Game of Thrones: Baseball is Coming
May 11, 2020Could it be true? Baseball on the horizon?
May 12, 2020When you have a good quarterback, finding the right personnel groupings is the key to success for an offense in football. In the NFL, it’s even more pivotal, given the number of athletes that are on both sides of the ball. Every offensive signal caller talks the talk, saying that they will put their players in the best position to have success, but at times, it’s simply all talk. The Cleveland Browns and their fans have learned that the hard way plenty of times over the last two decades.
Whether it’s more wide receivers, tight ends, or running backs on the field, finding success and making things easier for the quarterback is vital. During Baker Mayfield’s rookie season, he found plenty of success with multiple tight ends on the field. Then in 2019, first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens seemed to go away from what made Mayfield so successful in 2018. It showed—and is one of the many reasons Kitchens lasted just one season as the head coach of the Browns.
Now, with Kevin Stefanski leading the way for the Browns, Mayfield is set to have a very important and crucial third season in the league this fall. While coaches seem to always say that they will put their quarterback in the best position to succeed, that seemingly wore off quite fast under Kitchens, something that the Browns and their fans alike hope doesn’t happen this time around.
Stefanski loves his tight ends, which is perfect for Mayfield. There’s a reason the Browns made Austin Hooper the highest-paid tight end in NFL and then proceeded to select Florida Atlantic tight end Harrison Bryant in the fourth round of the NFL Draft. Keep in mind, the Browns still have David Njoku on the roster as well. You could say the tight end room is overflowing a bit with talent, but that’s exactly what Stefanski wanted to do and exactly what Mayfield needs.
“I just think there are so many different ways you can attack a defense when you have versatility,” Stefanski said. “Certainly, the tight end position gives you some versatility. We kind of look at it as there’s some in-line, true, what we’ll call ‘Y’ tight ends, those are your bigger type guys that are on the line of scrimmage. Then our ‘F’ tight ends, which have to move around the formation, line up in different spots and do a bunch of different jobs.
“I see guys you don’t have to leave in one position. Versatility is the key for us. We will be in 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends) and we’ll be 13 (one back, three tight ends). What we don’t want to do is become predictable. We’ll have different formations out of each personnel group. We’re trying to be difficult to defend … we want (tight end) to be a position of strength for us.
“I always try to think of it from the defensive coordinator’s perspective, what’s going to make life hard on them, and that would be a guy that you can move around the formation.”
During Mayfield’s rookie campaign in 2018, he was most efficient with multiple tight ends and/or running backs on the field:
- 12 personnel: 39-of-60, four touchdowns, one interception, 101.8 passer rating
- 13 personnel: 17-of-27, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 134.3 passer rating
So, with multiple tight ends on the field, Mayfield completed 56-of-87 passes (64.4%) for seven touchdowns and one interception; when there weren’t multiple tight ends, he completed 233-of-373 passes (62.4%) for 20 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. While the completion percentage seems minute, the efficiency between the two was clear. It’s what made the Dawg Pound fall in love with Kitchens: He seemingly found the right way to use Mayfield in the pocket, which was using multiple tight ends 31% of the time.1
That magic fell off almost immediately in 2019, with Kitchens at the helm. He used multiple tight ends just 29% of the time.2 While that’s not the sole reason for Mayfield’s struggles in Year 2, it certainly didn’t help. There could be many reasons for that. One was probably the fact that Odell Beckham Jr. was now a member of the Browns. That said, there’s no excuse not to use the personnel package that Mayfield found the most success with. Add in that the Browns offensive tackles struggled as much as they did last season and Kitchens *still* decided not to put multiple tight ends on the field as much as he should have and it’s even more mind-boggling.
With 2019 now behind both Mayfield and the Browns, it’s important that we all look ahead to 2020 (and beyond). If Stefanski brings his offense and personnel groupings from Minnesota to Cleveland, it’s seemingly a perfect match for Mayfield and the Browns, as WFNY’s Cody Suek explained when Stefanski was named the head coach of the Browns. In his first (and only) full season calling the shots for Minnesota’s offense, the Vikings had multiple tight ends on the field a league-high 54% of the time. That’s a drastic difference from what the Browns used in 2019.
The Browns are set to use multiple tight ends more often in 2020 than they have in recent memory. When the head coach loves using that personnel group and the quarterback has the most success in those types of formations as well, it’s quite obvious, at least for good play-callers.
While Njoku has seemingly been involved in as many trade rumors as Kevin Love recently, Stefanski’s offense can never have too many playmakers at tight end. Hooper, Njoku, and Bryant give the Browns athleticism, playmaking, and versatility at tight end, something that fits perfectly in a Stefanski-led offense. While optimism has certainly killed the Dawg Pound over the years, something seems different this season.3 Cleveland has a solid offensive line, two solid running backs, a great 1-2 punch at wide receiver, and a group of tight ends that Stefanski will love to use. It’s quite a combo, one that should lead to success, especially if the first-year head coach uses the same personnel groupings that he did with the Vikings in 2019.
If that continues, Mayfield will love it. Browns fans will as well.
