NFL Analysis
12/29/23
7 min read
Joe Flacco, Cleveland Browns Clinch Playoff Spot, But Ceiling Is Limited
Chaos is the name of the game for the Cleveland Browns. Every time they step between the painted lines, there's a tug-of-war of explosive plays. You're almost surprised when a play doesn't go for 20 yards or six points — or end in a baffling turnover.
Thursday night's circus against the New York Jets, a game the Browns won 37-20, was an extreme showing.
Joe Flacco threw a pick-six trying to get too cute on a screen, but he also threw for over 300 yards and a touchdown hat trick. Cleveland's skill players were slipping tackles left and right, but they also coughed up two fumbles. The Browns' defense, a clear net positive in the chaos department, surrendered five 20-plus-yard plays while also taking the ball away twice, which included a pick-six.
In every way possible, this game was an even more off-the-wall version of a Thursday night Browns-Jets game than any of us could have imagined.
This is the game the Browns want to play, though. It's the game they have played every week since Flacco took over in Week 13. Anxiety-inducing as it might be, this formula has led the way for a 4-1 run and clinched a playoff spot in a fierce AFC wild-card picture. Nobody would build their team this way on purpose because it's inherently risky, unpredictable and unsustainable But it's working for Cleveland.
Flacco is the driving force for chaos. It starts and ends with him.
From the moment he got off his couch and back into pads, Flacco has been slingin' the ball around with reckless abandon. He's been grippin' it and rippin' it. He is playing without fear — because he has nothing to fear.
Two months ago, Flacco was sitting around without a team. Now, he's been given a new lease on his football life to give a playoff team the spark it needs on offense. He has nothing to lose, and neither do the Browns, given their other options at quarterback. Flacco has taken the liberty just to chuck the ball and see what happens.
That playing style has produced the most extreme results possible — good and bad.
Since taking over in Week 13, Flacco leads the NFL with 13 passing touchdowns. That's insane! He also leads the league in interceptions over that span with eight, two more than anyone else. He has thrown an interception per game at minimum. There have been at least a few interceptions left on the table, too.
But Flacco can't just be boiled down to just a basic touchdown-interception ratio. He has been an explosive passing machine since taking over. On throws of at least 10 yards, where we can credit the quarterback for pushing the ball a little, Flacco has a league-leading 22 completions of at least 20 yards, per TruMedia. Matthew Stafford and Brock Purdy are tied for second place at 16.
Flacco is completely lapping the field because he keeps letting the ball rip, no matter what happened on the previous play or drive. He doesn't care if he just threw an interception. He will throw it over your head again — and you'd better be ready for it.
There will probably be a point when things stop working like this. Flacco legitimately has not played this well in almost a decade, and it does feel like an unhinged, unsustainable play style, even if it's working right now. None of it feels right.
At the same time, something must be said about a veteran quarterback with a strong arm willing to make all the throws defenses are scared of. Complete enough of 'em, and you've got an effective passing offense, even if it feels like something could go wrong at any time.
For a Browns team whose only options are Dorian Thompson-Robinson or P.J. Walker, Cleveland just has to ride the wave.
Thankfully, the defense's "chaos" output is generally a lot more one-sided. The Browns' defense takes and takes and takes from opposing offenses, but it doesn't surrender nearly as much in return as Flacco's psychotic style of play does.
Cleveland's defense quite literally takes from opposing offenses at an extremely high rate. The two turnovers the unit earned against the Jets pushed the Browns into first place in turnovers in the NFL with 27. That's kind of cheating since they've played an extra game, but they were tied at 25 with the San Francisco 49ers before Thursday, only one behind the Baltimore Ravens.
The Browns' defense doesn't give up big plays in the passing game, either. The unit does on the ground, partly because it plays like a crazed pack of banshees, and sometimes that leads to gap unsoundness, but it rarely matters.
The Browns are tied for the fourth-fewest number of 20-plus-yard completions this year at only 37. If you take out the five they allowed during Thursday night's contest, they would have the second-fewest.
It's not hard to figure out how Cleveland has achieved that. The players are incredible, and the scheme is simplified in a way that lets players play. All defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz wants to do is rush four and play man coverage. He's learned a few more tricks than that, thanks to his time assisting Shane Bowen in Tennessee, but at Schwartz's core, that's who he is, and that's what the Browns do.
It sounds simple — too simple to work — but if you've got the dudes, it's too simple to fail.
Myles Garrett is the best pass-rusher in the league, and Za'Darius Smith and Ogbonnia Okoronkwo (when healthy) are as good of sidekicks as money can buy. Denzel Ward might be an All-Pro cornerback right now. Greg Newsome and Martin Emerson are pretty dang sticky in coverage, too.
Even safety Grant Delpit and linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah are having career years because so much of their jobs have been simplified.
So, yeah, there's no need to get cuter and more complicated than is necessary. Let your star pass-rushers go to work, and let your dominant cornerbacks play 1-on-1 football, knowing the pass-rush will get home and make their job easier.
It's too simple to fail.
Above all else, Cleveland's chaotic nature has made the team fun to watch. The Browns are betting on their defense to get takeaways and are praying to God, any god, that Flacco gives them more good plays than bad ones. It's a high-variance play style that can deflate the opposing team when it works out in Cleveland's favor.
To that end, the Browns might be able to steal a playoff game with this formula. Their defense is as good as anyone's, and Flacco's best games are enough to get the team over the finish line. Everyone in the AFC outside of the Ravens feels pretty beatable, anyway.
It's hard to imagine Cleveland can sustain this play for a full-blown Cinderella run, though. Banking on Flacco's extreme volatility at quarterback is great for the purposes of punching above one's weight, and the Browns absolutely have. Still, it will take a greater degree of consistency to beat the conference's top competition week after week as a road team.
Whether the Browns make the run is kind of immaterial.
The fact they have even gotten to this point with a 38-year-old free agent off the street at quarterback is a miracle worth celebrating in and of itself. However far the team takes it from here is the cherry on top.
