Kevin Stefanski says he’s sticking with Dorian Thompson-Robinson at quarterback. That extinguishes any flickering hopes I had for Jerry Jeudy.
Jeudy has missed more often than he’s hit thus far as a pro, but he was on a tear with Jameis Winston at quarterback. In their seven full games together, Jeudy averaged 7 catches for 112 yards, with 3 TDs. He averaged 16 yards per catch in those games.
| JEUDY WITH WINSTON STARTING | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Result | Tgt | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| Baltimore | W 29-24 | 8 | 5 | 79 | 15.8 | 0 |
| LA Chargers | L 10-27 | 11 | 7 | 73 | 10.4 | 0 |
| at New Orleans | L 14-35 | 11 | 6 | 142 | 23.7 | 1 |
| Pittsburgh | W 24-19 | 6 | 6 | 85 | 14.2 | 0 |
| at Denver | L 32-41 | 13 | 9 | 235 | 26.1 | 1 |
| at Pittsburgh | L 14-27 | 6 | 5 | 64 | 12.8 | 1 |
| Kansas City | L 7-21 | 14 | 11 | 108 | 9.8 | 0 |
Jeudy with Cleveland’s other quarterbacks, on the other hand, has been a disaster. Deshaun Watson started seven games and Thompson-Robinson started on Sunday, and Jeudy in those games averaged 2.9 catches for 36 yards, with one touchdown. He averaged 12.4 in those games.
In Thompson’s start Sunday, Jeudy caught only 2 passes for 20 yards, with only one other pass thrown in his direction.
| JEUDY WITH OTHER STARTING QUARTERBACS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | Opp | Result | Tgt | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| Watson | Dall. | L 17-33 | 8 | 3 | 25 | 8.3 | 1 |
| Watson | at Jac. | W 18-13 | 6 | 5 | 73 | 14.6 | 0 |
| Watson | NYG | L 15-21 | 7 | 4 | 27 | 6.8 | 0 |
| Watson | at L.V. | L 16-20 | 9 | 6 | 72 | 12.0 | 0 |
| Watson | at Was. | L 13-34 | 3 | 1 | 16 | 16.0 | 0 |
| Watson | at Phi. | L 16-20 | 3 | 1 | 35 | 35.0 | 0 |
| Watson | Cin. | L 14-21 | 6 | 1 | 18 | 18.0 | 0 |
| DTR | at Cin. | L 6-24 | 3 | 2 | 20 | 10.0 | 0 |
One might reasonably expect a similar decline from David Njoku, but his numbers suggest he might be sneaky decent, particularly in PPR formats.
Njoku caught 8 passes for 66 yards on Sunday. While some might write that off as an outlier game with a small sample size, Njoku has been sucking up lots of catches recently, and he’s also been effective before with Thompson-Robinson at quarterback.
Thompson-Robinson started three games as a rookie, and Njoku caught at least 6 passes in all of them. So in four games with DTR, Njoku has averaged 6.8 catches for 57 yards. Admittedly, the touchdown potential is low, but he’ll be a top-10 tight end on my board in PPR formats this week.
| NJOKU WITH THOMPSON-ROBINSON AT QB | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opponent | Result | Tgt | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| 2023 | Baltimore | L 3-28 | 7 | 6 | 46 | 7.7 | 0 |
| 2023 | Pittsburgh | W 13-10 | 15 | 7 | 56 | 8.0 | 0 |
| 2023 | at Denver | L 12-29 | 9 | 6 | 59 | 9.8 | 0 |
| 2024 | at Cincinnati | L 6-24 | 10 | 8 | 66 | 8.3 | 0 |
—Ian Allan