QB Case Keenum made his point but D’Ernest Johnson took flight in Browns win
Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns
The plot of the Cleveland Browns’ season thickened with revelations surrounding their 17-14 victory over the Denver Broncos at FirstEnergy Stadium. Some of the revelations occurred on the field. One could be observed stalking the sideline. And the most important may have been Baker Mayfield’s discloser to Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer before Thursday Night Football that he not only has a torn labrum in his left shoulder but also a fracture.
Mayfield is fast becoming a one-man medical illustration.
The humerus bone at the top of his non-throwing shoulder cracked and the shoulder again became dislocated when in Game Six Arizona Cardinal defensive end J.J. Watt strip-sacked him and put Mayfield hard into the turf on said shoulder. The labrum—attachment site for specialized cartilage tissue that lines and reinforces the ball-and-socket joint of the shoulder—originally tore during Week 2 when Houston safety Justin Reid intercepted a Mayfield pass and the quarterback threw caution to the wind and himself onto the Cleveland injury report in an attempt to tackle the pass thief.
He talked a brave game in the abbreviated week before the Browns and Broncos, desperate 3-3 teams, met. Mayfield swore he would play come hell or high pain because he and his teammates needed a victory to avoid falling by the wayside even at this early junction in the NFL season. Instead, all Mayfield was left to do was swear at fate and stalk the sideline like the jungle cat he is after doctors and coaches decided to turn the team over to $6-Million (Backup) Man Case Keenum in order to protect Mayfield from further shoulder and perhaps an abrupt surgical end to his season.
Keenum already had proved that he could be a successful Case in or at the point of a Kevin Stefanski-influenced offense. When the second-year Browns’ head coach served as quarterback coach in Minnesota, one of his many assignments in 14 seasons with the Vikings, Keenum flourished under offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, one of a long string of coaches who tried his hand at making the New Browns a winner—and failed (9-23) when he, like so many others, was given the quick hook by the Haslams.
Keenum began 2017 as the No. 3 Vikings quarterback but after Teddy Bridgewater and then Sam Bradford went down with injuries, he stepped in and stepped up. He had his finest season, winning 11 of the 14 games he started. In the first round of the NFC Playoffs, Keenum combined with Stefon Diggs to beat future Hall of Famer Drew Brees and New Orleans, 29-24, on a memorable and miraculous 61-yard touchdown pass that ended a 4-play, 24-second drive. It was a moment that will be replayed forever.
With Mayfield pacing, and wired through the Browns communication system to everything Keenum, Stefanski, and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt were doing, the drama this time flowed not as much through Keenum’s arm as from the legs of first-time starting running back D’Ernest Johnson. Keenum led and produced (21-of-33, 199 yards, 1 TD, 90.3 rating in his first start since October 13, 2019 with the Washington Football Team), but Johnson in his first start would not be stopped, early or late, pounding, squirting, and picking his openings for 146 yards with such wisdom that someone might have mistaken him for his graybeard run-game coach Stump Mitchell.
Behind an offensive line that included left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr., who returned from injury, and right tackle Blake Hance, who replaced starting right tackle Jack Conklin, they and their comrades cleared paths that snowplow drivers would envy. Johnson seemed to avoid tacklers who remained standing as if he were equipped with one of those new-vehicle doohickeys that prevent drivers from bumping into foreign objects.
The offense benefitted from a defense that looked as if had just remembered the concept of not letting receivers run past it as if they were matadors waving red capes at fast, mean red-eyed bulls. Anyone who got past the line of scrimmage discovered the Browns or came unloosed in the secondary found defenders who could actually tackle.
It was quite a night.
We could ask Baker Mayfield, trained and expensive observer of the action in his absence from the field, but, of course, Mayfield, a non-participant was not invited to share with the media what was on his mind. Mary Kay Cabot, lead Browns writer on a team of diligent football reporters and assessors, would perhaps have asked Mayfield what he thought about a possibility that she raised in a story: Might he consider, if his injury and the doctors suggest, shut down for 2021, have surgery, get better, and come back in 2022 renewed, rejuvenated, and willing to die before missing another snap.
It would be a good idea to duck after posing such a question to Mayfield. So many pieces of his history would suggest this could be dangerous:
- When he won the quarterback job as a walk-on fresh at Texas Tech—a first in the Big 12 Conference—coach Kliff Kingsbury did not give him his job back.
- Mayfield believes injured tough-guys play and he sees a tough guy in his mirror.
- He would never willing give up on the season. He would see this as a betrayal of his teammates and his obligation as their leader.
- He has been known to take on the NCAA, Fayetteville police, and critics.
- The chip on his shoulder—hopefully not the injured one—is from a redwood.
Though I don’t want to see Mayfield hang it up for even a short period of time unless this a medical consensus insists, I have, since the day he was drafted No. 1 in 2018, worried that the Browns will find a way to ruin him as they have so many quarterbacks with promise. Look at the morgue shots since the NFL returned Cleveland to the league in 1999 after Art Modell moved the Browns, to Baltimore, and turned them into Ravens.
Mayfield is playing (now sitting) for his and the Browns future. His immediate future is secure but this was to be the season that he took another step and proved why he is not only the present but also the future. Anyone who doesn’t understand that should consult Case Keenum, his replacement, but as I am sure that the honest Keenum would say.
He was so happy that his eyes danced and his words sang about being back on the field and helping his team win. He and the Browns earned this moment. But Cleveland deserves a Mayfield, whatever it takes. Do you want to start over?
NOTE: All of the enumerated Mayfield Memorandums can be found at: https://stevelovewriter.com/blog/
