It's hard to get excited about the Browns, with their perennial off-field issues and personnel limitations. But at least for this week, I'm very interested in their offense, at home against the Bengals.
The Bengals had one of the worst defenses a year ago, and don't seem much better, having spent all their money to keep their offensive core intact. Cleveland may have aged Joe Flacco at quarterback, but he's leaps and bounds better than the passer who started most of this series a year ago, Dorian Thompson-Robinson. I'll be starting Jerry Jeudy where I have him, David Njoku for sure, and maybe considering Cedric Tillman in a deeper league.
And I'll be starting Jerome Ford.
Cleveland doesn't think much of Ford, drafting Quinshon Judkins in the second round and Dylan Sampson in the fourth. But Judkins won't be playing in Week 1 (even if he signs his rookie deal, which still hasn't happened), and Sampson seems likely to be just a change-of-pace to start the year. Ford's run atop the depth chart may be short-lived, but it should include Week 1.
Let's not dismiss what Ford has done with his opportunities thus far. The last two seasons, Ford has played at least 40 percent of the snaps 26 times -- sometimes starting, something coming off the bench behind Nick Chubb. In those 26 games, he's averaged 11 points in PPR leagues, with double-digit fantasy points 15 times. That's without even playing more than half the time in 10 of those contests.
If you look just at the eight games where he's played two-thirds of the snaps, he's averaged 13 points per week. (Table shows all games where he played at least 40 percent of the time, sorted by percentage of the snaps.)
| JEROME FORD WITH 40 PERCENT OF THE SNAPS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Run | No | Rec | TD | %Snaps | Pts |
| 2024 | at Cin. | 92 | 5 | 39 | 0 | 80.3 | 18.1 |
| 2024 | NYG | 37 | 3 | 33 | 0 | 79.1 | 10.0 |
| 2024 | at L.V. | 58 | 7 | 27 | 0 | 78.0 | 15.5 |
| 2024 | Dal. | 44 | 6 | 25 | 0 | 75.0 | 12.9 |
| 2023 | at Den. | 65 | 4 | 14 | 0 | 69.9 | 11.9 |
| 2024 | at Den. | 41 | 1 | 21 | 0 | 66.3 | 7.2 |
| 2023 | Ari. | 44 | 5 | 33 | 0 | 64.4 | 12.7 |
| 2023 | at Bal. | 107 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 64.1 | 11.9 |
| 2023 | Bal. | 26 | 5 | 19 | 0 | 62.3 | 9.5 |
| 2024 | at Was. | 47 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 58.1 | 7.9 |
| 2024 | K.C. | 84 | 2 | 20 | 0 | 58.1 | 12.4 |
| 2023 | Jac. | 51 | 5 | 31 | 0 | 56.6 | 13.2 |
| 2023 | Ten. | 18 | 2 | 33 | 1 | 56.3 | 13.1 |
| 2024 | at N.O. | 10 | 4 | 29 | 0 | 56.2 | 7.9 |
| 2024 | at Pit. | 28 | 3 | 19 | 0 | 55.6 | 7.7 |
| 2023 | at LAR | 19 | 3 | 33 | 1 | 50.7 | 14.2 |
| 2023 | Chi. | 20 | 4 | 11 | 0 | 50.7 | 7.1 |
| 2023 | S.F. | 84 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 50.0 | 11.1 |
| 2023 | at Pit. | 106 | 3 | 25 | 1 | 49.4 | 22.1 |
| 2023 | Pit. | 31 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 49.3 | 5.9 |
| 2024 | LAC | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 45.6 | 1.7 |
| 2024 | at Jac. | 64 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 44.4 | 7.4 |
| 2023 | at Ind. | 74 | 2 | 20 | 0 | 42.7 | 11.4 |
| 2023 | at Hou. | 25 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 42.7 | 3.3 |
| 2023 | Cin. | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40.5 | 3.6 |
| 2023 | NYJ | 64 | 2 | 57 | 2 | 40.0 | 26.1 |
At least until Judkins signs and gets up to speed in the offense, Ford should be solid. Matched up with a leaky defense like the Bengals, definitely a recommended option this week, if you've got him.
--Andy Richardson