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Cleveland Browns Are Hit With One Of The Worst Off-Season Moves That Backfired

By Daniel Fisher
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The Cleveland Browns have been the league’s worst offensive team this season, having yet to score 20 points in a game through their first five games.

There is a lot of blame to go around in the offense, and the biggest person at fault is quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has played poorly so far this season.

Cleveland has not shown any interest in benching Watson yet, and there is a great chance they won’t do it, no matter how badly he plays.

Cleveland Browns Offseason Move Backfires

This offseason, the Browns made a move on the offensive side of the ball, firing their offensive coordinator, Alex Van Pelt, and replacing him with Ken Dorsey, the fired Bills OC.

The move has not worked, and the offense has only worsened. Kristopher Knox from Bleacher Report wrote an article 8, 2024 NFL Offseason Decisions That Have Already Backfired, and has a lot to say about the Dorsey hire and stated.

Like the Bengals, the Cleveland Browns sit at 1-4. Unlike Cincinnati, Cleveland can’t hang its proverbial hat on a potent offense.

In fact, the Browns might have the worst offense in the entire NFL right now. Cleveland ranks dead-last in net yards per pass attempt, 30th in passing yards, 32nd in total yards and 30th in scoring. Quarterback Deshaun Watson (74.8 passer rating) has played horribly. That’s not what decision-makers in Cleveland envisioned when they fired offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and replaced him with Ken Dorsey.

“The reason [Van Pelt] was let go in Cleveland was because ownership and [CEO] Paul DePodesta, not Kevin Stefanski, ownership and Paul DePodesta were frustrated with the progress Deshaun Watson had made,” Sports Illustrated‘s Albert Breer told 98.5’s Zolak & Bertrand in February.

Granted, Watson hadn’t played well often under Van Pelt, but Cleveland’s offense—which has its plays called by Stefanski—was at least functional. Watson was 8-4 as a starter under Van Pelt, and he’s now 1-4 under Dorsey, and his play has been markedly worse.

And Watson’s poor play has only been part of the issue. Trying to marry Stefanski’s play-calling with Dorsey’s system has yielded an offense that is sloppy, inefficient and lacks identity.

The Browns have yet to score more than 18 points in a game this season.

While there was certainly no guarantee that Watson would show more growth under Van Pelt, the current offense gives Cleveland no shot at returning to the postseason in 2024. In fact, this decision might have slammed the Browns’ playoff window shut entirely.

I wish we could Bench Dorsey.

I'm rarely right, but I KNEW the Dorsey move was dumb from the first second. He was HATED in Buffalo. Not only that, for us to blow everything up after last year was so dumb - just placating to Watson.

If we had kept KS offense (the current one is NOT his offense) and kept Flacco we'd be AT MINIMUM 3-3 right now.. if not 4-2. Probably would have beat the Giants, Raiders, and Eagles

The current offense just looks so disjointed... like it's pieces of different offense just smashed together without any sort of cohesion.

I constantly think this too. When KS first got here and ran the zone blocking system, heavy packages, PA stuff, boots, etc - it was like we had a PROCESS or SEQUENCE of stuff. Now it is just a complete mix of everything and nothing

Don't we already have a Dorsey thread?

I know KS learned ZBA from Kubiak but ZBS was Callahan..He's the master of it. I think letting him go was the biggest off-season move that backfired. People jumping on Dorsey like he's calling the plays, like KS can't just start calling plays like last year. Not saying Dorsey is this world beater but his first and only full year calling plays as an OC he had the 2nd ranked offense while KS has never been in top 15. So if he's going to get the blame, maybe we should atleast let him call his own plays and see. I get it, everyone is looking for a scapegoat or a magic pill that fixes all of our issues. Unfortunately, I don't think there is one. One thing I think will fix our issues moving forward next year is we HAVE to get rid of Depodesta and Berry, they have set this team back 10 years. They were handed a playoff roster on the rise by Dorsey and have turned it in to what you see today

Well, I don't think we let Callahan go as much as he wanted to leave for his son. That was an understandable move ... BUT, you would think that we'd have learned how to implement/teach the ZBS since he was here for like 3 years and we had success? Just very confounding to me

Thats the thing, we did let him go, sure he wanted to leave, but was under contract. But I hear what you are saying.. But they didn't hire internally anyone with that knowledge. They bring in a guy who barely has been doing it and is known for letting his players dictate his coaching instead of coaching what works and has been proven

there is NO question our OL is a disaster right now ... and the coaching change is a big reason why

I'd also say that our WR coach has been terrible. He's been here a few years and we have underwhelming results

Holding a member of your coaching staff hostage would have been a disaster. If you could do one thing to prevent other coaches from coming here, that would be it. As it pertains to who was hired in his place I'm not sure you needed to hire someone internally. But they sure as hell could have hired someone who emulates his scheme.

that's what I mean ... I agree Pit. Our entire scheme has changed. Just idiotic

It seems that the determination was that they needed a Dorsey to coax the most out of Watson, suggesting that they felt Van Pelt just couldn't get it done, despite getting plenty out of other QBs during last season.
I'd guess that the decision was a Hail Mary. They knew last year that they had a problem with Watson not being able to run the offense effectively and it was highlighted the most by Flacco, but also had exclamation points put on it by the number of backups that just stepped in and looked better than Watson. By all rights, Van Pelt should have been able to keep his job and even get a raise with the way the offense chugged on last year, but they couldn't both keep Van Pelt AND try one last-ditch thing to try to get more out of Watson, and if Watson proved to be as bad as they all surely knew, then it honestly didn't matter whether the OC was Van Pelt or someone else.... so, I believe that is where they decided to begin searching for an OC that might be able to actually get Watson on-track. Boom, Van Pelt out, Dorsey in..... see if the change can help.

It didn't "backfire", the move just didn't do what they'd hoped either because Watson is actually this bad or because he is deliberately trying to play his way out of CLE. He is collecting his money either way, and there is now a 1000% guarantee that we will NOT ever use a Tag on him as his contract gets closer to expiration, and he will exit here playing as little as possible while collecting checks and still being young enough to get another contract. Sure, he'll have to have his agent get workouts for him, but they can craft stories about his shoulder or the staff here, or whatever they want, and as long as he does well in workouts he'll get into a camp in the warm weather cities he originally wanted on a 1-year deal, en route to his next last big contract.

It's not even that (IMO). It would be one thing if it was just Zinter that looked like a fish out of water out there, but it's not. Our all-pro vets on the line are looking like they've seriously regressed.

Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but the way I see it is KS is still the one accountable for Dorsey's impact here. The whole reason they brought Dorsey in was because KS decided that they wanted to change up the offense to better suit Watson. I'm sure this isn't what he envisioned, but it's still his decision that brought Dorsey here.

Ship Dorsey and DW. They both suck.

Are you sure about that? Why would a HC want to replace his OC who just helped lead this team to the playoffs while dealing with a patchwork of QB's and helped him win coach of the year twice?

j/c

In retrospect, I think our run game looked better for two reasons: Dawand was OUT and Conklin was IN .. and KS returned a bit to his bread and butter stuff

The Browns were prepared to replace Callahan with assistant OL coach Scott Peters who had been hired as the Browns assist OL coach in 2020, the same year that Callahan was hired by the Browns. Peters had 4 season worth of experience as Callahan's assistant.

Someone in the Browns management made the decision to hire Dickerson over retaining Scott Peters...simple as that..!


Report: Browns losing assistant OL coach shortly after Bill Callahan’s departure
Scott Peters joins two other former Browns coaches with the Patriots

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well, there's where one HUGE dumb decision was made. What a bad move

at the end of the day, last year with all the injuries and QB's and still get to the playoffs.. When you take all that in account and don't come to the decision to just run it back.. That speaks volumes to our HUGE deficit in the management abilities of this team. At miminum you run it back because you had a million reasons why you could have failed but didn't.. thats a staff you keep together and then to not even offer Flacco a contract, criminal. Berry and Depo are the pieces that need to change. I think KS can get it figured out if he's not constantly being micromanaged by people that don't even have the qualifications to be in their positions

Not sure how well the Patriots O line is doing with Peterson as OL Coach.

Dickerson, O'Shea and Brownson all need to be re-evaluated, as most other coaches do.

Living here in Patriots territory and constantly listening to local sports radio I can tell you the Pats O-line is not doing well. That's the biggest reason, according to the show's hosts, that they wanted to keep Drake Maye on the bench, until yesterday that is.

Thank you ! For the input

Your welcome DD. I believe they've had some injuries too on the O-line. Starting center David Andrews is out possibly for the year.

Maybe that's because you don't have a clue, and you have been talking out of your ass for years.

So Lead tell us just how Depo has set the team back. This should be funny!

Depo will step up and admit it when you admit to bombing pearl harbor.

NO what this thread is about is you blaming Depo AGAIN, AGAIN, AND AGAIN for Browns football decisions when you have no clue and are just spouting bullcrap.

Tell me lead just what moves has Depo made????

It is amazing watching people continue to blame people who are not responsible for making these decisions for making these decisions.

If you're too dumb to know, I sure am not going to waste time, especially with a homer who never has a single piece of criticism for the team.. Go away