Cleveland Browns quarterback Jacoby Brissett followed a promising showing against the New York Jets with an even better showing on Thursday night against the Steelers. Brissett finished with a 90.4 passing grade, per PFF, and 92.5 overall. He was the highest graded player of the game and for good reason
The offense is scoring on over half their drives. How? The offensive line is dominant, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt are unstoppable, and Amari Cooper is always open. The cherry on top is quarterback Jacoby Brissett seems to be fully in control of this offense. He trusts his offensive line, does not panic in the pocket, and is hitting the layups that the Browns did not hit last year.
Brissett is identifying coverages pre-snap effectively and knows exactly where he wants to go with the ball based on the play call. He is properly going through his reads and hitting open guys. The reasoning is simple: head coach Kevin Stefanski makes things so much simpler for a quarterback.
With a great offensive line, good enough weapons, and a play-caller in Stefanski that all the QB has to do is go through his reads and hit layups, Brissett is doing just that. He is in full control of the huddle, he is identifying defensive coverages, and he is throwing darts.
He has been extremely efficient at finding an open receiver and taking what the defense is giving him. Defenses are selling out on stopping the run on second down and third down close to the sticks; so, Brissett has been effective at seeing this and finding an open guy just upfield for a first down. This is something the Cleveland Browns offense was missing: just find the receiver that Stefanski schemed open.
Last year, and even week one this year, the Browns left so many yards and points on the field due to not hitting open receivers to extend drives. The ball would instead be forced to a covered receiver or a sack would be taken. Brissett is operating effectively at going through his reads and extending drives with simple throws.
It is crazy to think about the potential this offense could untap when they are scoring at an efficient clip while keeping things relatively simple.
Kevin Stefanski, take a bow.
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