It’s another Victory Monday and the Browns are 5-2. They won without Odell Beckham, Nick Chubb, Wyatt Teller and Austin Hooper. That’s impressive. Also, lets face facts, Bengal QB Joe Burrow is really, really good. But so is Browns QB Baker Mayfield. Last week, at this time, Browns twitter was ready to run Mayfield out of town and start all over again with a new quarterback. Bottom line, the Browns are 5-2 and head coach Kevin Stefanski looks like the real deal. Lets start with the positives.
After the first quarter, where Mayfield went 0-5, 0 yards and an interception, he went 21-22, 297 yards and FIVE touchdowns. The Browns scored touchdowns on five consecutive drives. 11 plays for 75 yards, 9 plays for 75 yards, 8 plays for 79 yards, 7 plays for 75 yards and 5 plays for 75 yards. The last drive took only 55 seconds and resulted in the game winner. The only incompletion was a spike to stop the clock on the last drive. Amazing. Mayfield threw two touchdowns to a fourth round pick, Harrison Bryant and the game winner to a sixth round pick, Donovan Peoples-Jones. The running game only had 82 yards, but still was utilized enough to keep the Bengal defense on their heels. Mayfield saw the whole field and let it rip. The Bengals did the same thing the Steelers did with their safeties, but Mayfield saw it and adjusted. He was reading the defense and throwing the football. The offensive line did their job, Mayfield wasn’t sacked. Glad to see WR Hollywood Higgins have a great game. Six catches for 110 yards. He and Mayfield have a chemistry and it’s working really well.
HC Kevin Stefanski did a great job tweaking the offense. Mayfield was in the shotgun more, which gave him extra time to read the defense. I love the flat passes to RB Kareem Hunt. It didn’t work every time, but on the second to last touchdown drive, it worked twice. The first was a 12 yard pass to get the ball to the Cincinnati 11. Then after a short run, another flat pass to Hunt for the touchdown. Opposing defenses keep trying to put a linebacker on Hunt on those passes and it’s still not working for them.
On defense, DE Myles Garrett is on a different level. Two more sacks and one was a strip sack. After seven games, Garrett has nine sacks and four strip sacks for turnovers. CB Kevin Johnson played well as did S Ronnie Harrison. He batted down a pass that resulted in an interception and recovered a fumble after the strip sack, before it rolled out of bounds. CB Denzel Ward also had a great game. Knocking the ball out of the hands of Bengal WR A.C Green in the end zone forcing a Cincinnati field goal at a key moment late in the game.
As for the negatives, Mayfield has thrown an interception on his first pass of the game in consecutive weeks and on his first drive in three straight weeks. The running game wasn’t working again, but the Browns still found ways to use Hunt. This team misses RB Nick Chubb. On defense, the Browns blitzed way too much. All Joe Burrow had to do was throw the ball in the direction of where the blitz was coming from and he was very successful. This team has so much money invested in the DL, you would think they could pressure without all that blitzing. If you’re going to blitz, how about more than one guy when the opposing QB is attempting a hail mary pass. Safety Ronnie Harrison should start every game for the rest of the season. Period.
The worst news on Sunday was the injury to OBJ. Torn ACL and he’s out for the season. Of course Browns twitter is saying it’s Mayfield’s fault OBJ got hurt, Mayfield plays better without OBJ on the field and the Browns need to trade for a receiver. No, No and No. If you want to blame anything for OBJ’s injury, blame the turf. It looks like he got his foot caught. As for Mayfield playing better without OBJ, go watch the Cowboy game again. And the Browns don’t need to trade for a WR. KhaDarel Hodge is due to come off the IR this week. Problem solved. If the Browns are going to trade for a player, please make it a defensive lineman or a linebacker.
One more game before the bye, the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders are similar to the Cowboys, great offense, terrible defense. With the exception of a handful of teams, every team in the NFL has a terrible defense including the Browns. Hopefully TE Austin Hooper will be back for that game, but I doubt it. No need to rush him back with the way Bryant and Njoku are playing. Wyatt Teller and Nick Chubb should be back after the bye. 6-2 at the bye would be great. Everyone stay safe and Go Browns.