The Cleveland Browns have struggled to move the football this season, ranking 32nd in the league through five weeks with the fewest offensive yards gained.
Cleveland’s passing game – helmed by quarterback Deshaun Watson – has accumulated only 852 total yards through the air.
Part of the offense’s problem was revealed by analyst Mike Clay today.
On X, Clay shared one wild stat about wide receiver Amari Cooper that explains part of the reason the team has issues sustaining drives.
“An absurd 45% of passes directed at Amari Cooper have qualified as ‘off target’ this season,” Clay wrote, noting, “We haven’t seen an off-target rate that high for a player with 40+ targets since at least prior to 2011.”
An absurd 45% of passes directed at Amari Cooper have qualified as "off target" this season.
We haven't seen an off-target rate that high for a player with 40+ targets since at least prior to 2011.
— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) October 8, 2024
Broken down, that means roughly 21 of the 47 targets Watson has sent Cooper’s way have been off-target passes.
Combined with a league-leading eight drops, it’s little wonder why Cooper has only 20 receptions for 208 yards and two touchdowns entering the team’s sixth game of the season.
That statistic is an indictment of how poorly Watson has performed this season in addition to Cooper.
In an article on ESPN, analyst Daniel Oyefusi explained that Watson’s off-target pass percentage is 20.7 percent this season, the third-worst in the NFL.
While Watson cannot be blamed for the entirety of his offense’s failure, his inability to throw accurate passes one out of every five tries is hurting the Browns.
Cleveland will try to regroup this week as the Browns face the Philadelphia Eagles in a Week 6 road contest on Sunday.
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