Major personnel turnover is a seeming rite of passage every offseason in Cleveland. And while this year’s core group returns more intact than many other years, the Browns are still near the top of the NFL in terms of snaps lost from one year to the next.
Based on research and tracking from Over The Cap, only five other teams lost more total snaps from players no longer on the roster than the Browns did. Cleveland returns 71 percent of total snaps on offense and defense from the 2019 season. The league average is 75.5 percent.
The defense is harder hit, as would be expected for a team that said goodbye to linebacker Joe Schobert and several defensive backs (Damarius Randall, T.J. Carrie, Morgan Burnett, Juston Burris, Eric Murray, Jermaine Whitehead) who played significant roles at some point in the season. All played at least 350 snaps. Schobert led the Browns with 1,059 snaps from scrimmage, more than 100 more than any other defender.
Cleveland did mitigate some of the churning loss by importing veterans to fill the roles. Players like Karl Joseph, Andrew Sendejo, Adrian Clayborn and Andrew Billings can step right into lost snap roles on defense, while right tackle Jack Conklin and tight end Austin Hooper more than compensate for the lost reps at their positions on offense, primarily from Greg Robinson and Demetrius Harris.
The teams that lost more? From the top down: Carolina, Dallas, Seattle, New England and Detroit.