The Browns didn’t just struggle under center in Week 1 - they were so inefficient there that they got wiped off an NFL analytics chart entirely.
That’s where Cleveland is after a brutal 34-10 loss to Jacksonville, a game that was ugly from the start and never got much prettier. Deshaun Watson, back in action after 693 days between starts for the Browns, spent most of the afternoon in shotgun as Todd Monken tried to keep things comfortable for his quarterback. Cleveland lined up that way more than 65 percent of the time, and the results were rough.
The biggest visual punch came from SumerSports, which posted an “under center and efficiency” chart for Week 1 and left the Browns off it altogether. As CBS Sports analyst Todd Fuhrman pointed out, the numbers were so extreme that they warped the graph.
“Note the graph above removes the Browns because their placement distorted the graph too much. They had a 32.6% under center rate and -0.81 EPA/play.”
Ouch.
The breakdown from Cleveland’s 49 offensive snaps against the Jaguars tells the story. Watson was in shotgun on 33 plays, or 67.3 percent of the time, and the Browns picked up 201 of their 272 net yards from that alignment. That worked out to 6.0 yards per play, but it also came with an interception, three sacks, and five penalties.
Even that chunk of production came with a catch: a lot of it arrived after the game had already tilted hard toward Jacksonville. Watson’s 46-yard touchdown to rookie Denzel Boston came out of shotgun with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, and the Jaguars were already ahead 34-3 at the snap.
The problem got even sharper when Cleveland lined up under center. The Browns ran only 16 plays that way and managed 71 yards, a 4.4-yard average.
Some of that was probably tied to the game situation - falling behind 28-0 in the second quarter tends to strip away the chance to lean on heavier packages - and Cleveland’s backs weren’t doing the offense any favors, either. The running game produced less than 3 yards per carry, which basically erased the play-action element.
Still, the bigger-picture concern is hard to ignore. The NFL has been moving toward more usage of running backs and tight ends, but Cleveland’s setup looked stuck in the opposite direction. If the Browns are planning to live in 11 personnel - one back, one tight end, three receivers - while leaning on Watson in shotgun, that’s a risky way to build an offense.
The analytics backed that up, too. Teams in the upper right of SumerSports’ chart - the ones combining strong expected points added with heavy under center usage - included Jacksonville, Buffalo, Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, and the Los Angeles Rams.
And the Browns’ problems aren’t limited to the quarterback alignment. General manager Andrew Berry is also getting heat for the tight end room behind Harold Fannin Jr.
Cleveland let David Njoku walk in free agency, and the current depth chart features Blake Whiteheart, a core special-teamer, and seventh-round rookie Carsen Ryan. That’s a thin group, and it limits what Monken can even ask his offense to do.
Cleveland used 11 personnel on 34 of its 49 offensive plays against Jacksonville, which ranked eighth-most in the NFL, per Sharp Analysis. It was also their most effective grouping, and ESPN’s Bill Barnwell thinks teams that find early success with that look are more likely to stick with it than force heavier formations just for the sake of variety.
“As 2026 goes on, I suspect that teams that have some success going under center will lean into it more often, while the ones who struggle early or don't fully adopt it as a tenet of their offense will see it fall by the wayside by midseason,” Barnwell wrote. “Even the teams that lean heavily into getting under center will still want to go to shotgun or pistol looks or - if they have a quarterback capable of moving the ball with his legs - pull the QB run game out of mothballs in a key spot. Nothing's new under the sun in football, but what's old certainly felt new in Week 1.”
The Browns were always going to have growing pains on offense. But the sheer amount of shotgun, combined with how little they got done when Watson turned his back to the defense, was a bad early sign.
Monken pointed to Watson’s mobility as one of the reasons he chose him as the starter. If Watson doesn’t get cleaner as a ballhandler and processor under center, this offense is going to be easy to figure out.
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