The Cleveland Browns had the worst offense in the NFL by a number of metrics in 2024, including having the league’s worst turnover differential and scoring an NFL-low 15.2 points per game.
While those numbers are bad enough on the surface, one analyst dug a little deeper to point out one glaring issue in the offense that contributed significantly to posting a league-worst scoring output.
Warren Sharp appeared on The Matt Fontana Show and highlighted the fact that Cleveland was last in EPA (expected points added) per pass and success rate for passing on first down, highlighting the fact that the offense was the most risk-averse in the league on first down.
“In my opinion, you can’t continue to dink and dunk on first down and not have success because that trickles down to everything else with the offense, and then it trickles down to your game state, and it trickles down to your ability to win games. We’re just talking about first down. Dead last in EPA per pass and success rate for passing. Dead last in EPA per rush and 31st in success rate for rushing. You also ranked 30th or worse in yards per play on both passing and rushing. What happens when you’re this terrible on first down? It cascades into everything else,” Sharp said.
The #Browns offense can't be worst than last year, right?@SharpFootball breaks down just how putrid Cleveland was on the offensive side of the ball in 2024 😳
Catch Warren's full Browns season breakdown on tonight's show at 8 p.m. pic.twitter.com/DeU1tUtM2X
— Matt Fontana Show (@MattFontanaShow) August 7, 2025
Taking shots on first down is a great way to ignite a lifeless offense and keep an opposing defense on its toes, but given the number of issues Cleveland endured on offense, it makes sense that the play-calling was so conservative on early downs.
Cleveland’s offensive line gave up 66 sacks last year and failed to produce a single 100-yard runner in any game, which, when combined with the fact that the team cycled through four different starting quarterbacks again, it adds plenty of context to what likely went into the conservative early-down plays.
The Browns need to start from scratch in 2026 and overhaul this offense in every possible way, and some first-down shots down the field would be a great way to generate more explosiveness.
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