Browns (

21.5) at
Texans (

18.5)

Game Overview ::

By HILOW >>

• Browns OG Joel Bitonio (back, knee) has yet to practice this week (as of Thursday), which is notable considering Bitonio is one of the best pure run-blocking interior linemen in the league.
• Texans QB C.J. Stroud (concussion) has yet to practice this week, signaling that he has still not progressed past the first stage of the league’s five-step concussion protocol (which means he is likely still experiencing headaches as a player is not allowed to return to practice, in any capacity, until headaches have subsided). It is highly likely that Stroud is out in Week 16.
• Texans WRs Nico Collins (calf) and Noah Brown (knee) have each been available for two limited sessions this week – I expect both will play against the Browns.
• Texans TE Brevin Jordan and WR John Metchie missed practice on Wednesday with an illness but returned to limited sessions Thursday.
• Of the games with sub-elite game totals, this one carries the highest raw ceiling and the most intrigue (to me, anyway).

How CLEVELAND Will Try To Win ::

The Browns started the Joe Flacco Experience with a top five rush rate over expectation (RROE) on the season but have since allowed Flacco to just go out there and do Flacco things, slowly nudging their season-long PROE values higher in the process. Three consecutive games with 44 pass attempts or more will do that, but that is exactly where the Browns currently stand as a team (and I love it, and so, too, should you!). The fact that the Browns have allowed a league-high 30.7 points per game on the road this season helps bolster the expectation of a pass-heavy approach here, which gains even more credence through the likely absence of guard Bitonio, who is one of the league’s top run-blocking interior offensive linemen. The baseline expectation is for 30-40 percent of the team’s offensive snaps to come from 12-personnel, which is now paired with a tight three-man cadre at wide receiver amongst Amari Cooper, Elijah Moore and Cedric Tillman and a loose three-way timeshare at running back, with Jerome Ford the lead back, Kareem Hunt the primary change-of-pace option and green-zone back, and Pierre Strong mixing in for the leftovers.

Ford loves playing every snap on the opening drive only to be forgotten about in the second half. Mostly kidding, but there is some shred of truth to that outlandish statement. He has played between 51 percent and 57 percent of the offensive snaps in the previous three games with Flacco under center, spelled primarily by Hunt in a change-of-pace plus green-zone role, with each back responsible for one touchdown in that span. Hunt was limited in both practices this week with a groin injury but it appears as if he’ll play Sunday – even so, monitor his situation heading into the weekend. The pure rushing matchup is about as difficult as they come against a Texans defense ceding just 3.4 yards per carry (second) behind just 1.02 yards allowed before contact (second) to opposing backfields this season.

Let’s take a little journey, shall we? A total of 133 pass attempts in a three-game span for Mr. Flacco. Cooper missed most of his first game under center, seeing five targets prior to departing early with injury. Over the next two games, Cooper and David Njoku combined to account for 44 targets on 89 total pass attempts from Flacco, good for a tidy 49.4 percent combined target market share. Furthermore, the two combined for exactly 22 targets in each of those games. To make this as blunt as possible, would you pay $11,700 for a wide receiver if you knew that wide receiver was going to see 22 targets in a game? Obviously that is an extremely archaic way of highlighting what this combination of two pass catchers has done with Flacco under center, but I think it gets the points across tidily. Tillman has seen a combined 12 targets over the previous two games, Ford has seen 11, Moore has seen nine, and no other pass catcher has seen more than three during that span.

How houston Will Try To Win ::