2024 Week 11: Browns 14, Saints 35
You wouldn’t guess this by the score, but this game was tied at 14 going into the 4th quarter, and then Taysom Hill took over.
The Saints (4-7) are finding their way back into the race for the NFC West, it helps that all of these teams are almost always so mediocre. The Saints are picking up the pieces of their team and slowly getting healthier where possible, while the Falcons are starting to hit their gauntlet to end the season. Tampa Bay has the easiest schedule of the three contenders (sorry Carolina), so they’ll likely take the division.
The Browns (2-8) are in the ‘tank’ stage of the season… not actually of course, heads would roll if they did, but heads will roll anyway. Their season is done and there’s probably a pretty good chance they are eliminated from the playoffs this week.
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QB Report:
- Jameis Winston (30/46 for 395 yards, 2 TDs) tallied a ton of passing yards, and he’s been taking advantage of the weak matchups. Unfortunately, they have a BYE, two games against PIT, and one against DEN in the next 4 weeks. I don’t expect much from him or anything in the passing game for a month, and by then Cleveland might go to DTR.
- What also kills this offense is the most recent injury to OT Jedrick Wills Jr. With Wills out the entire o-line drops off massively, from already one of the worst units to almost certainly the worst in the league. Maybe Titans will hang onto that but we’ll see.
WR/TE Report:
- The hero of this game was Taysom Hill (1/2 for 18 yards, 1 INT; 7 rushes for 138 yards, 3 TDs, 8 catches for 50 yards), he was the highest point scorer of the week. In the Plays, Pests, Prayers piece I had Hill as a Play which was awesome to see him go off like this… it’s always nice when things play out the way you thought they would.
- I don’t think Taysom Hill is going to go away like he has the last 5 years after a nice game, if he were he wouldn’t have been used this week. This was the first game of Taysom’s career where the coaches used him meaningfully in every single quarter of the game, and it worked! If the Saints or Broncos don’t draft Tyler Warren (Taysom 2.0) from Penn State then I will question everything I know about football, and I’ve already been doing that after Dallas didn’t draft an RB in such a stacked class.
- All 3 of the Browns WRs are killing it with Jameis in, I’m not sure how viable any one of them will be in the coming weeks with that tough schedule coming up. They might produce in garbage time or just purely off of volume, but it’s tough to say right now. I would think Elijah Moore (6-660/8) is the least impacted being the slot, we’ll just have to wait and find out. Tonight’s TNF game unfortunately won’t be a great judge with the inclement weather.
D/ST Report:
- Browns Kicker Dustin Hopkins (0/2 FG) missed both of his field goal attempts in this game, something to keep an eye on for TNF, an unreliable Kicker vs. best kicker in the NFL in bad weather/defensive game… not a good reality for Cleveland.
image source: (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)