Sleeper pick Cleveland is 8-3, but is QB play going to get in Browns’ way?

Cleveland was the sleeper pick before the season because the play-action game that coach Kevin Stefanski was bringing in was a great fit with its personnel, and three months later the Browns have one of the best records in the NFL.

They’re 8-3, even after losing Odell Beckham to a knee injury, and have a chance to end the longest playoff drought in the league.

But the next two weeks will be very interesting for the Browns and for Baker Mayfield, who missed a couple of wide-open layups for touchdowns last week in a two-point victory over the one-win Jaguars in Jacksonville.

The Browns have Tennessee then Baltimore next on their schedule, and those are tough matchups.

The Titans on defense do some things schematically that are a little unconventional when an offense is in a run-heavy set. They’re not going to line up and just say, “We’ll just put an extra guy in the box and see if we can stop the run.” They’ll do some different things that will test the Browns, for sure, and Mayfield will have to be a little better in some of those situations.

There are going to be times he’s going to have to make a play on third down or in the red zone and the throws that he missed against Jacksonville, you just can’t miss those against good football teams.

Baker Mayfield and missed opportunity

That first throw Baker missed was a half-field read and Rashard Higgins popped wide-open in the middle of the field. There was no one around the guy. An NFL quarterback is thinking, “Beware of the uncovered receiver,” because they’re not always uncovered. But the Jags blew it so badly there was literally no one on him and Mayfield kind of double pumped, didn’t believe what he was seeing, and then threw it right over Higgins’ head.

The other one, to Jarvis Landry, that was a little harder. Mayfield was sprinting to his left and just missed it. Guys will miss those throws, especially as a right-handed quarterback sprinting to his left. You have to really be on it and have good mechanics. He didn’t that time, so he missed it high.

Mayfield also made some nice play-action throws across the field to Landry in really tight windows. He had two touchdown passes that were pretty good. When I looked at his whole body of work in that game those two missed throws stood out because the game was so close, but he made some pretty good ones, too.

I don’t see anything mechanically to be worried about, and he has done this before. It seems like there’s one throw every week that you see and think, “Oh, man, he’s going to want to have that one back.” But when you get toward the end of the season, when you get into the playoffs, those are going to be even more magnified.

The thing with Baker, he has gone through a lot of footwork changes. He has been in the shotgun his whole life, really, basically playing basketball on grass. Now he’s under center a majority of the time. His footwork has gotten better, but he’s almost kind of learning on the fly. They didn’t have a lot of offseason time in this new offense.

In the pocket he can get a little ahead of himself with his feet. His feet and his upper body get out of whack sometimes, and that’s why he misses those throws. I think it’s just time in the pocket. When he gets a chance to do it more and more he’ll figure it out.

Browns have to like where they are with run game

The two egregious throws, that happens to everybody, but it’s easy to see why he missed and there’s a very rational reason and a very fixable reason.

So I think the Browns probably like where they are and the throws Mayfield has missed, I’m going to bank on it that he will eventually make them. The run game will still be there, the play-action game will still be there.

They’re running the ball so effectively it’s going to be difficult to stop, and the Browns can finish a game better than anyone in the league.

Nick Chubb is rushing for 12.5 yards a play and has three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Kareem Hunt is at 5.0 yards with two touchdowns.

Those two backs are as talented as any combo in the last decade, at least, and in Cleveland there’s a sense of, “We can just do what we do. We don’t have to force throwing the football. We don’t have to force the issue. We can run it 50% of the time and feel confident with that.”

They have a good chemistry. They have a good winning formula right now. Will it take them to the playoffs? You never know. The temperature changes, it gets colder, you have to run the football. If you’ve been doing it all year and can count on that, you have to like your chances.

But this Titans game will be their best test. We’ll see if they can handle that.

Packers set up for fantasy success

I like the Packers’ matchup with the Eagles. Philadelphia is really struggling up front, giving up six sacks on Monday against Seattle and five the week before at Cleveland. It has some young tackles that are having a hard time in pass protection and it just doesn’t have many guys who can win outside. Put that up against those Smith Bros., Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith, and with the amount of points the Packers have been scoring, and that matchup could get pretty lopsided.

This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 1:01 PM.