Tag: justin herbert

Browns Claim To Have A Plan. Do They?

Change in the NFL can come quickly. Check out pretty much every season and a team that finished with a poor record the year prior will rise up and make the playoffs, while a playoff team a year before sinks to the basement.

Last season, it was the Washington Commanders going from 4-13 to 12-5 and ultimately the NFC Championship game, while the Browns went the other way, an 11-6 record in ’23 followed by the 3-14 disaster last season.

The year prior, the Houston Texans went from 3-13-1 to 10-7 while Minnesota went from 13-4 in 2022 to a 7-10 mark the next year.

Yes, many times, it’s about getting the quarterback as with Houston (C.J. Stroud) and Washington (Jayden Daniels) and while that’s true, neither of those teams got their QB with the first overall pick, and the other question is it sustainable.

Other times, you think you have the quarterback, and the fan base thinks they have the guy, but they are wrong. Look at the mess in Miami and Arizona. Both teams thought they had the guy, but it doesn’t appear they were correct.

Look at the Chargers. They drafted Justin Herbert in 2020, and he’s probably a top ten QB in the league, but they’ve gone 7-9, 9-8, 10-7, 5-12, and 11-6 with him under center, making the playoffs twice. So, it’s not just the QB.

We bring this up because our local team, the Cleveland Browns, come up with one excuse after another as to why they don’t/can’t win, despite teams taking big jumps up the standings every year.

First, the team seems to believe they can only win by getting a franchise quarterback, and while that has some merit, the notion you can only get that guy by tanking and having the league’s worst record is simply not true.

Yes, Joe Burrow was drafted first overall, but how many of the other top ten QBs in the sport were taken in that spot? Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff. So, the majority of the best QBs in the NFL were not taken first overall.

And if you do get a chance to take a quarterback early in the draft, wouldn’t you want to surround him with a solid offensive line and some other offensive weapons?

Let’s say the Browns identify a QB in next year’s draft as they will likely have a top ten pick. What are you bringing him into? Your offensive line is aging and not very good. You have no real good wide receivers.

Your best weapons on offense are two rookies, RB Quinshon Judkins and TE Harold Fannin Jr. That’s it. And knowing the franchise, they will feel the need to play the rookie QB before he is ready. Just like they have done with Dylan Gabriel.

For all the front office likes to plan for the future (free beer tomorrow!), the truth is they have set themselves up poorly if the plan is to get the QB with their multiple first round picks next spring.

Based on all the other stuff they have mucked up in the last six years, we guess that’s to be expected, right?

The bigger question we guess is do they think they are fooling fans with their non-sense? They are good at making excuses for not winning. It’s also what they have the most experience doing.

Everyone’s QB Question–Where Does Baker Rank?

We are in the middle of the NFL off-season and this is the time the football columnists start ranking players, and the position which draws the most attention is of course, quarterbacks.

Here in Cleveland, we have a QB that serves as a lightning rod for the national pundits, so there is constant debate around the football cognoscenti as to how good Baker Mayfield really is.

So we decided to enter the fray and decide where Baker Mayfield realistically be on the current ranking of NFL signal callers.

First though, some rules. Any rookie is not eligible for this list. So we will not be including Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Zach Wilson or any other rookie on this list.

We are also not going to include any players entering their second year in the NFL, and that is because of Mayfield. Remember how everyone was hailing Baker as the next great QB following his rookie season of 2018?

So do we, and a year later, he was thought by many (and still is by some) to be nothing more than average. That same thing can happen to Joe Burrow, Tua Tagavailoa, or the new hot commodity, Justin Herbert.

The second time around the league, defensive coordinators start to see your tendencies and make adjustments to take away what you like to do. So, we aren’t going to rate someone real high based on a strong rookie year until we see what happens in a second year.

You can go ahead and call that the Mayfield Rule.

We can be accused of watering down the group, eliminating seven players who could arguably start for their respective teams this fall. However, we feel to give an honest evaluation of the position, you have to have a solid two years of performance to examine.

We will start with the QBs clearly better than Mayfield based on their body of work. Those guys would be Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, and Deshaun Watson. Tom Brady as well, despite his age. If this was a list of guys we’d rather have Mayfield than, we wouldn’t include the six time Super Bowl winner because of the number of years he will still play.

One can make arguments about Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Ryan Tannehill, Derek Carr, Dak Prescott, Matt Ryan, Kyler Murray, and Matthew Stafford, so whether or not you consider Mayfield better than them depends on how you evaluate quarterbacks.

So, at the very least, we’ve named 13 quarterbacks. If you think Mayfield isn’t as good as any of those names we’ve listed he is the 14th best QB in the NFL. We do not think all of them are better.

Personally, we would rate Ryan and Allen over Mayfield. Prescott is a solid QB and we will see this year on Stafford now that he is with a better team, the Rams. Our opinion is we would rather have Mayfield than those two, understanding both put up big numbers.

Understand in the NFL, if you are losing a lot, defenses give up a lot of yards. Take for example, Prescott’s statistics against the Browns a year ago. He was 41 of 58 for 502 yards and four TD passes. Great numbers, right? Until you understand the score going into the fourth quarter was Cleveland 41, Dallas 14.

It wasn’t Prescott’s fault they were losing that big, but it does make it easier to accumulate stats.

Jackson is a separate case for us, because really he and Mayfield play different positions. We know we are dating ourselves but the Ravens’ QB plays kind of a single wing tailback position. As a passer, Mayfield is better, but Jackson is the better player overall. After all, he won a league MVP.

With the same head coach and offensive coordinator for two consecutive seasons, 2021 should decide the issue on Baker Mayfield. Right now, we have him in the 8-12 range among the league’s quarterbacks.

Another playoff appearance and success there will have him rising up this list with a bullet.