Off-season thoughts (Vol. X)

News: The Cleveland Browns place a franchise tag on tight end David Njoku, only the second player in club history to receive one; placekicker Phil Dawson was the first 11 years ago.

Views: Not bad. From asking to be traded in 2020, when the Browns signed Austin Hooper as a free agent and drafted Harrison Bryant, to a franchise tag worth nearly $11 million. Not bad at all.

There is room for negotiation to eventually shed that designation for a brand new -- presumably multi-year -- contract that could keep him in Seal Brown and Orange for a significant period of time. 

For some reason, head coach Kevin Stefanski and General Manager Andrew Berry fell in love with the inconsistent Njoku, a former first-round draft selection now entering his sixth National Football League season. Trying to figure out the answer to that one.

The sudden benevolence is puzzling. Who knew how important, how valuable he was to the Browns' tight end friendly offense. Paying scant attention to him in his five years in Cleveland offered nary a clue to what just happened.

Does Njoku deserve it? Is he that good where the club would go to these financial lengths to make certain no one snaps him up on the free-agent market? A deep dive into his statistical Browns résumé strongly suggests this head-scratching move makes little sense.

In his five seasons, Njoku has played in 65 games, starting 36. He has been targeted just 240 times (a meager 3.7 a game), catching 148 of them (61.7% catch rate) for 1,745 yards and 15 touchdowns. He has never scored more than four touchdowns in any of those seasons.

His best season by far was 2018, catching 56 passes for 639 yards and four scores in Baker Mayfield's rookie season. Not exactly eye-popping numbers. To put that in perspective, Baltimore All-Pro tight end Mark Andrews caught 102 passes (153 targets) this past season for 1,361 yards and nine touchdowns. Now that's eye-popping.

In his first two seasons, Njoku caught 88 passes for 1,025 yards and eight touchdowns. Under Stefanski, he has caught just 55 passes (82 targets) for only 688 yards and six scores. Hardly numbers that warrant a franchise tag.

Njoku is a No. 1 tight end in number only. In five seasons, he has shown little evidence he is a reliable pass catcher. He'll make the difficult catch and occasionally muff the routine ones, You never know what you're going to get from game to game. His biggest improvement is blocking. That's why it's difficult to understand what Stefanski and Berry see that these eyes don't.

As it stands right now, Njoku is the No. 1 tight end ahead of Hooper, who has underachieved in his first two seasons, and Bryant, who was virtually ignored this past season. And there is no guarantee the Browns will bring Hooper back for a third season. 

If that's the case, Bryant moves up to No. 2 and the Browns most likely will draft a tight end late next month or snag one nn free agency. 

So unless Njoku goes out and proves worthy of the big bucks and me wrong, this one will be filed under "Head Scratchers."