Let down by an offensive offense

If there was ever a case for the Browns being blown out of a game, it was Sunday night’s nationally televised matchup with the Los Angeles Rams in front of the hone folks.

The Cleveland defense was riddled with injuries. The entire starting secondary watched from the sidelines. That side of the football had no business playing as well as they did. And yet, that’s exactly what they did. On one side of the football, that is.

If it wasn’t for the defense, the 20-13 loss would have been a lot worse because the offense, which is becoming more offensive by the game, failed to produce when it needed to, especially down the homestretch when the Browns actually had an excellent chance to send the game into overtime.

This offense, which was supposed to the strength of the team this season, time and again squandered opportunities and looked nothing like the juggernaut that surprised just about everyone in the second half of last season and thus far has fooled us all with its ineptitude..

Baker Mayfield’s inconsistency and inability to come up with big plays is becoming more than a sometime thing. It is becoming a disturbing trend and the likelihood of that changing in the immediate future is looking grim.

He is not the same player who took Cleveland and the National Football League landscape by storm last season. The Mayfield swagger is there in body language and little else. He is becoming annoyingly unreliable.

A perfect example of his slow but steady descent into mediocrity unfolded in the final minutes of regulation with the Rams hanging on after Juston Burris grabbed a deflected (by linebacker Joe Schobert) pass by Rams quarterback Jared Goff at the Cleveland 43 with 2:46 left.

With three timeouts (and a fourth at the two-minute warning) left, the offense lumbered its way downfield, helped immensely by an illegal contact penalty that wiped out a Mayfield sack that breathed life back into the possession.

Mayfield briefly looked like last season’s quarterback connecting two passes to Jarvis Landry that ate up 44 yards. An Aaron Donald roughing call placed the football at the Rams’ four-yard line with 43 seconds left.

With the boisterous crowd sensing something special was about to happen, the Rams ramped up their pass rush and flushed Mayfield out of the pocket on four straight snaps from the four, tipping one throw at the line of scrimmage and picking off the fourth-down pass in the end zone.

It was reminiscent of the disappointment Browns Nation had dealt with when even a shred or two of hope sneaks through and teases them. That something special, as it turned out, was a great defensive stand enjoyed by fans of the Rams,

So close and yet so very far.

Coming close counts in a lot of things in life. Losing football games that had a chance to be won is not one of them.

Mayfield can’t take all the blame. He had plenty of help from an offensive line that manages to get worse by the game and a receiving corps that at times had trouble getting open. Way too often, he had to scramble out of the pocket and either throw the ball away to avoid a sack or force the ball into coverage.

The defense kept the score respectable mainly by controlling the Rams running game, holding Todd Gurley II to just 43 yards on the ground. But it had few answers for Goff, who carved up the secondary with 19 completions to Brandin Cooks and Cooper Kupp for 214 yards and two Kupp touchdowns.

Rams coach Sean McVay scrapped the original game plan that relied more on the run than the pass and produced just a field goal and a 6-3 halftime deficit and used the passing game to set up the ground game.

Mayfield also had squandered a terrific touchdown opportunity late in the second quarter when Myles Garrett strip-sacked Goff, Schobert running the fumble back to the Rams 17 with 18 seconds left. Three incomplete passes brought on Austin Seibert for his second field goal of the first half.

The possibility of an upset began to dance around in the minds of Browns fans, who probably couldn’t believe the injury-riddled defense was performing so well against one of the elite offenses in the NFL.

It was wounded and it was time to take advantage. Wonder why it took McVay so long to figure it out.

The Rams took the second-half kickoff, shifted into a high gear and easily marched 75 yards in 10 plays, helped mainly by a Cleveland defense that played mostly zone coverage. Kupp scored on an 11-yard throw, beating T.J. Carrie, It was as though the Cleveland defense had forgotten how to play.

The Browns retaliated immediately with their best drive of the night, an 11-play, 75-yard journey of their own, Mayfield connecting with 6-7 tight end Demetrius Harris on a two-yard throw to take a 13-10 lead.

A great Carrie interception on the subsequent possession three plays later gave the offense terrific field position near midfield and  chance to build onto the lead. But Mayfield and his men responded with a three-and-out featuring three incomplete passes. The ground game was momentarily and puzzlingly shelved.

A 21-yard Jamie Gillan punt, by far his worst of the season, allowed the Rams to escape starting a drive deep in their territory.

Using the same tactics that enabled them to take the earlier lead, Goff shredded the Cleveland secondary again, needing only eight plays this time to travel 72 yards, Kupp beating Cleveland safety Jermaine Whitehead to score his second touchdown of the game to retake the lead early in the fourth quarter.

By then, the Cleveland defense had been exposed and began to tire. Even so, there was enough time left for the offense to reach back for whatever it summoned to take the 13-10 lead.

Mayfield advanced the football to the Rams’ 42 with about 11 minutes left, but the drive bogged down. Perfect time to pin the Rams near their goal line  and play the field position game with a Gillan punt. Except Gillan never moved from the bench.

Fourth-and-9 at the Rams’ 40 and coach Freddie Kitchens inexplicably dialed up a play at a time when conventional wisdom dictated a punt. At first, it appeared Mayfield was trying to draw the Rams offside. But that made no sense on a fourth-and-9.  

Of all the plays to run at that point, a draw was the worst. And it’s not even close. The brain fart resulted in a two-yard run by Chubb. The Rams took three more minutes off the clock and pushed the deficit to seven points with a Greg Zuerlein field goal.

And then along came a gift with Burris’ pick to which they said no thanks. This was not meant to be an evening where the Browns, who have struggled out of the gate this season despite a 1-1 record, would finally knock off a very good team and live up to the pre-season hype.

The hole they have dug will likely grow deeper in the next three weeks with visits to Baltimore and San Francisco and a home date with Seattle before the bye. What looked so promising as recently as a few weeks ago now looks more like what Browns Nation has witnessed the last two decades.