought them back to a league-average level of decision making? Or does Kitchens have the potential to elevate his playcalling to an elite level?

Even under Kitchens, Mayfield was only running play action near the league-average rate, while others such as Jared Goff were throwing well over a quarter of their passes off of play action.

So while Kitchens was able to use play action to modernize the Browns offense, he can probably continue to increase his usage in 2019 to elevate their passing game to even greater heights.

Offseason Needs: Cleveland Browns

Browns, Team Needs
Comments

1. Pass-rusher
New Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton has yet to commit running a 3-4 or 4-3 defense, but regardless of the system he runs he’ll need another guy who can get to the quarterback. Jabaal Sheard is the Browns only legitimate pass-rush threat. A versatile prospect such as Dion Jordan or Jarvis Jones would make sense with the sixth pick.

2. Offensive Guard
Shaun Lauvao is about as bad as it gets for a starting guard in this league.  Since coming into the league, Lauvao leads all guards in penalties and sacks allowed – in other words, it’s time to move on. The Browns may consider Chance Warmack in the first round due to his ability to improve their pass protection and open things up in the power running game for Trent Richardson.

3. Cornerback
The Browns may re-sign Sheldon Brown, which would solve this issue in the short term. But if Brown leaves, cornerback is a significant issue. Buster Skrine filled in briefly for Brown this year and was victimized consistently. He clearly isn’t anything more than a middle-of-the-road nickel corner. Dee Milliner could be an option with the sixth pick if they wish to create an elite tandem at corner between him and Joe Haden.