Monday leftovers

It was extremely tempting to label as ugly the Browns' 34-20 victory Sunday over the Washington football team formerly known as the Redskins. 

So many elements within the 60 minutes they played begged to labeled just that. It was beyond ugly, whatever that is. Pick your adjective. It'll be appropriate. 

They began each half as though they were in the learning stages of how to play the game. Self-inflicted wounds came one after the other in the first 15 minutes of each half.

This team is not ready to play, I thought. after the opening quarter. There are only 16 bites of the apple in the National Football League regular season and this is the best they've got? What gives?

And then they played the second quarter. It was the polar opposite of the previous quarter. No mistakes. Opportunism sprung to life with three turnovers that turned into 17 points. Thats not ugly at all, I thought. What was I thinking?

Then they played the third quarter, which turned out to be a carbon copy of the first quarter, only much worse. A 10-point halftime lead evaporated, replaced by a three-point deficit. That word creeped back into my mind. 

How can one team be so terrible for 15 minutes, recover nicely in the next 15 minutes and then replicate the awfulness of the first 15? Is it the coaching? Or does this team need a psychiatrist? 

And then they played the fourth quarter, somehow remembering how the second quarter unfolded, and won convincingly. The manner in which the victory was accomplished had me shaking my head. It was pretty and ugly all at once.

Then it hit me. This franchise has been so bad for so long, there is no such thing as an ugly victory. With this franchise, victories are so seldom, they are precious no matter how they are achieved as long as the scoreboard says the Browns have the higher number of points.

Because those victories arrive so infrequently, they are to be enjoyed much more fervently. Don't waste your time labeling them. One day, sooner rather than later, they will arrive in abundance on a seasonal basis and this will all be over.

No, this was a team victory as Sunday's headline suggested. It is one step closer to achieving what no previous head coach has since the return in 1999 -- the beginning of a winning culture.

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After three games, it is becoming more and more apparent Baker Mayfield's role in the Browns' offense is that of caretaker. Sort of managing a unit whose core strength is rooted in the ground game. 

How else can anyone explain that Mayfield has thrown only 23 forward passes in each of the last two games and the Browns won both? It seems as though the less he throws, the more the Browns win games. An exhausting perusal (at least a couple of minutes) of his brief career since entering the NFL in 2018 is quite revealing.

In his rookie season (2018), the college draft's overall No. 1 pick had four games where he threw no more than 29 passes. The Browns won them all. Conversely, he threw 40 or more in six games with only one victory, a 12-9 victory over Baltimore in week three.

Last season, the Browns were 2-1 in games Mayfield threw 30 or fewer passes. He threw 30 or more seven times, winning just twice. Included in that grouping were two games of at least 40 passes, both losses.

After 33 NFL starts, Mayfield is 15-18. His record in games where he has thrown fewer than 29 passes is 8-1. He is 1-8 in games where he has thrown 40 or more passes. In other words, more than half of his 15 career victories were recorded when he threw fewer than 30 passes. That includes the last two games.

New head coach Kevin Stefanski is much more enamored with the ground game than the passing game. Leaning heavily in that direction usually translates into victories. The last two games support that notion as Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt have excelled, scoring seven of the club's last 10 touchdowns.

That in some ways flies in the face of what Mayfield supposedly does best, which is deliver the football with confidence and accuracy. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much of either attribute this season. It's only three weeks, but it sure looks like he is the AFC Central's fourth-best quarterback in a four-team division

So far this season, he has looked uneasy, often times confused in the pocket, almost as though he is uncertain how to operate Stefanski's offense. He's completing about a mediocre 62% of his passes. In Stefanski's offense, that ranks as adequate at best.

Too often this season we have seen Mayfield cock his right arm, ready to throw the ball, then pull it back and reset, In the NFL, if you don't get rid of the ball in three and half seconds or less, that's a recipe for disaster and a negative play generally ensues. 

In the game two victory over Cincinnati, Stefanski effectively schemed quite often to get Mayfield out of the pocket with designed rollouts, where most of his accuracy has found success. In Sunday's victory, however, the rollouts were held to a minimum and he struggled.

Mayfield, whose gunslinger mentality with a football helped land him with the Browns, needs to take care of the football first and foremost in the Stefanski system. He seems to have lost his swagger and become content to take what defenses give him. Most of his throws in the last two games were of the short to medium range variety. Very few crowed-pleasing shots downfield to stretch a defense have been called.

One of these games, opposing defenses are going to catch on, crowd the line of scrimmage to stop Chubb and Hunt and force (dare?) Mayfield to throw. It will be interesting to see what Stefanski does to counter that. 

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It seems as though the Browns are having problems keeping their starting cornerbacks healthy. Greedy Williams goes down in training camp with a shoulder injury and hasn't suited up yet. Then Denzel Ward departs the Washington victory in the second half when his pulled groin muscle begged off.

Terrance Mitchell and Tavierre Thomas, who have filled in admirably, were joined Sunday by Kevin Johnson and rookie A. J. Green. But it's not the same without Ward and Williams, especially with Dak Prescott (Dallas), Philip Rivers (Indianapolis) and Ben Roethlisberger (Pittsburgh) coming up in the next three weeks.

It's bad enough the Browns have problems at linebacker and safety. Offensive coordinators with the aforementioned teams must be salivating at the prospect of facing the Browns without Ward and Williams.

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It would appear Chubb has set his sights on winning the league rushing title, a goal that escaped his grasp in the final weekend of the 2019 season. He is currently in fourth place with 292 yards infantry style in what looks like a four-man race. 

Derrick Henry of Tennessee, last season's champion, leads with 319 yards, trailed by Green Bay's Aaron Jones at 303 and Minnesota's' Dalvin Cook with 294. Chubb, the man who laughs at arm tackles, leads the league in rushing touchdowns with five.

There is no question he would be ahead of Henry if not for the presence of Hunt as Stefanski has found a way to utilize both Pro Bowlers to their fullest extent. Despite playing fewer minutes, Hunt checks in at No. 12 with 204 yards and a touchdown.

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Finally . . .  Stefanski went full Bill Belichick after the Washington victory. "We're just trying to go 1-0 every week," he said, directly from the Belichick book of coachspeak. In a few weeks, week seven to be exact, he'll be able to echo Belichick with "On to Cincinnati." The big difference? Stefanski seems to have a personality. . . . Rookie offensive tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. must have had the jitters in the early stages of the Washington game. He was flagged twice for a false start in the Browns' first nine plays of the game. Pre-snap penalties like that will make will make Stefanski 's salt and pepper look full salt in no time. . . . Wills went on to play a decent game. . . . Speaking of penalties, the Browns had only six for 50 yards. . . . Odell Beckham Jr. had only four receptions, but two were for first downs and extended drives. . . . Outside linebacker Sione Takitaki led the Browns in tackles for the first time with seven.