It is amazing to us that so many people have soured on Browns’ QB Baker Mayfield. At this time last year, he was the toast of the town in Cleveland, setting the record for touchdown passes by a rookie.
He was brash, cocky, and he won games. Cleveland went 6-7 in his starts, and while that’s not even above .500, when the team won a single game in the previous two seasons, you appreciate it.
Many of the fans who now want to replace Mayfield at the position also are highly critical of Freddie Kitchens, which doesn’t make sense to us.
If you think Kitchens was a terrible head coach, then doesn’t it follow he adversely affected the quarterback as well?
We said early in the 2019 campaign that it did not appear the Browns were running the same offense that was so successful in 2018 after Kitchens became the offensive coordinator.
Cleveland ranked 15th in the NFL in rushing attempts during the 2018 season, they ranked 22nd last year. In ’18, the Browns ranked 11th in yards per attempt at 4.6, and last year, they were even better at 4.8, ranking fifth in the NFL.
When Gregg Williams took over for Hue Jackson, and Kitchens inherited the OC job from the dismissed Todd Haley, the Browns became a running team, and they were successful. Mayfield benefited from this and played off the success of the running game.
But when Kitchens took over, and GM John Dorsey hired Todd Monken as offensive coordinator, the Browns got away from what allowed them to win in the second half of the 2018 season.
It didn’t help that Dorsey traded for Odell Beckham Jr. which influenced both the head coach and the OC to emphasize the passing game even more.
When you talk about the dysfunction of the Browns’ franchise, this should be presented as Exhibit A. Stop doing something that worked because the GM wanted to make a big splash, and the head coach and offensive coordinator felt obligated to the GM.
As stated previously, you could see it early in the season last year. Receivers were running downfield patterns with no outlet for Mayfield, and the offensive line wasn’t strong enough to block for those longer routes.
Mayfield ranked 13th in the NFL last year in intended air yards per pass attempt, while Kirk Cousins, running Kevin Stefanski’s offense in Minnesota, ranked 25th.
Although Mayfield ranked 5th in this category in ’18, his completed pass yards per attempt dropped from the year before, and the number of times he was sacked increased from 25 in 2018 (in 14 games) to 40 last season.
To us, it’s because the offensive line couldn’t hold up for the longer routes without the play action. And the play action worked better because the Browns became a running team when Williams and Kitchens took over.
Last season, teams knew Cleveland was going to try to throw first, and run second.
Enter new head coach Kevin Stefanski, and a front office which right now seems like they want to maximize the things this team can do best.
Under Stefanski, Kirk Cousins had his highest passer rating of his career and the lowest interception rate of his career.
He also threw the least passes per game since he became a starter in 2019.
That’s because the Vikings were 4th in rushing attempts (behind Baltimore, San Francisco, and Seattle) and 6th in rushing yards (adding to those teams Dallas and Tennessee).
Coincidentally, the Browns have the second leading rusher in the league in Nick Chubb, and a former NFL rushing champion in Kareem Hunt.
Guess what the Browns are going to do this year?
If Mayfield can’t be at top efficiency this season, then the Browns may need to be on the lookout for a new QB come next year’s draft. It’s all set up for him to succeed.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 