Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns
In his previous game against the Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland quarterback Baker Mayfield could do little right—and the Browns won. The contrite blame-placing Mayfield called a sow’s-ear performance a sow’s ear, only he used the term “piss poor.” Sows everywhere probably understood; they’re used to mucking it up down in the slop.
It was no surprise, however, when Mayfield critics jumped right in alongside him and rubbed his nose in the mess he had made. Never a good idea. Mayfield has a history of coming back and/or striking back.
He did so again Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers, spinning his crappy numbers into bright, shiny ones. Nick Shook, on www.nfl.com, called it Mayfield’s “redemption Sunday.” There was, of course, one small catch. Mayfield did almost everything right—and the Browns still lost, 47-42.
The Chargers’ second-year QB, the wunderkind Justin Herbert, outdueled Mayfield down the stretch. To be more precise, Herbert, who came into the game as the most accurate thrower in the National Football League, took advantage of the Browns’ depleted secondary. A.J. Green had to replace starter Denzel Ward (neck) after only nine snaps, and Greedy Williams already was starting at the other corner for injured rookie Greg Newsome II (calf). Communication, at times, suffered to the point it looked as if the secondary had been disappeared by the hidden hand of the football gods.
Twice in the first half, Herbert did not have to worry about throwing dimes to tightly covered receivers. He could have heaved manhole covers at the wide-open spaces in which his pass-catchers found themselves. Tight end Donald Parham, who resembles a Giant Redwood, scored on a 22-yard play when no one bothered to cover him. Then, Mike Williams went 72 yards on a quick-huddle, third-down strike on which Green and safety Grant Delpit must have left the SoFi Stadium for a jaunt on a Hollywood tour bus.
The week before the NFL’s second-ranked defense had offset Mayfield’s 15-for-35, 45.45 completion percentage that led to only 155 yards and a passer rating of 59.5. The question that followed was: Did Mayfield just have a bad day or is he inept. As if to make amends and again say thanks to the defense, he withheld any critical thoughts he might have had of the defense’s mistakes or, for that matter, of those made by his coach, Kevin “Coach of the Year” Stefanski. Everyone is entitled to a mistake or two.
OK, almost everyone.
Mayfield put his big, fat salary where his mouth was when it came to fourth-quarter officiating calls and non-calls. “Might as well forward the fine letter now,” he announced to NFL headquarters via his postgame address to the media. The officials called pass interference on Green, who actually played pretty well. Replays seemed to make it clear that the call should have gone against LAC receiver Mike Green on a key fourth-and-four reception during which he jerked Green like a ragdoll. The officials also, in Mayfield’s opinion, allowed Donovan Peoples-Jones to be shoved out of bounds and permitted the Chargers to obstruct Rashard Higgins on a next-to-last possession play.
Mayfield did acknowledge that the 3-2 Browns could have negated the effects of those fourth-quarter decisions had they done a better job of taking advantage of earlier opportunities. “We shouldn’t have been in that position,” Mayfield said. “We left too many points on the field in the first half. It’s very frustrating that we didn’t do our job well enough to just take the ballgame away. We left it in the hands of somebody else.”
For the most part, Mayfield did do his job well enough to have won this game and so did some others such as thunder-footed running backs Nick Chubb (21 carries for 161 yards and a 52-yard TD) and Kareem Hunt (12 carries for 61 yards and two TDs). The star of stars, however, may have been tight end David Njoku who had a career performance. He caught all seven passes thrown to him for 149 yards, including a 71-yard touchdown that was mostly his doing. (Where has this version of Njoku been?)
Mayfield had a dominant first half—11 of 14 for 155 yards (as many as he had in the entire Vikings game), including the Njoku TD—for a 136.6 rating and finished with 305 yards on 23 of 32 and two TDs. His final passer rating of 122.7 topped Herbert’s 120.0. Herbert threw for more yards (398) and more TDs (four) but his passer rating suffered because he was not as accurate as Mayfield—a 59.8 completion percentage compared with Mayfield’s 71.82. About the only thing Mayfield did not do was have a perfect day with Odell Beckham Jr., whom he has been accused of lacking a connection. He would have been 3-for-3 to Beckham had OBJ not dropped a short throw in the flat on fourth-and-2. The Browns were at the Charger 17-yard-line, and OBJ might well have scored.
It should be noted that Mayfield’s performance came with him still wearing a light brace on his left shoulder to support a torn labrum and with an altered offensive line. Though offensive line coach Bill Callahan makes the point that if a player is good enough to even be in his offensive line room, he is good enough to do his job. Blake Hance proved it, especially early on, as he started in place of injured left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. (ankle), and by the fourth quarter rookie James Hudson III had to replace right tackle Jack Conklin (knee) for the final 21 snaps of the stinkingly decisive fourth quarter.
In the seemingly perpetual spin cycle of criticism in which Mayfield seems caught, regardless of how he plays, the next round of defamation will no doubt focus on the fact that he lost to another great, if young, quarterback (think Patrick Mahomes), when the chips were down. The realty is Mayfield had been put in an untenable position of having no timeouts left when he got the ball at the Browns’ 25, with 1:31 left, needing a touchdown. The New Browns are where the old Browns were in the late 1980s.
The only difference is that the quarterback is Baker Mayfield, and not Bernie Kosar, and that there was essentially one QB that Kosar and the old Browns could not beat. In the world of Mayfield and the New Browns, it seems as if the John Elways have multiplied.
NOTE: All of the enumerated Mayfield Memorandums can be found at: https://stevelovewriter.com/blog/
