Browns offense has to get into motion in 2024

Overall, Kevin Stefanski’s offense wasn’t good in 2023, adding motion will help

From the outside looking in, sports seem to have easy answers. Just ask fans and media who will regularly point to one or two things that just need to change in order for greatness to appear.

• If Joe Flacco could just stop turning the ball over, he couldn’t, the Cleveland Browns could have made some noise in the playoffs.
• If the Cleveland Cavaliers could just find a big 3&D wing
• If the Cleveland Guardians would just spend some money in free agency.

This article is along those lines for the Browns offense going into 2024.

Almost no matter what stat or metric you look at, Cleveland’s offense was bad last season. DVOA has them ranked as the 28th in the NFL. Given the injuries to multiple quarterbacks, Nick Chubb and three offensive tackles, it makes sense that Kevin Stefanski’s crew couldn’t find the production it needed.

QB Deshaun Watson had a couple of good games but struggled at times in 2023. Everyone knows that Watson’s play is key to the team but using motion more is also likely to be helpful. In 2023, Cleveland went in motion near the bottom of the league while some of the best offenses were at the top of the list:

In 2022, the Browns were 25th in the league while in 2021 they were 20th.

Why is motion so important? JP Acosta shared about motion taking over the NFL this season with this thought:

Much praise has been written about the McVay-Shanahan-McDaniel connection, but each of these coaches is perhaps doing the best on-field designing of their careers in 2023, and it’s through using motion at the snap to their respective personnel’s strengths.

Using motion isn’t some magical panacea that’ll heal any ailing offense, but what it can do is create advantages within the margins. As defenses begin to punch back, it makes sense that these offenses remain near or at the top of the NFL.

“Within the margins” is vital in the NFL as teams become smarter and smarter and winning football games becomes harder and harder.

Motion puts the offense in control. Acosta does a great job of sharing examples in his piece on how different types of motions put the defense at a disadvantage and opens things up for the offense in both the run and pass games. Here, we see Tyreek Hill move all over the formation before the snap which creates confusion and opens up space for a big gain:

Here we see how motion is used just before the snap to get the tight end into position to block the edge defender and allow the left side of the line to double-team at the point of attack:

While motion is not “magical” nor does it guarantee success on offense (the Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers were top 10 in motion last year), the Browns would benefit from putting players in motion on purpose to get advantages for their backs and receivers.

Hopefully, Stefanski just has one quarterback to work with in 2024 with a healthy Chubb and offensive line. The nuance and timing involved in motion are vital and much more difficult with all the injuries the team had last year. If Cleveland can move closer to the top 15 in motion in 2024, the offense could find another gear.

Note: I will be at the NFL Combine next week and plan to ask Stefanski about the lack of motion by the offense.

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Do you think motion is vital to success in the NFL or just another stat that doesn’t really matter?