Mid-week thoughts

Kevin Stefanski is one lucky head coach. He's got the best of both worlds when the Browns own the football.  

For the better part of the first half of the 2020 National Football League season, the club's playcaller relied heavily on the ground game. When you have running backs like Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, why not?

The team was winning even as Baker Myhfield was morphing into a game manager, a role more than a few were skeptical he could handle. But handle it he did, seemingly buying into what Stefanski was selling.

And then, the offensive philosophy began to change, Mayfield stepping back into the role of gunslinger in the last five games. The success of the ground game and the threat it posed to opposing teams was the main reason.

Shut down the Cleveland ground game, or at the very least slow it down, and you've got the Browns where you want them because Mayfield was no longer dangerous. He had become an interception machine. And that is when Stefanski switched gears.

The threat of the run game opened up opposing defenses in the back end. Crowding the line of scrimmage created space in the short- to mid-range routes for the receivers. And Mayfield with his play fakes and rollouts ignited the passing game.

In the last five games, four of them victories and the other a wildly entertaining scoring bonanza albeit a loss, the Cleveland ground game has averaged 141 yards a game. Not bad, but not the 159 a game they averaged in the first nine games.

The passing game, which averaged an extremely modest 189 yards a game in the first nine games on the schedule, has exploded to 284 yards a game in the last five. You don't have to be a math whiz to notice that's nearly 100 yards a game.

The interception machine is no longer the interception machine. In his last 235 attempts, or since he threw the interception that resulted in season-ending surgery for Odell Beckham Jr. in game seven against Cincinnati, Mayfield has thrown just one pick. 

He has again become the confident, very self-assured quarterback fans saw in his rookie season in 2018. It has made the Cleveland offense arguably the most well-rounded unit in the NFL. It's sort of a pick-your-poison situation for opposing teams. All of which presents a pleasant conundrum for Stefanski. 

Who is he going to turn loose against the terrible New York Jets Sunday in New Jersey? Will it be the return of the vaunted ground game, which has slipped to third place in the league stats? Or will it be another assault through the air?

A return to Stefanski's beloved infantry style football is not out of the question. With just two games remaining in the regular season, Chubb and Hunt have a chance to become 1,000-yard rushers. But then does he want to back off the passing game and risk cooling off his quarterback?

Anyway you slice it, it is clearly a win-win situation. That's why Stefanski is one very fortunate head coach.

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Statsbook . . . A victory against the Jets will give the Browns a 6-2 record on the road this season, The last time they were 6-2 away from home was 2002, but were 3-5 at home and finished 9-7 under Butch Davis. That was the only Browns team to make the playoffs since the return . . . The Browns' 20 takeaways have come in bunches this season. They had eight games with at least one and won seven. They are 3-3 in games with no takeaways. . . . Mayfield has been sacked only 18 times this season, including eight games where he was dropped no more than once. . . . Rookie wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones has been targeted only 17 times this season, but has grabbed 13 for 293 yards and two touchdowns, including eight of his last 11 in the last three games for 221 yards and a score. That's 26.2 yards a reception for the season.