Tag: data

Data Dump: What the trends tell us about the Browns with 5 weeks left

Examining NFL metrics and analytics to determine how well the Cleveland Browns are playing

The Cleveland Browns finished their two-week tour out west with painful losses to the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams. In this week’s “Data Dump,” we’ll see how poorly the Browns did during their mini odyssey. The trip was not kind to the Browns as their great defense faltered against experienced gunslingers and their crafty coaches. The offense returned with more questions at the quarterback position than when they left after Joe Flacco’s Cleveland debut.

The team’s homecoming against the Jacksonville Jaguars allows the Browns to right the ship and control their destiny for the remainder of the season. The Browns and Jaguars game has major implications for the AFC playoff race. The Jaguars are a good, but not a great team, battling to win the AFC South. If the Browns defeat the Jaguars, it will inspire a lot of confidence in the group, both internally and externally.

After 12 games, the Browns are firmly entrenched in their statistical tiers. One game can no longer swing the Browns in one direction or another. Right now, the Browns need to stack the success of multiple games to put a dent in their rankings. The team must finish the season strong and head into the playoffs on a hot streak.

Data Dump: Browns tumble down the rankings after Broncos defeat

How the Cleveland Browns rank across the NFL in various metrics and analytics.

After a bad loss to the Broncos, the Cleveland Browns have spent the week in Los Angeles, California, preparing for the Rams on Sunday. I believe the team had the right idea of putting distance between themselves and the Broncos game. The theme of this week’s “Data Dump” is reminding ourselves of the season, not the results of one game. It’s about the cumulative work of a team battling injuries and adversaries throughout the season.

The Browns announced that Joe Flacco is the backup quarterback if starter Dorian Thompson-Robinson is not cleared from the concussion protocol. If Flacco starts, he will be the fourth quarterback to start for the Browns this season. While Browns fans are accustomed to starting four or more quarterbacks in a season, winning those games is a welcomed change. Unfortunately, four quarterbacks over 13 weeks is a death knell for an offense that will certainly rank near the bottom of the league in most metrics and categories.

The defense is the team’s shining star leading us to the playoffs. They still rank at the top of the league after an uncharacteristically rough game against the Denver Broncos.  They have a chance to correct the course against a Rams offense that has been red-hot the past two weeks.

Let’s reflect on how the Browns are doing this season in spite of their injuries.

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Data Dump: Browns rise up rankings after dominating the Cardinals

Where do the Cleveland Browns rank across various metrics after their week 9 performance against the Arizona Cardinals.

In this week’s Data Dump, the Cleveland Browns are quickly rising through the ranks of the NFL after delivering a 27-0 win against the Arizona Cardinals. While the Browns are 5-3 at the halfway point of their season, the statistical analysis didn’t agree that the Browns were worthy of their record.

The return of Deshaun Watson propelled the Browns’ offense from being one of the worst in the league to a subpar offense after one game. It sounds small, but the improvement was a step in the right direction for models that assume offenses are far more important than defenses. The Browns are now on the doorstep of the upper echelon of the league according to most metrics. A few more games like Sunday from Watson and the Browns will quickly advance to the top of the NFL with the Chiefs, Eagles, and Ravens.

Sunday’s matchup between the Browns and the Ravens will pit the two top defenses in the NFL against each other. The Browns will be looking for revenge after losing their first game after rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson was named the starter the morning of the game due to the aforementioned Watson injury.  The teams will be extremely motivated to prove which team is not only the best in the AFC North but among the entire league.

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Data Dump: How are the Browns doing after the Seahawks loss?

Where the Cleveland Browns are ranked amongst the NFL after 8 weeks.

The midway point between games is a great time to take a step back from the disappointing loss against the Seattle Seahawks by the Cleveland Browns and examine the rest of the league. Football is a week-to-week sport and in that flow, we can forget that the sport lasts for nearly half a year. It’s important to take a 30,000-foot view of the league to better assess the landscape.

In Data Dump we aim to give you the weekly breakdown of where the Browns stand across the entire NFL among multiple categories. The Browns are standing pat at four wins after losing to the Seahawks 20-24. The loss showed that the Browns offense has steadily improved since losing star running back Nick Chubb and quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Browns are slowly regaining their offensive identity without their franchise players. The offense is still turning the ball over at an alarming rate. Under Watson’s leadership, the Browns should eliminate most of the turnovers.

The defense is the biggest victim of the turnovers. They’re constantly forced to defend shorter fields than other teams. While the Browns’ defense has done a good job limiting offenses, they are not invincible. They cannot continue defending 50 yards at a time. The season-long stats show how field positioning is dragging a historically great Browns’ defense into a top-three defense.

Data Dump: Trend forecasting after a month of Browns football

NFL Analytical review a month after the season starts. What does the 1st quarter of the season tell us about the future

The first month of football is a wrap for the Cleveland Browns. It’s hard to believe that nearly a quarter of the season has passed. Personally, it has felt like half a season since the Steelers game. The game-time decision by Deshaun Watson to sit on Sunday has only added to the feeling of the interminable dredge of the offense. A month is long enough for season-long trends to become more evident when examining data.

Football is a difficult sport for data analytics as the sport has the least amount of games compared to other sports. Trends become extremely explicit over 38, 82, and 162 games in one season. Four games over a seventeen-game season does a good job of outlining the picture, even if it doesn’t paint it in detail.

It’s important to remember that the Browns have suffered a lot of blows on offense over the first four weeks. Deshaun Watson looked good in his only game without inclement weather or the morale hit of witnessing a devastating injury to a team leader. I don’t want to make excuses for the Browns’ lackluster start on offense. I want to properly contextualize the offense.

Without further ado, here is the monthly data drop.

Data Dump: What the numbers say about the Browns

Let’s take a look at how the Browns look on paper after their Week 1 win

The end of the first week of the NFL season brings about the start of weekly analytic breakdowns. Cleveland Browns fans are lucky as there are multiple different people, groups, and businesses to help break down the numeric side of the game  Football is not a game played on spreadsheets, but it’s more easily digested that way.

In our inaugural data dump of the season, we are including stats about both the week 1 matchup specifically, and how the Browns compare to the rest of the NFL. We will be publishing updates every week to follow the Browns’ statistical movements as they vie for the AFC North title.

We’ll start by analyzing the game against the Bengals, before zooming out towards the macro state.

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures, sitting so far out in front of the other teams it might muddy the data:

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Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald shared a chart displaying the three-year trend of contract restructure utilization and wins per season, and the New Orleans Saints broke the model.

Take a look at it. You’ll see many teams clustered near the NFL average, though notoriously spendthrift operations like the Cincinnati Bengals and Washington Commanders have almost never restructured a contract in recent years — with other teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, and Green Bay Packers way out in front, nearing 15% of their potential.

Well, almost in front. They’re all competing for second place behind the Saints. No team has restructured more contracts with as much frequency over the last three years than New Orleans (35%). As Fitzgerald observed, including the Saints at all might muddy the data and make it tough to tell what’s going on here.

Remember, restructures are nothing new. Teams have always converted salaries into signing bonuses so they’re paid out on a different schedule to more easily fit everyone under the salary cap. What the Saints have done differently is taking what was a little-known accounting quirk and weaponized it, matching the pace of their spending with the annual rise of the salary cap so they won’t have to pay a hefty bill.

Things kind of went sideways for them during the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced unique pressures to the NFL’s cap calculations. Instead of rising as expected the cap dipped, forcing the Saints to cut contracts they’d planned on keeping and restructured others with players they didn’t anticipate. For the 2020 and 2021 seasons at least, the Saints did everything they could just to get by.

So it’s a relief to see things returning to normalcy. The Saints’ cap situation is improving, slowly but surely, and they’re ranking among the league’s highest spenders now that they’ve paid the price for that creative accounting when the cap was more restrictive. They’re still restructuring more contracts than most teams, sure, and that’s going to be the case again in 2024. But things are in a much better space for 2023 than we saw in years past, and that should be our takeaway.

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Jacoby Brissett needs to get the ball out quickly today

Brissett is good about avoiding turnovers but struggled last year to avoid sacks. A key to a Browns victory is him getting the ball out quickly:

There are a lot of unknowns about the Cleveland Browns going into today’s matchup with the Carolina Panthers. Many of the starters have played little to no time during preseason games, the offense started some transformations throughout the offseason and the defense is looking to build on last year.

All going against the team’s former starting quarterback, Baker Mayfield.

One of the biggest question marks is at quarterback. Jacoby Brissett is set to lead the team for the first 11 games of the season. His limited action in preseason saw him go 13-23 for 109 yards and an interception. He was hurt by a couple of drops by Anthony Schwartz and the offense failed to get into a rhythm with him.

It will be interesting if HC Kevin Stefanski deploys more empty set formation, something we saw in practices and preseason, to try to get more explosive plays from his offense. No matter what, Brissett has to try to get the ball out of his hands quicker than he did last year in Miami:

While Cleveland’s offensive line is (appropriately) lauded for its talent, Ethan Pocic steps in as the team’s new center while Jack Conklin is returning from a serious knee injury last year.

Conklin is questionable for today’s game which could make things more difficult for Brissett.

As seen above, Carolina’s best defender comes off the edge quickly. DE Brian Burns had nine sacks each of the last two seasons. The Browns should be able to send more help against Burns as the Panthers lost their leading sacker, Haason Reddick, in free agency this year.

Brissett tends to hold on to the ball to make sure he’s not going to turn the ball over. He plays the quarterback position safely which, with a great run game and defense, fits Cleveland’s talent. If he can avoid a few more sacks while still staying safe with the ball, the visitors have a great chance of coming away with a victory down in Carolina.

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According to ESPN, Browns have decent chance to make the playoffs

While fans and media may be down on Browns, rest assured the data believes in them with only 3 AFC teams having a better chance to make the playoffs:

Very few media and fans know what to expect out of the Cleveland Browns in 2022. The team is full of talent on the defensive side of the ball except at defensive tackle. That may be by design and not a flaw. The offense has a great offensive line, a great stable of running backs and a top-flight receiver in Amari Cooper.

Cleveland also believes that TE David Njoku is ready to take a big step forward this season.

Despite all of that, the concerns with QB Jacoby Brissett for the first 11 games and those related to QB Deshaun Watson returning to finish the season still linger.

While it might be tough for people to form a clear opinion of a team that is built around a run game and defense, computer systems still spit out data. ESPN’s ‘Football Power Index’ (subscriber, $) did so for every team but the first sentence for the Browns gives a big caveat to the data:

I’m not sure FPI has a lot of prior comparables in evaluating Cleveland’s situation, given that we know quarterback Deshaun Watson — who was accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct during massage sessions — is out for exactly 11 games.

With that out of the way, FPI gives the Browns a better chance to make the playoffs than Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Cincinnati, New England, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Denver and Kansas City. In fact, only three teams have a better chance to make the playoffs in the AFC than Cleveland’s 56.7%.

Interestingly, some of the teams listed above have better odds to win the Super Bowl than the Browns 3.3% chance.

While fans and media may be down on the orange and brown team from Northeast Ohio, rest assured the data believes in them.

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Data shows that CB Martin Emerson will be targeted often

Based on some recent data, expect Emerson to be targeted a ton by the Panthers. Adjust your fantasy lineups (and expectations) accordingly:

When the Cleveland Browns finally selected a player in the 2022 NFL draft, it was somewhat surprising that they selected a cornerback. While CB Martin Emerson may be a great pick as early as this year, he was added to a very deep group of players while other positions, notably receiver and defensive tackle, had bigger needs.

The Browns traded CB Troy Hill back to the Los Angeles Rams and lost M.J. Stewart in free agency which could open up playing time for Emerson. When CB Greedy Williams was downgraded on the injury report Thursday, Emerson back more likely to see the field a lot.

Whether Emerson plays good or bad, based on data from 2020 he will be targeted by offenses a ton:

For opponents of the Browns, it is an easy calculation to make. A team would rather not throw the ball toward Denzel Ward and Greg Newsome II meaning the third corner is likely to be targeted often. While we await Williams’ final injury designation and a visit from CB Jimmy Moreland, we can assume that Emerson or A.J. Green will step into that third spot.

On Sunday, when Emerson is in the game and QB Baker Mayfield drops back to pass, keep an eye on where #23 is because the football is likely to follow.

The above data can also be used to make fantasy football decisions. If your receiver is facing the likes of Derek Stingly Jr., Sauce Gardner or Trent McDuffie, it is likely that opposing offense’s game plans will be to get the ball to the receiver they are covering.