Welcome to the AFC North version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Cleveland Browns. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Cleveland Browns in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	0.62
4th Down Go For It!	27.67 +
Target GINI	0.6308 +
Rushing GINI	0.6087 –
Plays/Game: Offense	65.8 +

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue and doesn’t have a symbol, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

With the team stats lit up like a Christmas tree, you’d think Cleveland had a great offense last year, right? Oh, my sweet summer child….

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Jameis Winston	QB29
Jerome Ford	RB34
Nick Chubb	RB59
Jerry Jeudy	WR15
Elijah Moore	WR74
Cedric Tillman	WR91
David Njoku	TE11
Dustin Hopkins	K30

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Nick Chubb, Jameis Winston, Elijah Moore

Added: Joe Flacco (again), Kenny Pickett, Diontae Johnson

How can a team change up their entire offense wholesale, yet expect to remain at the bottom of the league offensively? Ladies, gentlemen, everyone in between or outside of them, I present to you the 2025 Cleveland Browns. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Spoiler: It’s gonna be bleak, y’all.

Cleveland’s interior offensive line has been the cream of the crop for years now, but it didn’t play up to that standard in ’24. Thanks in part to the fact that the players have finally started to show their age in ’24, and injuries have hit them hard. The good news is they have all those players back and healthy for ’25. The not-so-great news is the Browns are depending on Dawand Jones to man the LT spot, and he struggled mightily in 2024. Hopefully, he can improve on those efforts, for all our sakes.

Cleveland’s front office remains generally unchanged, although they brought in three new faces at QB coach, passing game specialist, and an assistant WR role. In addition, HC Kevin Stefanski has talked about how he wants the offense to go back to his previous style of offense, which centered around the running game and Nick Chubb/Kareem Hunt.

Looking Ahead to the Cleveland Browns in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Joe Flacco	1
Quinshon Judkins (R), Jerome Ford	1
Jerry Jeudy, Cedric Tillman, Diontae Johnson	2
David Njoku	3
Dustin Hopkins	1

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Joe Flacco	QB32
Quinshon Judkins (R)	RB46
Jerome Ford	RB36
Jerry Jeudy	WR47
Cedric Tillman	WR61
Diontae Johnson	WR91
David Njoku	TE7
Dustin Hopkins	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	Cincinnati	W
2	@ Baltimore	L
3	Green Bay	L
4	@ Detroit	L
5	Minnesota	L
6	@ Pittsburgh	L
7	Miami	L
8	@ New England	L
9	BYE	–
10	@ New York Jets	W
11	Baltimore	L
12	@ Las Vegas	L
13	San Francisco	L
14	Tennessee	W
15	@ Chicago	L
16	Buffalo	L
17	Pittsburgh	W

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 4-12

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Browns

“Lou, you didn’t rank Dustin Hopkins!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. Wait, no, I’m not. Do you really want me to care about Cleveland’s kicker? I do not, and you can’t make me.

Did you like all those green statistics in our look back at the 2024 Browns? Yeah, me too. Filled me with all sorts of warm fuzzies. That’s the Jameis Winston Effect right there. Great for all things fantasy, terrible at winning actual NFL games. Which is, of course, why he’s no longer a Cleveland QB. That Cleveland jettisoned Winston only to throw a cavalcade of has-beens, never-weres, and probably-never-will-be rookies at the QB position in ’25 tells you everything you need to know about the Browns as a franchise. They are named after the color of poop, after all.

With regard to my confidence scores, let’s run through them quickly. At QB, Cleveland has four possibilities, and if we’re being honest with ourselves, does it matter which they go with? I expect the position to be a revolving door throughout the year. At RB, they invested heavily in the draft, and then their stud rookie went and broke the law, with no resolution in sight. At WR, they literally only performed with the aforementioned Winston at QB, who’s now gone. Njoku has performed well with literally every terrible QB Cleveland has thrown out there during his tenure. There’s a reason he’s the only thing in Cleveland I have any modicum of confidence in.

Long story short, if you’re taking any Cleveland Browns this year, I hope you’re getting them at a deep discount compared to ADP. It’s gonna be a long year for this offense.

If There Is a League Winner On the Browns, it’s….

Quinshon Judkins. 

This is mainly because his draft stock is tumbling so precipitously at the moment; there’s really no telling where it will settle as his legal, contractual, and expected suspension issues continue to linger. For what it’s worth, I expect it to continue to fall correctly for quite a while.

BUT

I gotta say, I like big “but’s” and I cannot lie…. No, I’m not sorry for that.

But if Judkins can get these things resolved, he will absolutely be the primary RB for the Browns at some point this season. “But you said the Browns are gonna be really bad!” I don’t know if I’ve actually said that outright yet, but yes, that’s exactly what I expect of them. For one, the offensive system, and specifically the running game, expects to go back to the gap-heavy style of the Chubb era. The style that Judkins excels with, and Ford, as well as Sampson, does not. Secondly, if you’re not familiar with the “fresh RB legs in November/December” phenomenon, you need to be. In short, the NFL season beats the hell out of everyone, and if you can come in for the 2nd half of the season without that beating, you have a decided advantage.

You know, the 2nd half of the season. When leagues are won. Yeah, that one.

Deep League Draft Target

Cleveland is not the team you want to plumb the depths of their depth chart for overlooked talent; they’re not good enough for that. With that said, Diontae Johnson is just sitting there. Menacingly? Maybe, but he is just sitting there. It wasn’t that long ago that he was the WR1 for the Steelers and then the Panthers. Which of course sounds a lot better than saying, “The Steelers traded him for peanuts, the Panthers outright cut him, and then he signed on with the Ravens only for them to cut him for quitting on the team a couple of weeks later. All in one year.” 

At least you won’t need to pay much for him? Diontae is currently sitting at a cozy ADP of 281 according to FantasyPros. So he’s a FREE Bingo square if you want him.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.