With a chance to convert a 2 point try to go up by 12 points against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fourth quarter, the Cleveland Browns turned to David Njoku's athleticism to make a play. He stepped back against his defender and found just a few inches of separation, which ended up being more than enough to catch a ball up top from Jameis Winston. The flip he hit after the catch was simply extra seasoning.
Njoku's catch in this big moment was just one of several big plays made by Cleveland's tight ends in the snowy contest, which saw a ton of creative ways of deploying them for Winston to target down field in inclement weather. All of the Browns' tight ends are pretty big receiving targes, so it's understandable why Ken Dorsey and the Browns' coaching staff saw it as a good chance to incorporate them all into the gameplan.
Between Njoku, Jordan Akins, and Blake Whiteheart, they had a total of 76 receiving yards out of the 219 tallied by Winston. All three helped to extend drives late in the game that helped Cleveland to pull out the miraculous win over the Steelers, showing that Winston doesn't just have to rely on his tradtional receiving corp for reliable passing.
Browns should evaluate TE talent for rest of season
With the win and with the major assists to the victory coming from the tight end room, the Browns should really consider how to incorporate them further into play calls for Winston for the rest of the season. While Cleveland is unlikely to reach the postseason, this is an important time for them to see what talent they have on the roster that they can keep signed, or talent that might need to be let go as they struggle through cap space woes they brought upon themselves with the Deshaun Watson contract.
That said, there aren't any big tight end talents in the draft that pop off the page. So, looking to see what Cleveland has in Whiteheart and Akins, specifically, becomes more important down the stretch of the season while the team starts to build its free agent and draft strategy. There's also no harm in figuring out the types of receivers that might work best with Winston. If the Browns can draft another athletic receiver to slot alongisde Cedric Tillman and Jerry Jeudy next season, they can finally evaluate the kind of offense they have when operating at full strength with a steady QB.
