KC Concepcion — Week 1: Team-High Five Targets and a Lost Fumble
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Concepcion led Cleveland with five targets in his first NFL game, caught four for forty-three yards, ran three times for fifteen and returned a punt ten yards. The catch that mattered most went the wrong way: five yards on second and nine from the Cleveland forty, the ball out, recovered by Jacksonville, and five plays later it was 24–0 in a 34–10 loss to the Jaguars.
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The worst play of KC Concepcion's Sunday was a completion. Second quarter, eight 38 left, second and nine at the Cleveland 40, Browns down 17 to nothing: Deshaun Watson short left to Concepcion for five yards, Ventrell Miller on the tackle, the ball out, touched at the 46 and recovered by Joshua Hines-Allen at the Cleveland 44. That play was worth −4.3 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and five plays later Brenton Strange caught a 14-yard touchdown for a 24 to nothing lead. It was one of two Cleveland turnovers, and the only one that was not an interception.
The rest of the line was Concepcion getting the ball a lot of ways. Five targets, four catches, 43 yards, −1.8 expected points on the targets, with the fumble all but half a point of the minus. His first catch of the day was nine yards on second and six at the Jacksonville 42, 13 37 left in the first quarter, scoreless, for a first down. His longest was the first play of the fourth quarter — second and 14 at the Cleveland 32, down 34 to three, deep right, 25 yards to the Jacksonville 43, worth +2.4. The one incompletion was a deep ball down the middle on first and 10 from the 46 with four 59 left in the half, 35 yards in the air. Three carries went eight, −3 10, the 10 a first down around right end from the Cleveland 11; and he returned Jacksonville's last punt of the first half 10 yards to the 30.
Five targets was the most of any Brown, ahead of Jerry Jeudy and Denzel Boston at four, Raheim Sanders and Harold Fannin at three. Three of the five came before halftime, when Cleveland threw 13 times, and two after, when it threw nine. The three carries were the only Cleveland carries by a wide receiver, and eight touches — four catches, three runs, one punt return, counting returns as touches — was second among Cleveland's skill players to Quinshon Judkins's 14.
Back in June the preview's frame for Concepcion was the quarterback situation around him: a first-round pick with a Hornung Award, a general manager who called him the class's best punt returner, and no idea who would be throwing to him. Sunday answered that part — it was Watson, for 22 throws — and the rest of the day was a real share of a bad offense plus a fumble that turned into seven points. One game does not say which of those is the season. Cleveland is at the Buccaneers on Sunday the twentieth; watch whether five targets and three carries is the shape of the job.
_Data via nflverse._
When KC Concepcion's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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