Browns Week 1 performance: Offense worse than you thought, especially under center
· Yahoo Sports
Coming out of Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season, everyone knew that the Cleveland Browns looked terrible. There was almost nothing positive in our 10 takeaways, very few winners in our weekly Brownies and Frownies, and “4 Downs” was pretty much “All Down” for Cleveland.
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Browns fans pretty strongly placed blame on QB Deshaun Watson and HC Todd Monken for the loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Monken went on to keep Watson as his starter and changed his tune about whether the team’s buy-in matters much in that decision.
As we shared in The Feed, some of the data from the loss is just as putrid as you expected:
Now, as the computers and analyst finish up their evaluations from last weekend, we get another data set that shows just how bad Cleveland’s offense was when Watson was under center. Before you spend time trying to find the Browns helmet, just know that you won’t find it, as they were so bad they would have made the rest of the graph too difficult to read (noted under the graph):
The Cleveland Browns were so bad on under center usage last week they completely broke the efficiency charts created by @SumerSportspic.twitter.com/VSp6u3vtrl
— Todd Fuhrman (@ToddFuhrman) September 18, 2026
How bad was Cleveland? As noted on Twitter, they were two times worse than the next-worst team (the Tennessee Titans), who were two times worse than the rest of the league. The Browns offense was four times worse than 30 of the 31 other teams in the NFL when Monken had Watson under center.
Overall, Cleveland’s offense was better throwing and running the ball than a couple of other teams in Week 1, per EPA, which means Watson had much more success out of the shotgun:
A look at overall offensive performance in Week 1 (excluding MNF). This looks at EPA per dropback and EPA per rush for each offense this week.
— Nutshell Sports (@NutshellSportz) September 14, 2026
The Giants and Bears both had very strong offensive debuts. pic.twitter.com/tQQYEGOcBa
For the Browns to have success with Watson, it seems Monken will have to push more and more shotgun plays to the top of the list. How that will impact RB Quinshon Judkins’ performance and the offensive line is still to be determined overall. Then again, like he is with Watson, Monken could remain stubborn about his plan under center despite the putrid start in Week 1.
Are you surprised how bad Cleveland’s offense was under center in Week 1? Should Monken scrap most of those plays or stick to the script?
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