With the regular season over, it’s time to look at the best Cleveland Browns offensive players from throughout the regular season.
The Cleveland Browns have finished up their regular season and did so by making the playoffs. While this article is being written after the Steelers playoff win, it won’t be included in the evaluation. Instead, there will be a playoff wrap-up as well, regardless of how many more games the Browns have.
For this listing, we’re looking at the totality of the players throughout the year, not just the final four games, but how each player has played overall. Some guys had good spurts over four games, others have been consistently dominant. So if you’re going to say “well so-and-so had a really good Week 17”, then you missed the point.
Let’s get this started.
5. Kareem Hunt
It is possible to be a disappointment and success all at once. I stand by everything I’ve written about Hunt and how his off-field issues still exist in the shadows of his career. However, he’s been avoiding trouble for the most part since his DUI stop last year. Not a big fan of his, but he’s kept his nose clean and that should matter to a degree.
Also, his new contract is pretty expensive for a backup and the hope was that Hunt would deliver in big ways. He delivered, but not in big ways. Hunt was, for the most part, a fine addition to the team but was not a huge playmaker. He did score 11 touchdowns but only six rushing and five in the air. With how high his usage rate was, and the fact he played every game, you’d expect those numbers to be much higher.
Not only that but Hunt developed a nasty tendency in the open field. While once considered an elusive runner, Hunt has now developed a desire to throw himself into tacklers instead of trying to evade them. To be clear, I mean throw, not run through as Nick Chubb does. It’s baffling and stalls all of his momentum while running. That could explain his career-low in yards-per-carry at 4.2, a surprisingly low number considering how good the offensive has been.
That said, he did still post 1,145 total yards but most of it was as a rusher. Many had hoped he’d top at least 500 yards receiving but that wasn’t the case. All in all, he had a good year, but he did not live up to the billing of being a “top five” running back alongside Chubb.
In fact, you shouldn’t really consider him even a top-20 back anymore.
4. Jarvis Landry
There was a lot of doubt about how good Jarvis Landry would be in 2020 after having major hip surgery. It was an injury that threatened to alter his career course. When he did return he was still clearly recovering, and didn’t play all that well for the first few weeks. His yards-per-catch was down three full yards from the previous season, and he didn’t catch a touchdown until Week 12. All that said, Landry did have a good year, even if most of his outings were him grinding for each yard.
He wasn’t as targetted in years past. He’s been averaging 142 passes thrown his way over the last six years, in year seven he only had 101 opportunities, far less than years past. He usually caught 56% of the passes thrown his way, this year, he caught 71%. Showing that while Baker Mayfield didn’t throw to him a lot this year, that when he did he made sure to find the best opportunities for Landry to make a play.
It’s also no surprise that Landry found his swagger later in the year. His hip had mostly healed by that point and his best friend Odell Beckham Jr. was no longer throwing off the offense by allegedly demanding the ball be forced to him.
The team also focused heavier on the rushing game than at any other time in his career, so there were fewer opportunities, which makes his rate of success so impressive. His tenacity as a receiver and as a blocker really helped drive home the point that he was a team-first guy.
3. Nick Chubb
Nick Chubb could’ve been higher if he hadn’t been hurt for nearly a quarter of the season. Chubb’s dominance has been largely on display all year, however, and despite people putting Derrick Henry above him, Chubb is clearly the best pure running back in football. Stats don’t lie.
For Chubb, his junior season was his best yet. He rushed for 1,067 yards on just 190 attempts for a whopping 5.6 yards-per-carry. He also tacked on 12 touchdowns on the ground, proving that he was indeed a Pro Bowl player. An honor he was selected for now two years in a row. Even more impressive on his regular-season tally is that he only passed 20 carries twice on the season.
Chubb was aided in his standing this year partly due to the fact that Kareem Hunt wasn’t nearly as effective. Seeing Hunt struggle was a clear sign that Chubb was just on a different level than his running back partner.
Chubb’s dominance no doubt helped out not just the rushing attack but the passing game as well. Seeing Baker Mayfield’s evolution this year was in part possible because of the running game. Chubb was a viable piece to the puzzle of getting the Browns back to the playoffs, but he still wasn’t the most important piece.
2. The Offensive Line
Obviously, the offensive line is here. To be more accurate, four of the five members of the offensive line are here, with the lone member not making the cut being Jedrick Wills. Wills had a mildly disappointing rookie year. He made numerous errors with the snap count, was beat constantly by better ends, and was just not a top-10 pick. Not when you look at the season Tristan Wirfs had. Maybe I’m biased, as Wirfs was one of the two linemen I was very bullish on acquiring in the first two days of the draft, but even experts agree that Wills had a lackluster rookie year.
Especially considering that the line was made up of three All-Pro players in first-team All-Pro player Jack Conklin and second-team All-Pro players Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller. Frankly, J.C. Tretter, the team’s center, deserved either a Pro Bowl or All-Pro selection as well.
The core unit was fantastic and made it so easy on the likes of Baker Mayfield and Nick Chubb. They were absolutely flawless.
Credit to the Browns offensive line coach Bill Callahan as well, because his system helped bring the best out of guys like Teller, Chris Hubbard, and Michael Dunn.
Granted not every lineman will warrant being lumped in here, but at least the core-four deserve to be this high.
1. Baker Mayfield
For someone people were wanting to cut after Week 1, Baker Mayfield had a year and then some. Thought to be a kicker by many fans, as critics kept moving the goalposts for what would constitute a good season worth keeping him, Mayfield rose up to meet every expectation thrust upon him. Play well? Check. Don’t commit turnovers? Check. Play well against great defenses? Check. Have a winning season? Check. Beat the Steelers and/or Ravens? Check. Make the playoffs? Check.
Win in the playoffs? Check.
Mayfield had a great year in 2020. He completed 63% of his passes, he’s thrown for at least 3,500 yards in his third straight season, all while adding 26 touchdowns during the regular season. He even answered his turnover issue from last year by only throwing eight interceptions. He also joins Brian Sipe as the only Browns quarterback ever to have back-to-back-to-back seasons of 20+ touchdowns.
Mayfield has met and passed every “test” that the media kept giving to him. He played within the system, he adapted well to Kevin Stefanski’s system, he became the perfect teammate, he avoided making headlines (for the most part) and he won.
While there will still be some Mayfield detractors, Mayfield has done everything he had to do to warrant not just a fifth-year option but also a new contract.